Calgary Flames open farewell season at Saddledome seeking playoff return

Young players with NHL experience will be counted on to accelerate both pace of play on the ice and the rebuild that began when it became clear a team that had missed the playoffs by a hair in 2025 wasn’t going to get that close in 2026.

Matt Coronato led the Flames in points last season with 45, including 18 goals. Calgary looks for an offensive bump from the 23-year-old, and 25-year-old forward Connor Zary, both entering their fourth NHL seasons.

Wingers Samuel Honzek, 21, and Matvei Gridin, 20, as well as 20-year-old defenceman Zayne Parekh are key cogs in the rebuild.

Flames general manager Craig Conroy acquired 22-year-old defenceman Simon Nemec, the No. 2 pick in the 2022 NHL draft, from the New Jersey Devils in July to join Parekh in bringing puck-moving mobility to the Flames’ back end.

More tenacity and execution in front of opposing nets was the message coming out of training camp.

“We have to make it much more difficult on the opposing goaltender to make saves,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “There’s certain situations, even when we have players that are in Grade A scoring-chance areas, if there’s nobody in a goaltenders’ eyes, nine out of 10 times they’re making that save.

“The goalies are just too good, so you have to distract them, you’ve got to disrupt their flow, their rhythm, and that means you have be willing to go to the net much harder than we had in the past. We’ve done a lot of talking on it.”

The Flames either retained or acquired a few veterans to shepherd the young cohort toward the goal of playoff contention.

When captain Mikael Backlund signed a contract extension to 2028, he said it was important to him to still be a Flame when the team moves to Scotia Place.

“We know what people think of us, but inside this room we’re still believing in ourselves and we want to go out every night and prove people wrong and be a hard team to play against and trying to be in the mix of the playoffs at the end of the season,” the 37-year-old Swedish centre said.

“I would love to finish off the Saddledome with a playoff, going into playoffs having a big game late in the season clinching playoffs, that would be really cool.”

Defenceman Zach Whitecloud, 29, arrived in January from Las Vegas. Forward Ryan Strome, 33, was a trade-deadline acquisition from Anaheim. Defenceman Jake Middleton, 30, came as part of the Nemec trade.

Morgan Frost, 27, and Joel Farabee, 26, were both 20-goal scorers for Calgary last season.

“There’s definitely a group of really young players that are franchise-pillar pieces,” Strome observed. “There’s a very unique middle-aged group of guys that are trying to figure out kind of where they are in the league and there’s group of older guys that are kind of like here to provide some stability, and you want to play as long as you can, so it’s a good mix.

“It’s definitely younger team, but I think that it doesn’t feel super-young to me.”

Calgary’s fortunes ride on 25-year-old goaltender Dustin Wolf returning to the form that made him a finalist for the NHL’s rookie award in 2025.

Power play quarterback

Expect to see Parekh and Nemec quarterbacking Calgary’s power play with internal competition for the top unit. Only the Philadelphia Flyers’ power play was worse last season.

“We have a luxury now that we have two guys on the back end that if one is really going one night, they keep going, and if he stays with it, we’ll just let him run with it,” Huska said.

“If you’re having an off night, it’s easy for us to go to the other guy now because he’s going to want that role as well.”

Who gets the letters?

The Flames’ leadership group behind captain Backlund is renovating after last season’s trades of Blake Coleman, Rasmus Andersson, Nazem Kadri and Mackenzie Weegar. Jonathan Huberdeau is also sidelined to start the season after March hip resurfacing.

“Hubie is a guy that we will miss to start the year because he brings a lot of different intangibles to our room both on and off the ice, but we have a good group of older players” Huska said.

“I like the leadership group that’s going to start to form here. We have a really good group that will pull in the right direction.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Calgary Flames open farewell season at Saddledome seeking playoff return

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