2021 Flames Top 25 Under 25: #15 Oliver Kylington

#15 - Oliver Kylington

Position: Defence

Age: 24

Team: Calgary Flames

Stats: 0 Goals and 1 Assist in 8 Games

Drafted in 2015, Round 2, Pick 60

2020 Ranking: #8 (-7)

Oh how the mighty have fallen in the Top 25 Under 25, but I don’t put this on Oliver Kylington at all. The Flames haven’t given the 24 year old Swede a legitimate shot, bringing in journeymen defencemen to play where he should be slotted. Last year’s eight total games was a joke and it seems Calgary doesn’t have much invested in Kylington, even though they did sign him to a new, one year contract this offseason.

This probably Kylington’s final chance to impress the Flames brass as he’s starting his fifth pro season with not much to show. Since 2015-16 Oliver Kylington has played in a total of 95 games and only has 16 points over that span. Compare that to a player like Michael Stone, who since coming to Calgary has played in 169 games and has a mere 32 points. Stone averages a little over 42 games per season and his point totals aren’t great, so what is he doing better than Kylington?

Since coming to Calgary Kylington has worked hard and never been a real detriment on the ice. It just seems as no one in the Flames front office or on the bench wants to give Kylington a real shot. He seems destined to be a guy that was drafted with potential, yet the Flames never gave him a shot to blossom. Instead they’ve had players like Nikita Nesterov, Erik Gustafsson, Brandon Davidson and Dalton Prout getting ice time over Kylington. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but then again, nothing the Flames do lately makes sense to me.