Missing out on the entirety of the 2022-23 NHL season due to a personal issue, defenseman Oliver Kylington is set to get going for the Calgary Flames this upcoming year. In a report from Ryan Pike of Flames Nation, Kylington is “excited” to return to the Flames this year. With one year, $2.5MM remaining on Kylington’s contract, Pike notes that the team has not yet engaged with him on contract extension conversations.
One player that the team has engaged in contract talks with is forward Dillon Dube (Tweet Link). Dube has been incrementally improving his game for years, capping off the 2022-23 year with his best performance, an 18-goal and 27-assist effort in 82 games played.
Luckily for the Flames, Dube will be a restricted free agent at the end of his three-year, $9.6MM contract signed back before the 2021-22 season, giving them a decent amount of control over the situation. In context, forward Tyler Toffoli is already off to the New Jersey Devils, and Elias Lindholm and Mikael Backlund are unsure about their future, Dube may have a significant role opening up for himself on Calgary’s roster.
Other snapshots:
- Today, the Vancouver Canucks released their ECHL affiliate for the 2023-24 NHL season, and it will be the Kalamazoo Wings. This will not be their first partnership, as Kalamazoo featured as the Canucks’ ECHL affiliate from 1984-1987, 2011-2015, and again from 2017-2021. Throughout their history as a team, the Wings have never won the Kelly Cup in the ECHL, but have employed NHL talent such as Ron Hextall, Jamie Langenbrunner, and Manny Fernandez.
- Continuing on with news from the ECHL, the league has approved a new team, one that will reside in Lake Tahoe, CA. The team is unnamed up to this point, but it will be the 29th team granted admittance into the NHL’s second-tier minor league system. Interestingly enough, the team will be owned by former professional quarterback, and 2007 Heisman Trophy Winner, Tim Tebow.
Way to go Tim!
Wow! Tahoe getting a team, beautiful destination.
Who will Tahoe be affiliated with?
Coyotes??? They may wanna play a few home games there anyway…
Could be any of the California teams. I could easily see it being Seattle; Lake Tahoe’s a hop skip and jump from Coachella Valley.
Agreed, however, doesn’t seem like teams really care about proximity for their ECHL affiliates (ie. Vegas makes sense but they’re already in Savanah).
The Lake Tahoe Gamblers. “You’re taking your chances thinking you’ll get more power plays than us!” According to the ECHL, the ice barn will be located in Stateline, Nevada, not CA.
And, more bad news, @Brennan, Kalamazoo was in the IHL from 1974-1995, not the ECHL, as that league didn’t start operations until 1988, and dropped the “East Coast” part in 2003. Kalamazoo joined the ECHL in 2009. (Per link to hockeydb.com)
@Mac – Yeah, but besides all that it was still a nice story. :D
@Gbear – I’m still thinking about the last time I watched that Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament there, years ago, thinking that it looked like a movie set, and not real. Might not be a bad place to retire, if I could afford it. I quit golf about 40 years ago, though, and not into the gambling stuff. If there were a boatload of nice, affordable eateries, though, now you’re talking! ;)
@Mac – With Wayne Newton performing nightly, there should be no shortage of entertainment.:D
@Gbear – I think I changed my mind. Maybe back to AZ, but up around Flagstaff. Thankfully, “Happiness, AZ” was only a fictional place…in The Twilight Zone. Where one town drunk named Gooberman, talks about his late wife, the only town resident to not die from violence, “…my dear wife, Zelda, rest her soul, a fine, strapping woman of 247 pounds – but not unattractive mind you, broke this arm on six different occasions!” If you’ve ever seen the late Kate Murtagh, who played Zelda, you’d have been in fear, too. After she gets resurrected, she’s marching back to town and says, “When I find that Gooberman, I’m going to break his arm!” The other Western-themed show featured a few big names, including one cast member who apparently disrupted things by showing up drunk on his horse. The director wanted him fired, but it didn’t happen. That guy was Lee Marvin. The others in the cast were Lee Van Cleef, Strother Martin, and James Best (Dukes of Hazzard).
@Mac – I actually saw that episode@ :D
NFL QB, minor league hockey team owner…
This Tebow guy loves to get jobs he’s not qualified for.
Oh, he got a job? Or he put his own money into something to create jobs for others?
How many hockey owners are “qualified” for the job?
As much as he was a bust, how was Tebow not qualified for the NFL when he arrived? And what qualifies someone for owning a hockey team?
I never did understand the Tebow hate. Alright, so he wasn’t a very good pro QB. Yeah, so what, about 99.9999999995 of the people in the world aren’t good pro QBs.
The reaction to this lazy throwaway cheap shot joke has made it far more worthwhile than I had originally intended, I must say.
Eh, if what you get your rocks off is trolling and being an edgelord, whatever, you do you.
My statement was factually accurate and jovial.
I didn’t realize it would hurt so many so deeply.