The Calgary Flames are primed to begin building their new core at this year’s draft

The Calgary Flames don’t currently have a core.

Yes, they have some strong veteran players. They also have some promising young prospects. But they don’t have the foundational pieces that every contending team in the National Hockey League has built around.

It wasn’t long ago that the Flames very much did have a core — and one of the strongest in the league. The top line of Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau, and Elias Lindholm, along with a capable two-way defensive group and a star goaltender in Jacob Markstrom, made the Flames a formidable team in the Western Conference.

All three of those forwards are now gone. So, too, are defensemen Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev. Markstrom may soon follow them out the door after being named in persistent trade rumours ahead of this year’s deadline.

The past two seasons of Flames hockey have been marred by a drastic exodus of talent, and while players like Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Yegor Sharangovich, and Rasmus Andersson all have their uses, none of them is in the upper echelon of players at his position. Markstrom might be, but he can only do so much.

For much of his first year on the job, Flames general manager Craig Conroy has opted to characterize the team’s current transitional phase as a “retool” instead of a “rebuild,” following the lead of team CEO John Bean, who infamously said last spring that he’s “not allowed to say the word ‘rebuild’ ” when at work.

The Flames have long been resistant to the notion of committing to a long rebuilding period — at least, not by choice. Back in the early 2010s, the organization was forced down that path after losing Jarome Iginla, Miikka Kiprusoff, and Jay Bouwmeester in quick succession. During the long playoff drought that ensued, the Flames drafted the likes of Tkachuk and Sean Monahan with high picks.

But even when the Flames have finished outside the playoff picture, they’ve historically been unwilling to sink to the very bottom of the league standings. They’re one of just two active NHL clubs to never make a single top-three draft choice — the other being the Vegas Golden Knights — and they’re currently on track to pick eighth at this year’s draft. (They’ve also never moved up in the lottery).

The Flames’ attempts to remain competitive over the last two seasons have failed. They’ve lost a ton of games down the stretch this year and are nowhere near the playoff picture. They’re at the point where they basically have to accept their fate. That means recognizing that this is a rebuild, not a retool.

The Pittsburgh Penguins retooled in the mid-2010s after they continually struggled to make it past the first two rounds of the playoffs. The Boston Bruins did the same around that time when they missed the playoffs entirely in back-to-back seasons. The Penguins retooled around their existing core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang; Boston changed their supporting pieces while keeping Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, and Brad Marchand.

The equivalent scenario would be the Flames trying to build a contender around the likes of Huberdeau, Kadri, and Weegar. Here’s the problem: They’ve been trying to do exactly that for the last two years. It’s not the supporting pieces that don’t work. It’s the “core” itself — because it isn’t a core.

Kadri won the Stanley Cup in 2022 as the No. 2 center on a stacked Colorado Avalanche team. Huberdeau has not looked the part of a first-line forward during his entire tenure in Calgary. Weegar is a good two-way player in the midst of a career year but he’s not at the same level as the top defensemen in the league.

Those are three good pieces. If the Flames are lucky, they’ll get a few more good supporting pieces out of their existing pool of prospects and young players. Connor Zary, Hunter Brzustewicz, Dustin Wolf, and Matt Coronato all have legitimate upside. But the Flames don’t have a prospective No. 1 center or No. 1 defenseman in the pipeline, and they arguably don’t have a top-line winger prospect, either.

Most of the other teams in the draft lottery picture this year have blue-chippers at the forefront of their systems. Columbus has Adam Fantilli; Montreal has Juraj Slafkovsky; San Jose has Will Smith; Arizona has Logan Cooley; Anaheim has Leo Carlsson; Chicago has Connor Bedard. The Flames don’t, and they’ll probably have to make a top-three pick to get one. Barring an unexpected lottery win, they won’t pick in that range this year.

That’s why this year is only the start of what will most likely be a long process for these Flames. Barring any more trades, they’ll arrive at this year’s draft with two selections in the first round: Vancouver’s (acquired in the Lindholm trade) and their own. The Flames drafting Sean Monahan in 2013 represented the start of a new era in Calgary; whether they win the Macklin Celebrini sweepstakes or have to settle for someone else, their top pick this year will signal another fresh start.

What if that player ends up being Tij Iginla? Who better to start writing the next chapter in Calgary than the son of a franchise icon? The younger Iginla has skyrocketed up draft boards all season and has eight goals and 11 points in just six WHL playoff games with the Kelowna Rockets. If the Flames don’t win the lottery, Tij could be near the top of their list.

In any event, you can count on the Flames being a lottery team yet again in 2025 — and probably for a year or two after that. They badly need both quantity and quality after making just nine picks in total between the 2022 and 2023 drafts. They already had to renounce the rights to their top pick in 2022, for Pete’s sake (and rightfully so).

The Flames are also directly incentivized to finish in the bottom 10 of the NHL standings in 2024-25 — if they don’t, they’ll almost assuredly have to fork over their own 2025 first-round pick to the Montreal Canadiens as part of the 2022 Sean Monahan trade. If the Flames do finish in the bottom 10, they’ll likely keep their own high pick and give Florida’s 2025 first-round pick — acquired in the Tkachuk/Huberdeau deal — to the Canadiens instead. That outcome would be vastly preferable for pretty much everyone in Calgary.

Besides, the Flames won’t be able to add a whole core’s worth of players in one draft. Look at the Avs as an example — they got Matt Duchene at No. 3 in 2009, Gabriel Landeskog at No. 2 in 2011, and Nathan MacKinnon at No. 1 in 2013. It’s going to take time. If the Flames try to shortcut their way out of facing the inevitable, it’ll probably just prolong the process.

Conroy has made good moves. He made out like a bandit selling Lindholm for five pieces (including Brzustewicz, Andrei Kuzmenko, and a first). Flipping Tyler Toffoli for Sharangovich and a third looks like a stroke of genius today. He managed to get yet another first, plus a very solid defenseman in Daniil Miromanov, in the Hanifin deal with Vegas.

But it’s important for the Flames to realize that the answers aren’t already in the room. For retooling teams, they often are; in the Flames’ case, they’re not. In all likelihood, players like Kadri and Sharangovich won’t still be around when the Flames are back atop the Pacific Division. The guys who will be on that team likely aren’t even in the organization right now.

George Harrison said it best: it’s gonna take time. One or two years of making high picks won’t be enough to dig the Flames out of their hole — but it shouldn’t be long before the team and its fans start to reap the rewards. Either way, it is imperative that the Flames commit to seeing this through. With a bit of luck, they could have a burgeoning powerhouse by the time they move into their new arena in 2027.