As the NHL pauses for the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Calgary Flames unexpectedly find themselves hovering just three points out of the final wild-card spot in the West.
The organization is, by all rights, rebuilding. The roster has been stripped of key veterans, leaving a collection of young, emerging talent that should, in theory, struggle for a while before climbing the league’s hierarchy. After picking 9th overall last year it seemed a near certainty the team would poised for another top-10 pick in the summer of 2025.
Instead, Dustin Wolf’s performance in net has dragged them into the playoff conversation, despite an offence that barely scrapes by and a team structure still in flux.
So, GM Craig Conroy is faced with a conundrum-continue to rebuild or pivot to crafting a competitive club?
The Zary Cohort: Close, But Not Quite
Right now, the focus is on the Connor Zary cohort—players aged 22 to 25 who represent the team’s emerging middle class: Yegor Sharangovich, Kevin Bahl, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Matthew Coronato, and, of course, Wolf himself.
Many of these players are good NHLers. Zary and Coronato may even become excellent players. But none of the skaters are going to win the scoring race or a major individual award.
Wolf’s presence changes things. Had he been merely average, the Flames might be well on their way to a bottom-10 finish, ensuring they retain their first-round pick rather than surrendering it to Montreal.
Instead, he’s giving them elite goaltending, the kind that props up a flawed roster and keeps them in games. That forces the organization to ask: Is this team closer to contending than it seems?
The temptation is there. The Flames still lean heavily on aging veterans like Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, and Nazem Kadri. Andersson, a foundational piece on the blue line, still has prime years left but will soon age into a different category (and is a pending UFA). If the Zary cohort is meant to drive the next competitive Flames team, it needs more elite talent.
Unfortunately, there is no clear path to adding a 20-something-year-old elite skater to this cohort. Discussions of acquiring Dylan Cozens or Trevor Zegras feel like a desperate attempt to manifest a first-line centre out of sheer willpower. And while Cozens or Zegras might bounce back in Flames colours, neither of them is a Connor Bedard, Gavin McKenna or Macklin Celebrini. Or in Flames terms, a Johnny Gaudreau. They’re aren’t players who shift the trajectory of a franchise.
The Parekh Cohort: The Long Game
If the Flames are serious about building a contender, they need to optimize for the next cohort headlined by defenceman Zayne Parekh. The 18-year-old is arguably the Flames’ most important prospect, a player whose junior results point to a game-changing talent on the blue line, the kind of elite defender the franchise has lacked since Al MacInnis.
Building for the Parekh cohort doesn’t mean discarding the Zary group. Instead, it means developing them into the veteran pillars that will support the next wave of talent — avoiding the fate of the Chicago Blackhawks, who now have a generational talent in Bedard surrounded by little more than spare parts.
Some of the Flames’ current young players will be key pieces when Parekh (and hopefully other top draft picks in the next three years) come into their own.
This brings us to the next decision: Cashing in the aging veteran chips. Guys like Kadri, Coleman, and Andersson won’t be contirbuting players when the Parekh cohort is ready to contend. Moving them to add to the club’s stockpile of futures should be the priority.
The Flames’ Perpetual Crossroads
This isn’t an easy path. It means resisting the gravitational pull of “just good enough,” which has been the defining feature of the Flames for decades. The team hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1989. It hasn’t made it past the second round since 2004. And yet, time and again, they have chosen the quick-fix path — adding a UFA, making a mid-tier trade — rather than accepting the hard truth: To build a great team, you sometimes have to stick to a longer-term vision.
The structure of the NHL rewards the boom-and-bust cycle. You need multiple elite players to win championships, and those players overwhelmingly come from the top of the draft. That said, if you have a player like Wolf who makes it difficult to bottom out, then you need to make as many picks as possible to compensate.
Which isn’t to say the club shows somehow “throw” the season to avoid making the playoffs and losing their pick to Montreal. If Wolf’s heroics turn into a Cinderella playoff appearance for the Flames, then that should be lauded and celebrated.
But even in the unlikely event that the Flames sneak into the playoffs, the organization should remain committed to its long-term vision of a rebuild. They do not yet have the required future stars or superstars in the pipeline to become a true contender. A team cannot compete on goaltending alone. An elite goalie can make a bad team into a good one, but cannot make a good team into a legit contender. You need firepower.
The numbers bear this out. At the break, the Flames are:
30th in goals for
28th on the PK
15th on the PP
32nd in goals per 60 minutes of ice time at even strength (EV)
Jonathan Huberdeau, their leading scorer, has just 41 points, good for 80th in the league
4th in even strength save percentage
In short, there’s still a lot to do to get this roster to the next level.
The Path Forward
So what should the Flames do? The answer is clear:
Commit to the Parekh timeline — If he develops into a Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar level player, he will be a cornerstone-level talent. Build around that timeline, not the artificial urgency created by Wolf’s excellence in net.
Develop the Zary cohort — They don’t need to be discarded, but they need to be viewed as future veteran support pieces, not the core that will carry the team to a Cup.
Sell aging veterans — Andersson, Kadri, Coleman, etc. — these are players who won’t be part of the next great Flames team. If they can be moved for assets that help build for the future, it should be considered.
Keep the draft picks — Don’t start selling the future to try to prop up an accelerated rebuild timeline. They may have found a new franchise goalie, but they still need to pick early and often to build the Parekh cohort.
The Flames are at a crossroads—again. This time, they need to get the long-term vision right. The opportunity is there. The question is whether they have the patience to seize it.