Where will Flames first-rounder Matvei Gridin take his talents next?

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Calgary Flames forward prospect Matvei Gridin could be starring in the Canadian Hockey League next season.

Gridin was selected by the Val-d’Or Foreurs with the first overall pick in Wednesday’s CHL Import Draft and now has a decision to make.

The 18-year-old winger from Kurgan, Russia, had initially committed to the University of Michigan Wolverines, although multiple reports indicate that he will instead go the major-junior route.

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“I think next season is very important for me to improve my consistency,” Gridin told reporters at the 2024 NHL Draft.

Gridin was the leading scorer this past winter in the USHL, piling up 38 goals and 83 points in 60 appearances on behalf of the Muskegon Lumberjacks.

This talented lefty was scooped up by the Flames with their second of two first-round swings — at No. 28 overall — at Sphere in Las Vegas.

Gridin, who is listed at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, is in Calgary this week for development camp, with the first on-ice sessions slated for Thursday at WinSport. Perhaps he’ll provide some clarity after that skate on his plans for the coming campaign.

“For me, it was a thrill to see him get drafted by the Flames. That’s my hometown,” said Parker Burgess, head coach of the USHL’s Lumberjacks. “I think he’s going to love it there. He’s a hockey nut. He wants to be in a place where people care about hockey and support the team. And I know he said this at the draft — I don’t think there was a better fit from an organizational standpoint.”

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Thanks to his Calgary connections, Burgess’ phone has been buzzing with family and friends wanting a scouting report on Gridin, who has spent the past two seasons in Muskegon. (The USHL has become a prominent pipeline. Among the 32 selections in the opening round of the 2024 NHL Draft, 10 have ties to this Junior A-level circuit.)

The Lumberjacks bench boss has no shortage of good things to say, describing this teenage sharpshooter as a “great kid and great player,” stressing that he “is very invested in his future” and mentioning that in addition to his role as an offensive catalyst, he also proved to be a key penalty-killer and the sort of guy that you can trust in tight contests.

“He has a pretty extensive skill set,” Burgess said. “The thing that sticks out to you most is the way he thinks the game. He’s very cerebral. He’s thinking two or three steps ahead. His hockey IQ is as high as anybody I have ever coached, and I think that will only continue to show as he moves up the ladder, playing at higher levels. So the first thing that stands out is just the IQ — the way he thinks the game, the way he can anticipate and use his instincts to create turnovers or to jump on pucks, to create scoring chances, to break up plays.

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“And then a lot of guys who are offensively driven or point-producers usually trend in either being a goal-scorer or a playmaker, but I think the really cool thing about Matvei is he has such a balance in both. He has a quick, very accurate shot that he can get off in tight areas. He can score from the outside. He can score from the inside. He shoots with his eyes up. He has good hands in front of the net, tipping pucks and getting rebounds. But at the same time, because of his high IQ and his passing ability, he is able to extend plays and find a trailer or find a guy at the back door that maybe you didn’t even see coming. With Matvei, he might have two goals. But if he doesn’t get two goals, it might be two assists.”

While his offensive numbers are mighty impressive, Burgess shares a story that perhaps tells you more than anything you can glean from studying the stats on HockeyDB.

With just over a month remaining in the 2022-23 campaign, Gridin suffered a wrist injury in a collision with rising-star defenceman Artyom Levshunov, who was then toiling with the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers and was just drafted second overall by the Chicago Blackhawks.

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“The doctors gave him a four-to-six-week window to come back,” Burgess recalled. “At that point, in order to build for the future, we had moved on from a lot of our older guys and we weren’t going to be in the position to make the playoffs, and there was only five weeks left in the season. And so as a coach, I guess I half-expected that Matvei would go back to Russia, rehab and recover there and get fresh for the next season. And I remember having a meeting with Matvei and he brought up, ‘Well, what happens if I’m back in four weeks? We have one more weekend then.’ I said, ‘I know that, but we’re not going to be in the playoffs, so they’re kind of meaningless hockey games.’ What really impressed me about his character was he wanted to do everything to get back in the lineup, regardless of what kind of meaning those games had. He worked really hard, ended up being able to return that final weekend, and I think he had a goal and two assists.

“I think we knew at that point that we had a very special player, but that experience showed me a lot about his character and who he is as a person and who he is as a teammate.”

ICE CHIPS: Eight members of the Flames’ latest draft class are attending development camp this week — Zayne Parekh, Gridin, Andrew Basha, Jacob Battaglia, Henry Mews, Luke Misa, Hunter Laing and Eric Jamieson. With the tight turnaround, Russian goaltender Kirill Zarubin didn’t have time to obtain the necessary visa, while forward Trevor Hoskin is sick with the flu.

wgilbertson@postmedia.com

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