Kevin Rooney became the Flames' go-to guy when he was cut

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When the Calgary Flames send someone to the sin bin, they look to Kevin Rooney.

In fact, no one on the roster has spent much time on the penalty kill since the All-Star break. If you average short ice time per game, Rooney is the Flames' most reliable player as a man.

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If that's not a sign that Rooney has made himself a vital part of the team, we don't know what is.

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“I think he feels like we have some value in him, so he feels valuable,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska explained. “One thing Kevin has done is he's done a really good job of being mentally strong.

“He changed his whole summer … He wanted to come back and make an impact, and when you're injured in camp, it's not easy. He did a really good job and then he came back, he was ready to go and he did a great job in the role that we were asking him to do.”

As Huska noted, Rooney has been on quite a journey over the past year and a half.

Last season, he spent most of the year with the Calgary Wranglers. He played 17 games with the Flames but was sent down to the AHL and played 51 games there.

It hasn't been easy for a guy who played 15 playoff games with a very good New York Rangers team in 2021-22.

But there were no complaints about Rooney's performance at the Wranglers and he responded by changing his summer training regime. Instead of returning home to Boston, he moved his family to Los Angeles.

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His father-in-law, Jeff Turcotte, is one of the most prominent hockey coaches in southern California and was able to connect Rooney with the people he needed to improve his game.

“Once I got there, I knew what I wanted to do on the ice, so it was easy to know who I was working with,” Rooney explained. “It was a lot of touches, handling pucks, my shots, but more or less being with the puck and being comfortable with it.

“The season before, I always felt like I was trying to get rid of it and give it to someone else. I think I've made progress this year, but I think a lot more has to be given here.”

Rooney has also worked with the Flames' strength and conditioning team to take his fitness to the next level, and he returned to Calgary for training camp in great shape and ready to contribute from Day 1.

Then things took a turn for the worse.

Rooney suffered a shoulder injury and required surgery in camp. That means he's out until the All-Star break after all the work he's done all summer.

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But after three plus months in the job, Rooney quickly found his footing. Heading into Thursday night's game against the Los Angeles Kings, he's averaging 2:37 of reduced ice time per game. No one on the Flames has averaged more this stretch or the entire season.

“Definitely happy,” Rooney said. “I am grateful to the coaching staff who believed in me in such situations. Now it's time for me to be consistent.”

The Flames clearly know they trust Rooney. He's a great locker room guy, and Jacob Pelletier praised the veteran for helping him recover from surgery in the fall.

As Huska described Rooney, he's “a guy who skates, he's got size and he's going to be a penalty killer.”

He's also grown in a big way this season, and much of that is thanks to his decision to switch things up last summer.

“It was definitely a huge sacrifice, playing in Calgary, but being from Boston, not being home for the season,” Rooney said. “It was a very difficult decision to make, especially for the family, but I knew it was what I had to do.

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“Calgary put a lot of money into me and I wanted to give back.”

IN CALGARY

Several of the Flames' most highly regarded prospects have come to town.

Jayden Lipinski and Samuel Honzek both played with the Vancouver Giants this season, but their WHL seasons came to an end this week when they lost to the Everett Silvertips in the first round of the playoffs.

Selected in the fourth round, 112th overall in the 2023 NHL Draft, Lipinksi was assigned to the Wranglers in an amateur tryout.

Honzek, the Flames' first-round pick, 16th overall in last year's draft, also came to Calgary but is on the day-to-day list due to an injury during the WHL playoffs.

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