Matt Coronato is ready for prime time with the younger, more motivated Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames have gone from flush to relatively light on the wings in the span of just a couple of seasons.
At the tail-end of the 2021–22 campaign, the Flames boasted the likes of Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau, Tyler Toffoli, Andrew Mangiapane, and Blake Coleman on the flanks. That team won the Pacific Division and ended up making it to the second round of the playoffs.
Tkachuk, Gaudreau, and Toffoli are all gone. Jonathan Huberdeau has arrived, but he’s coming off a disastrous 2022–23 season in which he clashed with ex-head coach Darryl Sutter and saw his output decrease from 115 points in just 55. He’s under a lot of pressure to return to form this year.
The Flames must now rely on relative unknowns to carry a lot of the weight in their top nine. Yegor Sharangovich and Dillon Dube both have appealing traits but are coming off seasons in which they struggled mightily to drive play. Making matters worse, promising youngster Jakob Pelletier is expected to miss months, not weeks, with a shoulder injury.
But it’s not all bad news in Calgary. After finally making his NHL debut in the 2022–23 season finale, Matt Coronato is turning heads in his first NHL training camp and is expected to draw into the lineup again as the Flames take on the Winnipeg Jets in Monday’s preseason action.
Coronato, 20, is slated to play alongside Sharangovich and newly-minted Flames captain Mikael Backlund in the exhibition tilt. It’ll be a big test for the 5’10” right wing, who wowed fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome with a hat trick in Calgary’s 10–0 win over the Vancouver Canucks back on September 24.
That's making an impression. 🎩🎩🎩
Matt Coronato rips home his third of the night for the @NHLFlames! pic.twitter.com/gHbDLVAYZZ
After being selected No. 13 overall by the Flames back in the 2021 NHL Draft, Coronato followed in the footsteps of former Flames prospect Adam Fox in heading to Harvard and immediately making an impact.
Unlike Fox, however, Coronato eventually signed with the Flames after playing two seasons with the Crimson. The Greenlawn, NY product racked up 38 goals and 72 points in 68 games over his two seasons in the Ivy League.
Coronato also skated in five games with Team USA at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship, tying for second on the team leaderboard with seven points (four goals, three assists).
Now, with the Flames making it crystal clear that they plan to return to the playoffs while also doing a better job of integrating rookies into the lineup than in previous seasons, Coronato’s time has come.
With Pelletier out of commission for the time being, Coronato’s main competition in Flames camp is currently the likes of Walker Duehr, Dryden Hunt, Adam Ruzicka, Connor Zary, and Adam Klapka.
But what Coronato has at his disposal that few others in the organization do is his world-class shot. He used it to his full advantage throughout his tenure at Harvard, scoring more goals during his two NCAA seasons than practically anyone else his age.
Take, as an example, Matthew Knies, who played on a line with superstar prospect Logan Cooley at the University of Minnesota. Coronato didn’t have anyone on his line even close to Cooley’s talent level, but he still scored 20 goals in just 34 games last year — compared to 21 in 40 for Knies.
Mackie Samoskevich, Jimmy Snuggerud, Rutger McGroarty, Josh Doan, and Brendan Brisson are all top prospects who stood out at their respective NCAA schools over the last two seasons, but Coronato managed to outproduce (or at least match) all of them. The only players reliably ahead of Coronato at his age were the blue-chippers, guys like Cooley and Adam Fantilli.
That’s not to say Coronato didn’t have any help at Harvard. Sean Farrell and Alex Laferriere both finished with more points than him last year. They’re also both middle-round draft picks who are a year older than Coronato. The Flames prospect is the real prize of that group and the one who could make an immediate impact in the NHL.
It’s not a matter of whether Coronato plays with the Flames this year but rather where he might fit in the lineup. The Flames have historically preferred to slot Mangiapane and Coleman on Backlund’s wings, which would free up both Sharangovich and Coronato to take on other assignments.
New Flames head coach Ryan Huska has tried the sharpshooting Sharangovich on the right side of the top line with Huberdeau and Elias Lindholm for extended stretches of training camp, but Mangiapane now occupies that spot. It seems like only a matter of time before Coronato is rotated into that position.
Coronato isn’t the only youngster pushing for a spot in Calgary. Smooth-skating Belarusian defenseman Ilya Solovyov also has his sights set on a bottom-pairing position with the big club, while Klapka and Zary both have an outside chance of cracking the fourth line. Pelletier will play more NHL games after he returns to full health.
But with just three games left on the Flames’ exhibition schedule, Coronato appears to be on the inside track toward locking down a top-nine role with the team. As the games become more meaningful, it’s worth keeping an eye on the Flames’ No. 39 to monitor how he rises to the occasion.
The team’s playoff hopes might end up depending on it.
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