Calgary Flames release official opening-night roster

With much speculation for who was making the Calgary Flames opening night roster, we finally have the answers as the Flames released it Tuesday afternoon.

After Monday’s announcement that Dillon Dube and Juuso Valimaki would be making the opening-night roster, many already had an idea of what the rest of the roster would look like for the Calgary Flames. It helped that multiple media people let us know who wasn’t at practice and who has been sent down.

We can stop all the speculation, because the official 23-man roster has been released. The Flames are going with14 forwards, seven defencemen, and two goaltenders.

Here’s how the lineup will (most likely) look:

Johnny Gaudreau – Sean Monahan – Elias Lindholm

Matthew Tkachuk – Mikael Backlund – Michael Frolik

Dillon Dube – Derek Ryan – James Neal

Sam Bennett – Mark Jankowski – Austin Czarnik

Mark Giordano – TJ Brodie

Noah Hanifin – Travis Hamonic

Juuso Valimaki – Michael Stone

Mike Smith

(David Rittich)

The extras will be Curtis Lazar, Garnet Hathaway, and Dalton Prout. GM Brad Treliving has also noted that Rasmus Andersson is an NHL defenceman, however, there’s no point in keeping him up here just to sit out. In an ideal world, that bottom pairing would be Valimaki and Andersson, but Michael Stone‘s contract makes that a little difficult.

With Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane and Jon Gillies have also been sent down to Stockton. Curtis Lazar was put on waivers two days ago, he cleared, and he remained up with the team.

Many were wondering who would make the backup goalie spot between David Rittich and Jon Gillies since none have quite been that impressive throughout training camp and the preseason games. Although, it’s not like Mike Smith has been all too impressive either, but I digress.

I thought Gillies would have a bigger shot at making it seeing how next year, his contract is only one-way and the Flames would want him to get that NHL backup experience this season, but I guess not.

Brett Kulak, who spent most of last season on the bottom pairing, was traded to Montreal yesterday, so it seems like Valimaki has somewhat taken his spot.

Only one day away! Who else is excited?