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For the third straight season the Stockton Heat will be the American Hockey League affiliate of the Calgary Flames. The Heat will be looking to improve on last season where they qualified as a playoff wildcard team. Stockton finished with a record of 34-25-9 which placed them fourth in the AHL’s Pacific Division.
The Heat were eliminated in game 5 of their best of five series by the San Jose Barracuda during the opening round via overtime heartbreak. It was the first time since 2013-14 that a Flames AHL affiliate had made the playoffs.
The Roster
There will be a large number of returning faces for the Heat this season along with some fresh blood on the team.
Among the notable new faces there are:
- G Tyler Parsons
- D Josh Healey
- F Spencer Foo
- F Joseph Cramarossa
- F Luke Gazdic
The returning faces include last season’s goaltending tandem in David Rittich and Jon Gillies which with the addition of Parsons makes more an interesting crease conundrum.
Oliver Kylington, Rasmus Andersson, and Tyler Wotherspoon will be anchoring the back end for the Heat again this season.
Up front Mark Jankowski and Andrew Mangiapane look to lead the way along with other returnees Hunter Shinkaruk, Garnet Hathaway, and Morgan Klimchuk to name a few.
A full roster can be found here
Schedule
Once again the Heat will be playing 68 games as a member of the AHL’s Pacific Division. For those that don’t know, the Pacific division mostly focuses on these team’s playing each other to cut down on travel expenses throughout the season.
Outside from trips to Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Manitoba, the Heat won’t play any away games outside of their division this year.
Stockton will play 56 of 68 games against there division with the following breakdown: Bakersfield x10, Ontario x8, San Antonio x4, San Diego x8, San Jose x12, Texas x6, Tucson x8.
A full schedule can be found here
This Week
As with last season we’ll be doing a weekly Stockton piece this season, usually on a Sunday or Monday because that’s when they play the least. Our first Stockton update piece will be out on October 15. Here’s a look at the schedule for the next three games.
Friday October 6: Bakersfield Condors (Edmonton) at Stockton Heat
Saturday October 7: San Jose Barracuda (San Jose) at Stockton Heat
Saturday October 14: Grand Rapids Griffins (Detroit) at Stockton Heat
Go Heat Go!