Benched: Making Sense of the Matthew Coronato Situation

On the tail of a thrilling 4-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, an interesting development came out of Wednesday’s practice.

Zayne Parekh: Expelled from the lineup.

Matthew Coronato: Expelled from the lineup.

Take a look.

Huberdeau-Kadri-Frost
Zary-Sharangovich-Farabee
Honzek-Backlund-Coleman
Lomberg-Kirkland-Klapka
Coronato

Bahl-Andersson
Hanley-Weegar
Bean-Pachal
Parekh

Naturally, the news was met with calm rationale among casual fans of the Calgary Flames.

I've been Team Huska since he was hired. But he's been making some very questionable calls regarding the lineup/practice lines.
And it's not like the team has a sparkling record to justify his choices either.
What are you doing man? #Flames
— Nico D (@NicoD95) October 29, 2025

The #Flames can’t use the phrase “youth movement” if they continue to scratch their young players…

It’s becoming clearer by the day that Huska shouldn’t be the guy to coach this team when they finally have the pieces to contend
— Gurpal Singh (@singh_g77) October 29, 2025

It wasn’t just the fans overreacting to what projects to be two promising young NHL players missing Thursday’s showdown against the Ottawa Senators, a few media members also strongly questioned the decision.

Logan Gordon of the Fan 960 flew off the handle on Wednesday afternoon on Sportsnet Today in a tirade criticizing Coronato’s absence from the lineup in practice.

“The Coronato one, I frankly don’t understand,” chimed Gordon. “This is the lowest scoring team in the National Hockey League. Bar none. They are the lowest, and they’re not tied with the low. They are the lowest. They have scored the least amount of goals in the NHL this season. Put Matt Coronado in the lineup.”

Logan makes a solid point. The Flames have scored at a rate of 2.09 goals per game; good for last place across the National Hockey League. The power play is running at 11.4% across 11 games and 4.6% in their last five games.

This begs the question: Was Matthew Coronato helping the Flames generate offence?

Matthew Coronato and the Stumbling Start

Not recently. The scrappy sniper recorded three points (2g, 1a) in his first three games and has been in a pointless tailspin ever since. Seven games of zero-point nights and a plus-minus drifting into Green Jacket territory. The 13^th overall selection in 2021 projects to a -75 over a 75 game season at his current rate of -10.

Boston Bruins defenceman Mason Lohrei took the honours last season with a -43 even strength goal differential.

Statistics aside, Huska gave the 22 year old from New York, New York, ample chances to redeem himself. Most notably with the game on the line for one final empty net push to tie the score in the late third period.

Coronato, Nazem Kadri, Rasmus Andersson, Jonathan Huberdeau, Morgan Frost, and Zayne Parekh took to the ice after a timeout and successfully produced zero shots on net.

Coronato played a mere 11:21 of ice time in the loss, but also was given 3:15 of power play time—he recorded zero shots on net.

Numbers that generally earn younger players a night off.

Accountability

If we can learn anything from Calgary’s arch-rival, it’s that force-feeding minutes to younger players can lead to spoiled development. The notorious Decade of Darkness started in 2007, when the Edmonton Oilers drafted scoring center Sam Gagner with the sixth pick in the NHL Entry Draft. It arguably ended with their fourth first overall draft pick, Connor McDavid in 2015, although the team made multiple top-ten picks after that. (Evan Bouchard at #10 in 2018 and Phillip Broberg at #8 in 2019)

From 2007 to 2012, the Oilers walked teenagers into the lineup. Gagner, Magnus Paajarvi, Taylor Hall, Nail Yakupov; Ryan Nugent Hopkins was the only teenager to walk onto that team and develop into his projected NHL role.

Don’t even get us started on offensive defenceman Justin Schultz, who never really learned to defend properly until he left Edmonton.

This is all to say that accountability is important. Having a coach that pushes back on younger players benefits both the organization and the individual.

Will Huska’s game pay off? It’s notable that Coronato’s offensive game took off nine days after being sent to the AHL last October.

Well, that was quick! 💨

Seven seconds into @Energizer overtime, Matt Coronato puts home the game winner and his second of the night! pic.twitter.com/Xl5AblVWkV
— NHL (@NHL) November 6, 2024

Coronato’s two-goal night kicked off a five-game point streak and his emergence as a top six-forward.

About Last Season – Matthew Coronato

Pre-AHL Demotion:

Games: 5
Goals: 2
Assists: 0
Points: 2
Points per Game: 0.40

Post-AHL Demotion:

Games: 72
Goals: 22
Assists: 23
Points: 45
Points per Game: 0.63

Through ten games Coronato’s stats look shockingly similar to his pre-demotion stats last year. Particularly, Points Per Game, where he’s at 0.30 through nine games of this this October slump.

We’ve seen this song and dance before and the results were positive. It may be time to tap the breaks on the Huska hate.