Canucks 2025-26 Opponent Preview: Calgary Flames – The Hockey Writers Season Previews News, Analysis and more

Welcome to my annual preview series of the opponent where I will go to division, looking at how the Vancouver Canucks Match against the teams with which they are confronted during the regular season. Think of it as a primer or “battle plan” when we go in October and the drop of the puck on the 2025-26 campaign.

Related: More Canouct season Prespusus -Hetful

We start this series with the Pacific Division and the first opponent of the season of the Canucks, the Calgary Flames.

Calgary Flames

• 2024-25 Record: 41-27-14 (96 points, fourth in Pacific Division, missed the play-offs)
• Remarkable additions: Ivan Prospetov, Zayne Parekh
• Remarkable losses: Dan Vladar, Anthony Mantha
• 2024-25 Season Series: 2-1-1

The flames were just an overtime/shootout loss away from surprising everyone and making the play -offs last season. They finished tied up with the St. Louis Blues for the last wildcard spot, but because they had fewer regulatory victories, they lost the Tie Breaker and ended up on the outside. Calder Trophy Finalist Dustin Wolf And anyone who bought Ryan Huska in the hard -working style from head coach Ryan were always a tough opponent to look out in the evening in the evening.

The Canucks won the season series against the Flames last season, but every match was a fight, Starting with a Barnburner on October 9 When the flames came back from a 4-1 deficit and 6-5 won in the extension. The other three games were also tight, with the teams that were traded with 3-1 decisions in November and December and the Canucks finished it with a 4-3 victory in March. The Canucks and Flames will only be confronted three times this season, two in Vancouver and one in Calgary. Their first matchup is on October 9, the season opener for both teams.

Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and Matthew Coronato will lead the attack of the Flames again

Without major additions, the flames will rely on the trio of Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and Matthew Coronato to lead again. Last season they made 39.5 percent of the team’s target production, where Kadri was the only 30-goal point maker. Huberdau looked more like the player that he was in Florida, but was still far away from the 115 points he placed in 2021-22. He scored almost 30 goals last season, but needs someone to finish his passes when he hopes to get to the century again, because 85 of those points were assists. According to early line projections, he will start with the top line with Kadri and Martin Pospisil, who scored only four goals in 81 games last season.

Regarding the rest of the Flames attack, the 36-year-old captain Mikael Backlund returns as the second line center, while newcomers Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost are expected to make some noise in the Bottom-Six after they have come from the Philadelphia Flyers for Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier. But the largest X-factor will be Yegor Sharangovich, who had a seasonal season with only 17 goals after he led the team with 31 in 2023-24. If he can bounce back and make the Power Trio 2024-25 a quartet, the flames are much better offensive. It would also help if Connor Zary could get closer to the 20-goal, instead of staying between 10 and 15, what his ceiling has been so far because of his first two seasons in the NHL.

Flames projected line combinations

Zayne Parekh becomes an X-Factor on the blue line of the Flames

The flames should get a fresh face on the blue line In the form of top perspective Zayne ParekhWho has dominated the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) in the past two seasons. He scored a stunning 66 goals and 203 points in his design and concept-plus-one seasons and finished second in the scoring of last season on the SaginaW Spirit with 107 points. He plays as an attacker on defense and could drastically change the attack of the Flames, as Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar have done for the Canucks and Colorado Avalanche respectively. The ninth Pick of 2024 does not immediately take the top defender Mantle from Rasmus Andersson or Mackenzie Weegar, but given his attacking skill and ability to lead the hurry, that is not far away in the distance. If Andersson is traded this season at some point, I would not be surprised to see him take his place on the top combination.

In addition to Parekh who enters the fight, the Flames will return almost the same defense corps as last season. Andersson, Weegar and Kevin Bahl complete a formidable top four, but then Joel Hanley, Daniil Miromanov, Jake Bean and Brayden Pachal are not exactly screaming. Given the goalkeeper they have behind them and the defensive system that Huska uses, they will be in every game and be in the play -off mix when their attack starts to add more run support than last season.

Flames projected defense savings

The Wolf time started in Calgary

Speaking of the goal of the Flames, after his performance last season and as a Calder Trophy finalist, the Wolf era started seriously in Calgary. He was one of the reasons why the flames were in the play -off mix all season and sometimes the only reason. He ended with a 2.64 goals-to-average (GAA) EN .910 SAVE percentage (SV%), while he appeared in 53 games, the most since his season 2022-23 with the Calgary Wranglers, when he won the Les Cunningham Award (AHL MVP) and Baz Bastien Memorial. Wolf is the best goalkeeper who had the Flames since Miikka Kiprusoff and should also have the Vezina Trophy conversation at some point.

Prospetov and Devin Cooley will fight to be the right to be Wolf’s Backup this season after Vladar decided to draw with the flyers in Free Agency. Last season, Prosvetov was in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with CSKA Moscow, while Cooley took Wolf’s course in the AHL as the starter of the Wranglers. Both goalkeepers have not been to the NHL since the 2023-24 season when Cooley appeared in six games for the San Jose Sharks and Prosvetov appeared in 11 for the Avalanche. Both are demonstrably a downgrade on Vladar, which means that it could be a season of a maximum of 60 starts for Wolf if one of them cannot put together solid versions when they are in the fold.

How do the canucks match?

Forwards: bound

To be honest, it is difficult to give one of these teams the lead when it comes to their forward group. Both have under-performing players who have to play to the level of their expensive contracts (Huberdau, $ 10.5 million and Elias Pettersson, $ 11.6 million), a top six-hits capable of scoring 20 or more goals and a Bottom-Six with grit and offensive potential. Each Bottom-Six even has a player who has to bounce back to their 2023-24 themselves in Sharangovich and Nils Hoglander. Last season the Flames 29th ended in attack, while the Canucks were 23rd. I see that this season will not change unless many players start up in the goal department. From now on they even go to 2025-26.

Defense: Canucks

As I said before, the Flames have a solid top four that can correspond to almost everyone in the competition, especially if Parekh touches the ground. The Canucks also have a solid group, led by the Power Duo by Quinn Hughes and Filip Honek and a second pair of Tyler Myers and Marcus Pettersson. Where the Canucks have the lead, their projected soil couple Van Derek Forbort and Elias Pettersson, together with depth in the form of top perspective Tom Willander and reliable veteran Pierre-Olivier Joseph. The flames do not have that kind of mobility and depth in the defense, so I give the canucks the benefit here.

Goal tending: Canucks

The goal convening Matchup is even with Wolf and Thatcher Demko, but when it comes to backups, the Canucks win the victory. Cooley and Prosvetov are far behind Kevin Lankinen, and given the striking season of Lankinen as the starter when Demko was injured, the overall references of the Flames simply cannot match the Canucks’.

Seasonal series schedule

• 9 October versus flames
• November 23 vs. flame
• March 28 @ flames

That is a wrap on the first preview of the opponent of Canucks of the low season. Then, the Edmonton Oilers, who will probably fight for the first place in the division with the Vegas Golden Knights.