Dustin Wolf has accelerated the Flames rebuild

The Calgary Flames are looking ahead to a formative offseason for the organization, after missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs by just a tiebreaker in 2024-25. 

While the Flames remained in the race for much of the season, they were unable to rise above the cutoff, finishing with 96 points, tied with the St. Louis Blues, but having one less regulation win. 

Now, they look ahead to an offseason with the 18th and 31st overall picks in the first round of the upcoming NHL Draft and an estimated $26,895,000 in cap space to work with. 

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli dove into what the offseason may hold for the Southern Alberta team. 

Yaremchuk: The Calgary Flames are the team that’s up today, Frank. They’re an organization that you view a lot differently than you probably did 12 months ago. Dustin Wolf is looking like he’s going to be a star between the pipes, and you have $26.8 million in cap space. How do you think Craig Conroy prioritizes things this summer?

Seravalli: They’re going to be aggressive in trying to get players that fit their age scheme. Who are the types of players that they’re going to be calling on? Marco Rossi, JJ Peterka, guys who can continue to grow with this team. 

Look at the trade last year with the Philadelphia Flyers for Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee. It didn’t work out the way that they wanted to with their production down the stretch for a team that really struggled to score goals. 

Still, they are buoyed by Dustin Wolf, who finished runner-up for the Calder Trophy. He’s a guy who is going to drag this team closer to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Even though goaltending can be fickle, and no one really knows what to expect year after year, Wolf should theoretically be dragging this team closer to the playoffs. 

What that says to me, and signals to me, is that as a team, whether they want to or not, they probably need to adjust their timeline and speed it up a bit because they’re getting further away from the lottery picks. If that’s the case, then rip the band-aid off and try to be good a little bit sooner than you thought you should. 

So that’s what Calgary is facing. They desperately want to add scoring. They’d like to find a center, preferably a right shot center, if they can, and they’re going to try and swing big, but it’s not going to be in the free agent market, and it’s not going to be long term on guys that are just there to help prop up this team. In the meantime, it will be methodical ads for the Calgary Flames if they reach that point. 

You can catch the Flames offseason preview and the rest of Thursday’s show here…