How can the Flames navigate their potential left shot winger logjam?

If you look at the Calgary Flames roster on PuckPedia, you may notice a few things. One big thing you may notice: there are a lot of left shot wingers on the roster.

In addition to that, a lot of the most exciting Flames forward prospects are lefties that primarily play on the wing. And if these youngsters keep developing the way the Flames hope they will, they may be facing a bit of a logjam on the big club’s roster with a mix of established NHLers and these many up-and-comers.

Let us explain what we mean.

Lefties on the NHL roster

Likely starting on the Flames roster to kick off the 2025-26 campaign are the following left shot wingers:

• Jonathan Huberdeau
• Yegor Sharangovich
• Joel Farabee
• Blake Coleman
• Connor Zary (RFA)
• Ryan Lomberg
• Martin Pospisil

Of note: Huberdeau is 32 and under contract through 2030-31. Sharangovich is 27 and under contract through 2029-30. Pospisil is 25 and under contract through 2028-29. Farabee is 25 and under contract through 2027-28.

On the farm

Oh golly, the Flames have many up-and-comers that are left shot wingers slated to play in the AHL this coming season.

Not up-and-comers, but important players that will get ice time as they mentor younger players, are Dryden Hunt and Clark Bishop. Their presence is really important to helping the Flames’ prospects grow… but as a sort of “necessary evil,” they take away ice time from younger players.

Lefties potentially playing for the Wranglers include Matvei Gridin, Aydar Suniev, William Strömgren, Sam Honzek, Andrew Basha, Lucas Ciona, Parker Bell and Rory Kerins. Now, obviously these guys don’t necessarily all project for the same sorts of roles: Ciona and Bell, in particular, probably trend towards checking roles if they were pushing for NHL time. But the remainder of these players would probably need middle-six duty at the NHL level to be effective… and the Flames have quite a few of players already at the NHL level in that middle-six/top-nine mix.

(And don’t forget about Jacob Battaglia, who’ll likely go pro in 2026-27 as a 20-year-old and would also probably trend towards that sort of role if he pushed for an NHL spot.)

How can they juggle them all?

There are six top-nine winger spots on the Flames. Odds are that, going forward, four of them will be spoken for by Huberdeau, Matt Coronato, Sharangovich and Zary. On the fourth line, there are two spots. It’s reasonable to expect Adam Klapka to be a prime contender for one of those spots, but he’s far from a lock considering he’s still establishing himself as an NHLer.

In other words: there seem to be three or four future winger spots potentially available… and a whole lot of young wingers that will be battling it out for them over the next few seasons.

We’ll see how it plays out.