A work in progress: a 2025-26 Flames season preview

Gang, this will be my 16th season cover the Calgary Flames.

I’ve covered rebuilding teams. I’ve covered resurgent teams. I’ve covered Flames teams that have thumbed their nose at low external expectations. And I’ve covered Flames teams that have, frankly, wilted in the face of raised external expectations.

And heading into the 2025-26 season, I’m having a hard time getting a handle on the Flames.

Let me explain my thinking a bit, going position by position.

Goaltending

12 months ago, the Flames had two question marks in net: Dustin Wolf and Dan Vladar. Neither had ever been a starter in the National Hockey League. Both were untested.

Good news, Wolf ended up being exactly what he’s been at other levels of hockey: a really, really impressive goaltender.

This year, the Flames have only one question mark in net, and it’s their backup. Right now, it’s Devin Cooley, who was the AHL’s best player in the first half of 2024-25 before suffering a concussion and completely losing his swagger when he returned. If he falters, there’s Ivan Prosvetov waiting in the wings. He hasn’t been able to cement himself in NHL stops in Colorado and Arizona, and spent last season in the KHL.

In other words, we may be back to how it was during the Miikka Kiprusoff era: the starting goalie is out of this world, but if he gets hurt or slumps, it’s tough to have confidence in whoever’s behind him.

Defence

A year ago, the Flames had two pillars – Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar – and a bunch of projects behind them. A few of the projects turned out pretty well! Kevin Bahl seems like a reliable complimentary defender in the top four who can work well with an offensive-minded partner. Brayden Pachal is a reliable defensive-zone, tough-minutes type. And Joel Hanley emerged as a Swiss Army knife who can play on any pairing and provide value.

This season, the mysteries are two-fold:

• When will Rasmus Andersson find himself wearing another jersey?
• How long will it take rookie Zayne Parekh to find his footing as an everyday NHLer?

Removing Andersson, a pending unrestricted free agent, from the group will make it weaker. But how much weaker depends on how much Parekh (and the others) can step in to fill his void.

Forwards

A year ago, it felt like the forward group was really solid but unspectacular. Some players ended up slumping a bit offensively, like Blake Coleman and Yegor Sharangovich, but some ended up having better than expected seasons, like Jonathan Huberdeau. Similarly, a couple of the younger players took bigger steps than anticipated, like Matt Coronato and Adam Klapka, while others dealt with adversity, such as Connor Zary.

All-in-all, the forward group was probably about as good as we expected.

Well, the forward group still feels really solid but unspectacular. Some of their core players are north of 30 and a year older, such as Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund, Huberdeau and Coleman. And some of their younger players look like they could start taking a bigger bite of the apple, such as Coronato and Zary.

They have a lot of really solid players that can be mixed and matched across the top three lines. They lack scary-good players, but they have a lot of depth and quality. And you never know, perhaps someone who slumped a year ago bounces back. Or a young player surprises. Otherwise, it feels very similar – in terms of composition and offensive fire-power – to 2024-25’s vintage.

A work in progress

Are the Flames appreciably worse than a year ago? Even with Andersson’s likely departure, probably not. They have a goaltender, so it feels unlikely that the bottom completely falls out and they slide into the Gavin McKenna conversation. They have some quality offensive players. They have Weegar to anchor the blueline. They have a pretty decent group of young players with the Wranglers that can be plugged into if there are injuries.

Are the Flames appreciably better than a year ago? Also probably not. It’s unclear if they’ve answered the existential “Where are the goals coming from?” question that’s plagued them since Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk went elsewhere. And until the answer to that question is clearer than it is now, it’s hard to say they’re better.

But they’re probably not worse, either.

This time last year, my season preview piece was an extended metaphor connecting the construction of Scotia Place to the construction of a new era of the Flames. And we’re a year into that construction process. Scotia Place is a big pit where a bunch of concrete is currently being poured below ground level. And soon it’ll look like something much more defined and coherent and fun and cool. But “soon” isn’t now. It doesn’t really look like a whole lot quite yet.

And right now, both Scotia Place and the Flames are a work in progress. We’ll see how long it takes for them to start to take shape, and how smooth that process ends up being will determine how turbulent the 2025-26 Flames season will be on the ice and in the standings.

Welcome to FlamesNation’s continuing coverage of the 2025-26 Calgary Flames season.