CALGARY — When Chris Tanev last played in an NHL game in the spring, he was playing through a dislocated shoulder. He's healthy again and it showed on Monday night.
Tanev scored in his pre-season debut and his longtime teammate Jacob Markstrom made 21 stops as Calgary defeated the Seattle Kraken 4-1 in NHL exhibition action.
“It's good to get back and get into a game and get up and down the ice and compete." said Tanev, a key member of the Flames top-four on defence. “You can mimic it in practice as much as you want, but it's never going to be the same. It's always half a step quicker out there in a game. So it's good to get out there and play a full 60.”
Tanev suffered a dislocated shoulder against Dallas in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs that led to surgery in May. He's been a full participant since the start of training camp, but had been held out of pre-season action until Monday.
It didn't take long for Tanev to be noticed. On his second shift, he had a great scoring chance on a slick curl-and-shoot move. Later that same shift, he threaded a cross-ice pass to Milan Lucic for another dangerous opportunity.
“Moses parted the seas a couple of times and I had quite some time, but it was good players making good plays,” said Tanev, who had a game-high six shot attempts. “With Darryl (Sutter), that's the mentality, right? Shot volume and getting as many pucks to the net as you can so that's something that I need to improve on from last year.”
Entering their 10th season together in the same organization, Markstrom knows what Tanev is all about and he's happy to have him back.
“It's everything he does, and especially coming back after a long summer,” said Markstrom. “Since camp, and a few weeks before camp
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