Welcome to our 2026 Flames summer prospect rankings

Friends, welcome to one of our favourite times here at FlamesNation: our annual prospect rankings.

It’s an exciting time for the Calgary Flames. Yeah, it probably doesn’t feel like that in terms of the regular season standings, with the 2025-26 campaign representing their fourth without playing in the post-season. But if you look at the moves they’re making and the preparations they’re doing, it sure does feel like they’re starting to get traction on building something.

And there’s no better indicator of that than the sheer depth of the prospect system these days.

Who do we consider prospects?

We’re traditionalists in terms of definitions, so to us, you’re a prospect if you are eligible to win the Calder Trophy in the 2026-27 season. So our balloting and debating was limited to players whose NHL rights are held by the Flames, who are going to be 26 or younger as of Sept. 15 (e.g., born after Sept. 15, 2000), who haven’t played 25 or more games in a single season, and who haven’t played six or more games in any two seasons.

This definition left us with 38 prospects.

Who graduated from last year’s list?

Not including in that 38 are four players who have graduated from last year’s list, all of which are graduates because they played a bunch of NHL games in 2025-26.

The foursome are:

• Zayne Parekh, ranked 1st last year, who played 37 NHL games
• Hunter Brzustewicz, ranked 3rd last year, who played 34 NHL games
• Matvei Gridin, ranked 4th last year, who played 37 NHL games
• Yan Kuznetsov, ranked 19th last year, who played 57 NHL games

Brennnan Othmann, acquired by the Flames at the trade deadline, is no longer eligible for the list due to playing six or more NHL games in consecutive seasons – he played 22 games with the Rangers in 2024-25, and 19 with the Rangers and Flames in 2025-26.

Prospects that left the Flames system since last year

Oh boy, we’ve had a bunch of turnover in the Flames prospect system since we did this exercise last year. Here’s who’s departed:

• Ilya Solovyov (17th) was claimed off waivers by the Avalanche on Oct. 3.
• Jeremie Poirier was traded to the Stars on Feb. 2.
• Jacob Battaglia (7th) was traded to the Rangers on Mar. 6.
• Hunter Laing’s NHL rights lapsed on June 1.
• Etienne Morin (10th) was traded to the Devils on June 23.
• Nick Cicek, Parker Bell, Lucas Ciona, Gavin White, Artem Grushnikov, Carter King and Owen Say all left the organization via free agency on July 1. (Say signed an AHL contract for 2026-27, but since the Flames don’t hold his NHL rights, he’s not a prospect.)

Prospects that have joined the Flames system since last year

Between trades, a free agent signing and the draft, the Flames have added quite a few new faces to their system, too.

• Abram Wiebe acquired from the Golden Knights on Jan. 18.
• Jonathan Castagna acquired from the Mammoth on Mar. 4.
• Max Curran acquired from the Avalanche on Mar. 6.
• Tyson Gross signed as a free agent on Mar. 12.
• Carson Carels, Jack Hextall, Chase Harrington, Tobias Trejbal, Alan Shaikhlislamov, Joe Iginla, Egor Barabanov, Simon Katolicky and Bode Laylin added at the NHL Draft on June 26 & 27.

With all the high picks accumulating in the system, and all the young players acquired via trade or free agency, this was the toughest the rankings process has been since we started doing this in 2015.

We’re excited for you to see the results, and to tell us how right or wrong we got things in the comments.