The Flames kick off the final portion of the regular season tonight on the road in San Jose to take on Olympic standout Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks. With the NHL returning to action and the Olympic roster freeze lifted on Monday, the Flames appear determined to move veteran talent ahead of the March 3 trade deadline. Calgary is 11 points outside a wild card spot and has to skip six teams. Their performances so far this season have also seen them finish 29th in the overall standings.
As we shift our focus from international hockey back to the NHL, it appears the front office in Calgary is finally starting to understand how impactful this deadline could be in the long run. If the Flames trade the likes of Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman or Mackenzie Weegar, I think we can finally turn the ‘re-biggle’ into a ‘re-build’.
In the first edition of our weekly series, let’s take a look at the current 2026 first-round draft picks owned by the Flames and where they would project if the draft were today.
2026 First-rounders the Flames own
Calgary currently has three 2026 first-round picks:
- Their own pick, which would be 4th overall if the season ended today.
- The pick of the Vegas Golden Knights, who would go 21st overall
The Flames will hopefully add their roster of 2026 first-rounders before the deadline this Friday at noon. Their only trade of the season brought back Vegas’ 2027 first-round pick in a package for Rasmus Andersson. It seems reasonable to assume that Craig Conroy will ask for a plus in the first round, per Weegar, Kadri and Coleman.
The Flames’ second-round pick would also be 36th overall at this point, leaving them with three picks in the top 40. With the quality of Conroy’s drafting during his tenure, one can only hope it continues, while another lottery pick could land a bona fide superstar the franchise has so desperately needed since the departures of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk in 2022.
Upcoming games
Including tonight’s game, the Flames will play three times before our next update, taking on San Jose, the LA Kings and the Anaheim Ducks. The road trip through California offers the Flames a chance to earn six points against teams all ahead of them in the Western Conference Wild Card race, or fall even further behind in the chase.
Vegas has kicked off against the Kings and will play Washington, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit before next Thursday. It would be surprising if the Golden Knights lost more than one of those four games; However, their appearance at the Olympics was significant, with five players representing their country. Vegas rested Mitch Marner, Marc Stone, Shea Theodore, Jack Eichel and Noah Hanafin in their match last night.
26 more games, too early to call it?
I’m sure Murray Edwards feels the same way. Since purchasing the Flames in 1994, he has done everything he can to maintain a mediocre, budget-friendly roster that is only competitive enough to fill seats and compete in the playoffs. Cup match 2004 was a Cinderella story and only helped scammers for twenty years. To see “Will the Flames buy or sell at the deadline?” February headlines have become an inevitable, annual alarm bell for tax season, with disappointment soon to follow. For anyone who thinks the aforementioned headline is a positive indicator of a sports franchise’s success, focus on the “will” and “or” of that statement. Absolute language is not common in the Flames market unless it is used to alleviate thoughts of retention, spending to the limit or planning more than a season in advance.
Fans are desperate for a fresh start, and so are players. They don’t leave Calgary because of the weather or taxes; they leave because the owner is one of the cheapest in the league and doesn’t encourage playing for his franchise beyond “giving it everything we’ve got every year.” There may be 26 games left on the schedule, but there should be several catastrophic failures and a comeback unbeknownst to the Flames with the strength of the schedule they have left.
As Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way,” and in our context, reconstruction is life.
Stay tuned for weekly updates on the Flames’ 2026 first-round picks through the remainder of the season.
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