The Flames don't have a lot of European players or prospects. In fact, Calgary might have the most jingoistic roster in the whole league.
Still, there were/are a couple of Flames connections playing overseas every now and then. I tried in vain to follow Mark Giordano's progress last season, for example.
Anyways, for those unaware, Eurohockey.net is a pretty decent stat/roster resource for the various European leagues/clubs that I stumbled across awhile ago. I was looking through it recently and thought I might share some of the relevant links.
1.) Mark Giordanos RSL results. Gio had a so-so regular season but managed to be Dynamo Moscow's 2nd leading scorer in the play-offs with 1 goal and 7 points in 9 games. Keep in mind, this is the 2nd best league on the globe behind the NHL and one that doesn't award 2nd assists.
2.) Mikael Backlunds HockeyAllsvenskan results. Like Gio, Backlund didn't do much during the RS but managed 6 goals and 9 points in 14 post-season games. It'll be interesting to see if he can carry that forward into this year (assuming he goes back).
3.) Per Jonssons DIV-1/Elitserien results. The mysterious and relatively unknown 20 year-old Swedish defenseman split time between DIV-1 and the Elite League last season. He scored 3 goals and 18 points 38 games for Skåre BK before being called-up (?I presume) to Färjestads BK, where he garnered just 1 assist in 16 contests. Still, for him to be considered good enough to play some games against men in one of the tougher leagues in the world is a good sign. I'll be interested to get a good look at Jonsson in the pre-season this September (that is, if he makes the trip over this time).
UPDATE -
I figured I should add Andrei Taratukhin's stats, just for curiosity's sake. He's still technically Flames property, but chances are he's never coming back after a breaking a contract to return home.
Last season in the RSL, Taratukhin scored 10 goals and 26 points, good for 5th on Salavat Yulayev Ufa in scoring. Looks like he was the club's 2nd line center behind RSL vet Aleksei Tereschenko. Ex-Hab Alexander Perezhogin led the club with 21 goals and 41 points in 50 games.*
*(Price, Higgins, Plekanec, Kostitsyn(s), Komisarek, Chipchura, Latendresse, O'Byrne...how good has Montreal's drafting been recently?? Maybe the Flames should have waited until after the Canadiens picked at #25 to trade Tanguay this summer).
