Is Flames forward Adam Klapka a lock for an Olympic invite?

The boss suggested this was Adam Klapka’s best performance of the season.

His buddies seemed to agree.

There was just one problem.

That red blazer, the Calgary Flames’ in-house award for their man-of-the-match, evidently wasn’t tailored at Mr. Big & Tall.

It is, as Klapka learned after Saturday’s Battle of Alberta, a tight squeeze. The sleeves would have barely covered his elbow pads.

“It’s for small people, it’s not for me,” beamed Klapka, one of the biggest dudes in the NHL at 6-foot-8 and 235 pounds. “But I’m happy I got it. First time, so I enjoy it.”

After Klapka’s standout performance against the arch-rival Edmonton Oilers, which featured an eye-popping assist, four heavy hits and a plus-3 rating, we got thinking about another potential fit …

Is this towering right-winger now a shoo-in to suit up for Team Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympics? The rosters will be revealed in early January.

“Of course, you are thinking about it,” Klapka said. “All the best players in the world are going to be there, so you want to be part of it.”

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There are only seven Czech forwards who have played 30-plus games in the NHL this season, and three of them will be on the ice Monday at the Saddledome.

There’s the Boston Bruins’ duo of David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, both among the initial six named to the squad.

And then there’s the 25-year-old Klapka, who has skated primarily on the Flames’ checking line and assured that he would embrace an identical role if invited to Milano-Cortina.

Heading into the battle with the B’s, Klapka had been credited with 129 hits on the season, good for sixth on the league-wide charts. None of his countrymen are in triple digits.

His willingness to crash and bang should be especially appealing as the Czechs size up a round-robin opener against Canada. France and Switzerland are the other nations in their preliminary pool.

So can we consider Klapka a lock then? He should be trending that way, but the challenge in analyzing his Olympic bid is that it’s possible the coaches will be loyal to some of the Europe-based pros who have been staples in international competition — guys like Roman Cervenka, Ondrej Kase and Dominik Kubalik.

Klapka made his world championship debut in the spring, with two goals and one assist in five tournament appearances.

If the Czechs need a refresher on all he can offer, a rewind of the latest Battle of Alberta would fill in the blanks.

He made a beautiful pass Saturday on Yegor Sharangovich’s opening strike, bowled over opposing superstar Leon Draisaitl and nearly scored one of his own as he bulldozed his way to the net in the late stages of a tight game. He beat Connor Ingram with a deke but plunked the post on what would have been his fourth goal of the campaign.

“For that fourth-line right wing, I think so,” Klapka replied when asked if he believes he’s made a strong case for a chance to represent his country in February. “That’s my role here and I think I can do a pretty good job, I would say, in the Olympics as well because I’m used to playing against these guys.

“For me, I think that’s probably the biggest thing. It’s going to be an almost-NHL-sized rink. It’s going to be NHL rules. So I feel like I would be good in that spot. But it doesn’t depend on me. It depends on other people. I just want to do my best to keep digging, keep eyes on me.”

Klapka was so eager to see the spectacle that is the Olympics that he made the trip from Prague to Paris to attend the Summer Games in 2024.

“It would be nice to go to the Winter ones,” he said. “We’ll see.”

wgilbertson@postmedia.com