- Daily Faceoff’s 2026-27 preview has Calgary finishing 30th and chasing a top-three pick
- The Flames scored a league-low 212 goals last season and still won 34 games
- Read below for video of the saves that kept Calgary out of the basement
Nobody is picking the Calgary Flames to sneak into anything this season.
Mike Gould of Daily Faceoff put the Flames 30th in his 2026-27 team preview on Monday, and the reasoning is the part that stings. Calgary needs a top center out of the 2027 draft class badly enough that a miserable year is the useful outcome.
A top-three pick would be new ground. Since the franchise moved from Atlanta in 1980, the highest Calgary has ever drafted is No. 4, when Sam Bennett went off the board in 2014.
Last season set the floor. The Flames went 34-39-9 for 77 points, scored a league-worst 212 goals and finished minus-47, third-worst in the NHL. Matt Coronato led the team with 45 points.
Goaltending is the only reason it did not get uglier. Dustin Wolf played 57 games and went 23-29-3 with an .899 save percentage and two shutouts, and backup Devin Cooley was the real surprise at 10-10-6 with a .909 in 31 appearances. The preview leaned on Moneypuck’s goals saved above expected, where Cooley finished seventh in the league at 17.3.
Check out the video of the five best saves Calgary got out of that tandem last season:
Craig Conroy has stacked his chips on the blue line. Zayne Parekh got roughly half a season in his rookie year, and Simon Nemec showed up from New Jersey in June for two conditional first-round picks, a second-rounder and prospect Etienne Morin before signing for five years at a $7.25 million cap hit.
Both of them shoot right, which hands Ryan Huska a power-play problem most rebuilding coaches would take.
Carson Carels makes it a crowd. The Prince George defenseman went sixth overall in June after Calgary slid two spots in the lottery, and he is one of four NCAA players Conroy has kept contract slots open for:
Jonathan Huberdeau starts year five of his contract still working back from hip resurfacing surgery that shut him down in January at 25 points in 50 games. Calgary has good reasons to wait before shopping him anywhere.
All of this plays out in the Saddledome’s last year. The Flames released their farewell season schedule in July for the building that has housed them since 1983:
Parekh, Nemec, Wolf and Matvei Gridin get the last skate on that ice. Whether the standings cooperate with the tank is a separate question.
