Looking lean

Flames defenceman TJ Brodie turning up the heat on his after-burners

One of the key items on the Calgary Flames’ off-season to-do list was to add a top-four type to pair with smooth-skating defenceman TJ Brodie. Enter Travis Hamonic. One of Brodie’s personal priorities for the summer, meanwhile, was to add nothing. On the scale, that is. “I usually lose anywhere from five to 10 pounds during the season, and I always feel better toward the end of the year,” explained the 27-yearold Brodie, now entering his seventh campaign at the Saddledome. “This is the first summer that I didn’t really focus on putting muscle mass on. I still focused on trying to get stronger, but at the same time, not putting on the weight.”

There’s zero doubt that Brodie’s skating ability is his greatest asset.

Calgary’s head coach, Glen Gulutzan, characterizes No. 7 as “an elite escape artist.”

And if he feels a bit more Houdini-esque at his current weight, that’s nothing but good news for the Flames.

“It’s one of those things where you have to experiment with different things to see how you feel,” Brodie said. “I figured this year, I would try to stay around the weight that I was at last year, towards the end, and see how that goes.

“I also know what my strengths are. Being the weight I was at coming into camp the last couple of years, it’s not going to help me in the corners very much, that extra five pounds ... I’m not a guy who is overly physical. I use my stick more than my body, so five extra pounds isn’t going to help me push 230-lb. guys off the puck.

“Having that extra quickness or that half-second earlier step, I think that’s more important.”

You know what should help in the corners?

Hamonic, the shutdown-sort who arrived in a draft-day swap from the New York Islanders.

“TJ is a good defender, he’s got a great stick, but a lot of his defending is because he doesn’t have to defend by the way he can get out of the zone,” Gulutzan said. “The game is getting fast, but still there is a ‘big’ element in the West. There are some big teams. What Travis gives him is a guy who is mobile that can help staple and help deaden the attack. And now we can break out easier, we can deaden the other teams’ heavier players, and that allows TJ to spend less time in his zone and get up the ice. That’s the biggest thing with Travis — he can skate, he’s heavier and he can get guys to the wall. And that will help TJ in his own end, when he is there.

“The reality,” Gulutzan continued, “is you have to play in your end and TJ has a great stick and he is good positionally. But when you have big, big bodies in there, they’re sometimes hard to get to the wall and Travis can help in those areas.

“I think that’s a good complement.”

Brodie seemed to cycle through more defence partners than disposable razors last season, but the hope is he’ll hit it off with Hamonic, whose arrival has sparked suggestions that the Flames now boast one of the NHL’s best blue-line brigades.

With one goal and one assist to show for a pair of pre-season outings so far, Brodie is hoping his refined approach to his summer training will help him sizzle out of the starting gate.

Just as quickly, he wants to put a sometimes-frustrating season in his rearview mirror.

“You take what you learned but at the same time, you kind of forget last year,” said Brodie, who contributed 36 points but also tied for worst on the team with a minus16 rating during the 2016-17 campaign. “It was sort of like a roller-coaster. I think consistency was the biggest thing I was disappointed in. I want to be at my best every night, and last year I felt like I might play good for a couple of games and start gaining that confidence and then I feel like one or two mistakes and it would drop right off again.

“I think it’s about finding that middle ground — not being too high, not being too low — and when things don’t go your way, just putting it behind you and moving on.”