TJ Brodie suffers broken hand, will miss 3-6 weeks

It’s another first for Connor McDavid as the 2015 first overall picks plays his first pre-season game tonight when the Edmonton Oilers host the Calgary Flames. Last season’s entertaining regular season and subsequent playoff run has the city buzzing for the return of hockey and maybe some significant steps forward for the Flames.

“It’s a fun time of year, everyone’s swinging back into the hockey environment”, said Jack Michaels, who’s employed by the Oilers to be the voice of the team and its play-by-play announcer for games on the radio. “We draw on that experience”.

“It was a huge turning point in the game for us”, said Oilers assistant coach Jay Woodcroft of Nilsson’s save on Frolik. Hamilton, 22, finished the season third in Bruins ice time with an average of 21 minutes 20 seconds per game.

“It was a one-timer from the point and there was traffic, so I didn’t see the puck”, Brodie told the media on Wednesday morning.

“Might as well start right away to do a comeback”, said Anton Lander, whose shorthanded goal with 5:19 left in the third period turned out to be the game victor.

That combination continuing is a strong possibility in Brodie’s absence. He is officially listed by the team as “week-to-week”, but the projection is Brodie may miss three-to-six weeks. Giordano, Hamilton, Russell and Wideman all skated in a group not bound for Denver. I think I did pretty good. In a insane way, you can say you’re not a loser anymore, so to have that confidence and to have Todd here and some of the players they’ve added makes me really excited to get going.

Despite their youth, those two guys looked like they knew what they were doing out there as that bout could end up rivaling most of the fights we’ll see in the league this season.

Even though he played a great game in Calgary and blew up Hunter Smith’s face along the way, he’s still in the Non-NHL grouping.

Jakub Nakladal, 27, led the Czech Republic’s defencemen in scoring at the world championship with five assists in 10 games. Defenders Douglas Murray, Aaron Johnson and Ryan Wilson are now with the team on professional tryouts.

NOTES: The Flames signed G Nick Schneider to an entry-level contract…

The Flames next preseason game is Thursday, September 24th in Denver, Colorado.