2026-27 NHL team preview: Calgary Flames
LAST SEASON
Everything went roughly according to plan for the Calgary Flames last year. After a shockingly strong performance in 2024-25 that saw them come within an eyelash of claiming the final Western Conference playoff spot, the Flames fell back into the basement in 2025-26 — and ultimately resumed one of the most aggressive roster selloffs in recent NHL history. The Flames have historically been reluctant to embrace a full-fledged rebuild … er, rebiggle, retool … but their performance out of the gate last year proved too lackluster to ignore, with general manager Craig Conroy subsequently trading Rasmus Andersson, MacKenzie Weegar, and Nazem Kadri over the second half of the season.
The Flames maintained one of the NHL’s most anemic offenses throughout the 2025-26 campaign, finishing dead-last in the league with 212 goals and averaging the seventh-fewest high-danger chances per game. Their defense wasn’t much better, ranking bottom-10 in most shot and chance suppression categories and forcing the goaltending tandem of Dustin Wolf and Devin Cooley to save their bacon night after night. The Flames’ minus-47 goal differential was third-worst in the league, but if not for their netminders, it could’ve been much worse.
Matt Coronato ultimately finished atop the Flames’ scoring leaderboard with just 45 points, one of the lowest team-leading totals in recent memory. Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Blake Coleman were the team’s only 20-goal scorers. In the end, the Flames finished 29th in the NHL with a 34-39-9 record, tying the New York Rangers with 77 points but finishing one spot ahead of them on regulation wins; at the draft lottery, the Flames fell two spots to No. 6 overall, where they selected top left-handed defense prospect Carson Carels — a possible hand-to-glove fit alongside dynamic righty Zayne Parekh.
The real story of the Flames’ 2025-26 season was the start of the youth movement, which will undoubtedly continue in 2026-27 and many more years to come. Parekh and Matvei Gridin, the team’s 2024 first-round picks, both played in roughly half the regular season and teed themselves up to make major impacts going forward. Along the way, the Flames also received notable contributions from Sam Honzek, Hunter Brzustewicz, Yan Kuznetsov and Tyson Gross, all of whom have a shot at being part of the solution in Calgary. There’ll be lots more where they came from, and Flames fans will just have to be patient and trust the process.
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
Simon Nemec, D
Jake Middleton, D
Maxim Tsyplakov, LW
Departures
Blake Coleman, LW (Min)
Olli Maatta, D (Min)
Victor Olofsson, LW (VGK)
Ryan Lomberg, LW (CBJ)
Johnny Beecher, C (Fla)
Justin Kirkland, C (Min)
Jake Bean, D (UFA)
OFFENSE
Et tu, Jonathan Huberdeau? Entering his fifth season with the Flames, Huberdeau has been one of the few constants as most of his high-profile teammates have walked out the door in search of a greater chance of winning. Huberdeau himself is unlikely to move anytime soon, particularly as he continues to recover from hip resurfacing surgery. He’s a bit of an unknown quantity at this point, having managed just 25 points in 50 games in 2025-26 (but posting surprisingly solid underlying metrics) before being shut down for the season in January. Assuming, as everyone seems to believe, that Huberdeau will be ready for the start of the 2026-27 season, the $10.5-million man will be given every opportunity to prove he can still play at a reasonably high level — after all, in 2024-25, Huberdeau drew positive reviews from the Calgary media for the first time after scoring 28 goals and adding a more physical dimension to his game.
As it stands, we project that Huberdeau will start the season on Calgary’s third line with a pair of reasonably competent veterans in Ryan Strome and Yegor Sharangovich. But on the other hand, virtually all of the Flames’ forward combinations could be considered “third lines” on paper. It’s a pretty interchangeable lineup, with very few players having defined roles. One of the few exceptions is captain Mikael Backlund, who has long been one of the NHL’s most dependable two-way centers and has spent much of the Back Nine of his career taking promising young players under his wing, from Matthew Tkachuk to Andrew Mangiapane. Coleman, Backlund’s favorite running mate, was traded this summer, but Farabee is an ideal candidate to take his place on the right wing; it appears they’ll be tasked with mentoring 2023 first-round pick Sam Honzek, who looked great on Backlund’s wing early last year before sustaining a freak season-ending injury.
The truly exciting trio, at least on paper, is the top unit of Matvei Gridin, Matt Coronato, and Morgan Frost. All three of these players had their moments last year, with Coronato and Frost finishing 1-2 in team scoring and Gridin pacing to end up around there over a full season. Frost’s future in Calgary is relatively uncertain, as he is now less than a year from being able to test unrestricted free agency; however, as it stands, he’s easily the Flames’ most talented offensive center and should be a good fit between two highly skilled young wingers. Gridin will be the one to watch — he has legit point-per-game upside and should be a mainstay on the top power-play unit all year long.
DEFENSE
Since replacing Brad Treliving as Flames GM in 2023, Conroy has chosen to heavily prioritize efforts to refill the team’s defensive pipeline. While Calgary’s forward group is certainly a work in progress, their pool of young defensemen is already among the most impressive in the NHL.
Carels is the latest addition to the group, but he won’t play his first game in Flames silks for a few months yet (more on that later). Instead, the major focal points in Calgary this season will be Parekh, who already made his presence felt last year, and new arrival Simon Nemec, who cost two first-round picks to acquire from the New Jersey Devils back in June. Parekh and Nemec both shoot right, but it wouldn’t be remotely shocking to see them skate together on the same power-play unit. We already saw Parekh spend considerable time on the left while playing with rugged veteran Zach Whitecloud during the stretch drive in 2025-26.
On the left side, the Flames have Kevin Bahl, Jake Middleton, and Yan Kuznetsov, all of whom play relatively simple, defense-first games. Bahl has developed into a big-time minute-muncher over his two seasons in Calgary, and while he no longer has the benefit of playing with Rasmus Andersson, he should be able to hold his own on a pairing with Whitecloud — or, perhaps, with former Devils teammate Nemec. The key to unlocking Bahl’s true potential could be to pair him with a free-wheeling righty, and Nemec certainly qualifies. Nemec scored 11 goals in relatively limited deployment with the Devils last year, and the recent second-overall pick could easily build upon that number with more opportunity in Calgary.
The Flames have more defensemen than they know what to do with. Promising righty Hunter Brzustewicz will likely have to start the season in the AHL, while likeable veterans Joel Hanley and Brayden Pachal will only be called upon in case of injuries or fatigue. Don’t be surprised if Conroy chooses to dip into his pool of defenders in a trade to bolster his forward group at some point in the near future.
GOALTENDING
The Flames’ goaltending was truly their only saving grace in 2025-26. As expected, Dustin Wolf was good; surprisingly, Devin Cooley was great. After winning an uninspiring training camp battle against Ivan Prosvetov to start the year in the backup role, Cooley never gave the Flames’ brass any reason to doubt they’d made the right choice. The highly personable netminder finished his first full NHL season with a 10-10-6 record and a .909 save percentage in 31 games, earning a two-year extension from the Flames in the process.
According to Moneypuck, Cooley finished seventh in the NHL in goals saved above expected during the 2025-26 season. GSAx is a cumulative metric that assigns a numerical “expected goals” value to every shot a goalie faces, then subtracts the actual number of goals the goalie allowed from that total. Cooley finished the season with 17.3 more “goals saved” than expected, putting him between Igor Shesterkin and Jakub Dobes on the league leaderboard.
Meanwhile, Wolf finished around the middle of the pack in that particular category, only a couple spots ahead of fellow upstart Lukas Dostal. Tasked with shouldering most of the workload for the second consecutive season, Wolf posted a 23-29-3 record with an .899 save percentage and two shutouts. In a league where scoring is on the rise and franchise goaltenders are becoming harder to find, Wolf is still as good a bet as any to be one of the best players at his position for years to come, even if his sophomore year wasn’t quite as remarkable as his first one. He turned 25 in April and is under contract with the Flames through 2033.
COACHING
Suddenly, Flames bench boss Ryan Huska is one of the longest-tenured head coaches in the NHL, with only seven ahead of him on the pecking order. After replacing Darryl Sutter behind the bench in the summer of 2023, Huska won over most Flames fans with his willingness to use younger players in meaningful situations. As the head coach of a rebuilding team, Huska will always be graded on a different rubric than most, with the true test of his mettle being whether the Flames’ future stars can develop properly under his tutelage.
The 2026-27 season will be an enormously meaningful one for Huska’s coaching staff (which also includes assistants Cail MacLean, Trent Cull, and Dave Lowry, as well as goaltending coach Jason LaBarbera and video coach Jamie “Chips” Pringle). Even as the Flames continue their quest for the highest draft picks possible, they still need the players they already have to be able to develop and contribute offensively. The last thing Conroy and Co. want is for every young player on the roster to taper off around the 45-point mark. It’ll be critical for Huska’s staff to devise a scheme that makes it easier for their players to create scoring chances.
ROOKIES
Honzek just barely qualifies as a rookie, having played in five games in 2024-25 and 18 last year. The 21-year-old winger offers a rare combination of size and speed that should make him a great fit on a shutdown line with Backlund and Farabee. The single biggest test for Honzek will be staying healthy, something he’s struggled with since before he was drafted. If he can get into a good rhythm with the Flames, he could become a strong middle-six winger.
Of course, Calgary’s most exciting rookies won’t arrive until the end of the year. Conroy has specifically kept four contract spots open for Carels, Cole Reschny, Ethan Wyttenbach, and Cullen Potter, all of whom are slated to leave the NCAA and sign with the Flames at the end of their collegiate seasons. It remains to be seen just how many of them will actually be able to play with the Flames in 2026-27 — if any of them make the Frozen Four, they probably won’t be able to sign in time — but it’s safe to say that at least one or two of them will debut just in time to be able to play in the final games at the Saddledome.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Will Morgan Frost be traded? The center market has arguably never been thinner than it is now, and Frost is one of very few pending UFAs at the position who scored 20 goals last season. The Flames paid the equivalent of a second-round pick and a third-round pick to acquire both Frost and Farabee from the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2024-25 season. Could they recoup both those picks just by trading Frost in 2026-27?
2. Who will quarterback the top power-play unit? Parekh and Nemec both seem to be tailor-made for the job, but the typical modern NHL power-play setup features four forwards and just one defenseman. The Flames have invested significant capital in both players, but does it make sense to have Parekh and Nemec on the same unit? If so … do they run with five forwards on the second unit, seeing as there isn’t exactly a third PP-suited defender on the roster? And if they choose to split Parekh and Nemec, who gets the top reps? It’ll be one to watch.
3. Who will score 20 goals? Only two returning Flames potted 20 last year, and one of them is Frost, who might not play the whole season in Calgary. A lot hinges on how exactly the Flames structure their lines (and PP units) — if Gridin, Huberdeau, Sharangovich, or even Connor Zary end up in more prominent roles, they could feasibly challenge for 20. Coronato just missed out last year, but it’s tough to imagine him falling short again. And how about one of the defensemen? We’re only a couple years removed from MacKenzie Weegar potting 20 in Calgary; with a bit of luck, perhaps Parekh or Nemec could reach that mark. The offensive hierarchy in Calgary is not particularly well-defined, but it should become clearer this season.
PREDICTION
The Flames do not look like a playoff team by any metric whatsoever. This isn’t the 2014-15 team, which set the hockey world on fire with its run-and-gun offense, ceaseless drive, and increasingly outlandish third-period comebacks. Sure, everyone expected that team to finish near the bottom of the standings, but they had Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Mark Giordano. This year’s Flames team has its share of likeable players, but they’re not fooling anyone. They might score a little more than last year, but it won’t meaningfully change their positioning in the standings. It’s all for the best for these Flames, who sorely need one of the top centers available in the 2027 draft class. We’ll say they finish 30th, putting them on track to make a top-three draft pick for the first time in club history.
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