The Calgary Flames have been unable to recapture the magic of their 2021-22 season and appear ready to enter a rebuilding phase after missing the playoffs for a fourth-consecutive season.
Four years ago, the Flames finished first in the Pacific Division with 111 points and reached the second round of the playoffs. However, the club lost the services of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk in the same offseason and were unable to adequately replace their production.
The bottom fell out for the team last season, as they finished with 77 points and a 34-39-9 record, finishing seventh in the Pacific Division and the fourth-worst record in the NHL.
Calgary moved into sell-mode at the end of last season, trading centre Nazem Kadri at the deadline for a package highlighted by a 2028 first-round pick and 19-year-old prospect Maxmilian Curran. The Flames also moved top defenceman Mackenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth for three second-round picks, Jonathan Castagna and Olli Maatta.
Earlier in the year, the Flames moved pending unrestricted free agent defenceman Rasmus Andersson to the Vegas Golden Knights for Zach Whitecloud, and first and second-round picks.
“It was a tough year, of course,” Flames captain Mikael Backlund said after the team’s final game of the 2025-26 season. “Not the start we wanted. To lose a lot of good players and people, it was hard.
“We want to be better. We want to be in a different situation than we are today. The way the guys competed and battled — give a lot of guys credit. No one should be satisfied with anything because we missed the playoffs and we lost more games than we won.”
The selling continued into the summer as veteran forward Blake Coleman and Maatta were moved to the Minnesota Wild for Jake Middleton and three draft picks.
The Flames have several under-25 building blocks on the roster, including Zayne Parekh, Matt Coronato, Dustin Wolf, Connor Zary, Samuel Honzek, and Matvei Gridin. The team also drafted highly-regarded blueliner Carson Carels sixth overall at the draft in June.
“We’re going to go and try to do whatever we can to help the team and make it better, but a lot of it is going to come from within,” general manager Craig Conroy said. “It’s going to be young players taking another step, and the veteran players that are here to have big years.”
Conroy added to the Flames’ young core in a big way, acquiring defenceman Simon Nemec from the New Jersey Devils for a package that included two first-round picks he received from the Avs and Golden Knights earlier in the year. The Flames then signed the 22-year-old to a five-year contract with an AAV of $7.25 million.
“I know people will say, ‘Well, you gave up two firsts and a second.’ But the way we look at it is that we’re getting a high-end player that’s 22-years-old, who’s already playing in the NHL, that’s going to come in here and be a big part of this team next year,” Conroy said during draft week. “He’s really been trending in the right direction. Especially in the last half of last year, his game was taking off.”
Entering their rebuild, the Flames now have a deep blueline core of Nemec, Carels, and Parekh to build around.
Next up for Conroy, as he said at the start of the off-season, will be to address the team’s scoring woes after they finished last in the league with 2.58 goals per game.
