"I'm excited," said Gaudreau, who along with injured forward Lance Bouma (upper body) joined teammates in an optional morning skate in advance of the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday (8:30 p.m. ET; SN, NHL.TV).
"Excited to come to the rink every day and just try to get this finger better every single day," he said. "I think we've done a great job here with that. I feel like every single day coming here it gets better and better than the last day. I think I've got to keep progressing here and keep doing the things we've been doing and hopefully be out there in no time. ... I want to be out there as quick as possible, obviously. But it's all about progression, and as each day goes on, try to get my finger better and better and hopefully were playing soon."
The Flames are 4-3-1 in Gaudreau's absence. He has five goals and six assists in 17 games this season.
"We don't necessarily have any update in terms of timelines and when he's back, but obviously he's progressing well," Calgary general manager Brad Treliving said. "He's back on the ice and we'll just take it sort of day by day and see how he progresses. That's sort of the next step. He's been out there on his own here for the last three or four days, but anytime you can get him up and moving around and shooting a little bit is a good sign.
"Everybody heals a little differently. We're still in the wait-and-see mode. We'll continue to progress him and hopefully sooner rather than later [he will be in the lineup]. But again, not putting any timeframes on it yet."
Treliving added that he's encouraged by Gaudreau's progress.
"The procedure that was done on him…it's really stable," he said. "He's got some hardware in there that it's pretty stable. Probably more stable than the other nine fingers right now. So that gives added protection, and you can do some protective alterations around it. Youv'e got to go through a healing process, but it's nothing but encouraging thus far."