Andersson gets another chance to impress Calgary coaching staff
Young defenceman could suit up tonight in Nashville after being called up from AHL
In the last week, Rasmus Andersson has travelled from Calgary to Stockton, Calif., back to Calgary — and now it’s on to Nashville.
It appears he’s headed into the Calgary Flames lineup.
The 21-year-old defenceman was skating on the right side with Juuso Valimaki, which would make up the team’s third pairing with Travis Hamonic still out with a facial fracture. The game plan is simple.
“Just play my own game and be confident out there and move the puck fast. Just be smart and simple off the start,” said Andersson Monday before hopping aboard the team charter to Nashville.
“It’s always exciting playing and it’s my first game of the year. I’m looking forward to (tonight).”
It might have happened sooner than he imagined, considering he was dispatched to the Flames’ American Hockey League affiliate to start the season after what many thought was a formidable training camp — a performance that nearly won him the job as the seventh defenceman. But the Flames ultimately opted for the NHL-experienced Dalton Prout.
When the severity of Hamonic’s injury was determined, Andersson received the call-up — which was almost a deja vu scenario of November 2017 when he was recalled in the wake of a lower-body injury to Hamonic. He only drew into one game (on Nov. 9 versus the Detroit Red Wings), but was called up near the end of the 2017-18 NHL campaign and played nine games to close out the season.
Although this summons could be a longer stay than his first one last year, the mindset is no different for the right-shooting blue-liner.
“I’ve kind of always been a guy that plays with a lot of confidence out there,” Andersson said. "But you always get more confidence when you play well and I thought I had a really strong pre-season. For sure, it boosted me up a little bit.”
It’s important for Andersson to log minutes in regular-season games. It does him no good to be bag-skated day after day while he watches games from the dressing room or press box. With Hamonic out for a significant amount of time to undergo facial surgery, Andersson’s services are required.
Depending on how well he performs, he could log a pile of NHL minutes if he surpasses Prout for the sixth spot on defence. That’s also assuming Michael Stone continues to play with Noah Hanifin on the team’s second pairing.
But during training camp, head coach Bill Peters critiqued Andersson’s decision-making ability and the need for it to be at an NHL level (read: quicker).
Truth be told, it’s been a while since Andersson has actually logged any game action as he skated with Mark Giordano in the Flames’ final pre-season tune-up Sept. 29 in Edmonton.
Peters is confident in Andersson and Valimaki, despite both being young players, but would put Stone (a right-shot blue-liner) with Valimaki and Hanifin (a left shot) with Andersson if need be.
“It feels like he hasn’t played in forever, at least for me,” Peters said. “We haven’t seen much of him, so I don’t think much has changed, but we’ll see. Now, from the time he left to where we are now, the game is quicker.
“So he’s going to have to be quicker and noticeably quicker in his decisions and moving the puck, but he’s more than capable of doing that.”
Andersson knows.
“You always try to work on details and that’s for sure one of the details I’m trying to work on,” Andersson said. “I just need to make the play quicker. Sometimes I hold it a little extra second because I feel like that’s one of my strengths. He wants me to move it quicker, (so) I’m going to try and move it quicker.
“You just have to have your head on a swivel and look what’s around you. It’s a thing you have to work on. I just have to keep working on it.”