Farabee, Frost excited for opportunity with Flames team on the rise
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Both Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost say they’re ready to embrace fresh starts in Calgary after being acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers Thursday night.
Frost and Farabee are former first-round picks whose opportunities had diminished with the Flyers over the past couple of seasons. Heading back to Philadelphia in the deal are forwards Jakob Pelletier and Andrei Kuzmenko, along with a 2025 second-round pick and 2028 seventh-round pick.
Frost, 25, has gone from averaging 16:21 of ice time per game two seasons ago to 15:11 a night in 2024-25. Farabee, 24, played 17:35 per game as a 21-year-old. Now 24, he’s playing just above 15 minutes a night this season. Frost and Farabee were also seeing less time on the powerplay.
“I think just at the point with where we were [in Philadelphia] in terms of the time that we had been playing there, I don’t think we had gotten off to the starts or the seasons that we had really wanted to,” Frost said.
“Both of us over the last little while had started to build our game and play better, but at the same time, I think you kind of feel like you’re almost always going to be in the same situation for a long time.”
That opportunity exists for a Calgary club in the thick of a fight for a playoff spot.
Farabee will make his Flames’ debut Saturday night versus the Detroit Red Wings on the top line with Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau, an assignment he admitted he was surprised by, while Frost will centre Yegor Sharangovich and Martin Pospisil.
“Hopefully I can just get the puck to them,” Farabee said of his new linemates.
“When they have the puck on their stick, they’re dangerous. [I’ll] just get in the corner and try and get them the puck.”
“He’s a good player and we feel that when he’s playing with good players, that he’s going to help us generate offence,” head coach Ryan Huska said.
“He’s strong on his stick. He’s a little like [Blake Coleman]. We feel that what he can bring to the table has the potential to work with those other two guys.”
Huska said each player will see time on the powerplay, and that Farabee will kill penalties as well. Calgary’s penalty kill unit has been a weakness all season and currently ranks 28th in the league. Farabee last played regular penalty kill shifts during the 2022-23 campaign.
“These guys are playing really well right now and in a great spot,” Farabee said.
“Hopefully we can just add to that and help them keep it going.”
After the trade was announced on Thursday, Huska and general manager Craig Conroy emphasized that the players had earned help. Their strong culture and on-ice results warranted management to improve the team. The new additions will help one of the league’s worst offences. Players have taken notice of the message.
“As a guy that’s not 24 [years old] anymore, I’m at a point in my career where I want to win and I want to be in the playoffs every year,” Coleman said.
“We have a lot of guys that feel that way and [Conroy] is obviously showing us that he supports us and wants us to have the best opportunity to get into the playoffs and make some noise. It’s a good feeling as a player, obviously. It means that you’re your part to make them make some difficult decisions.”
Despite the success, the chip on their shoulder remains.
“There’s not a lot of people that pegged us to be, I wouldn’t call us buyers necessarily, but picking up players at this time of the year,” Coleman added.
Flames lines
Huberdeau-Kadri-Farabee
Coleman-Backlund-Coronato
Sharangovich-Frost-Pospisil
Lomberg-Bishop-Klapka
Hanley-Andersson
Bean-Weegar
Barrie-Pachal
Wolf
PP1: Kadri, Huberdeau, Coronato, Frost, Weegar
PP2: Coleman, Farabee, Sharangovich, Andersson, Barrie