The Calgary Flames’ prospect pool is crowded enough that even good young players can get squeezed out of the top 20. After the club added nine new faces at the 2026 NHL Draft, the organization’s depth chart now sits at 38 players eligible for the Calder Trophy, and that meant four more names landed in the honorable mention tier of the staff’s summer rankings.
Daniil Chechelev is one of those players, and this will be the final year he shows up on these lists before aging out next year. Calgary took the right-catching goalie in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft with the pick acquired from Buffalo in the Michael Frolik trade.
Chechelev put together a strong junior résumé in Russia, posting a .921 save percentage in 103 MHL games, but he never really got the kind of developmental workload that lets a goalie keep climbing. Part of that came from the way Russian clubs often handle prospects who might head to North America.
Part of it came after he arrived in North America in 2021-22 and found himself behind Dustin Wolf, who soaked up the bulk of the AHL minutes and left Chechelev with a limited role as an ECHL option. He’s back in Russia now and last season worked as the third goalie for the VHL’s Olympia Kirovo-Chepetsk.
If he wants to keep playing in Europe, there’s still a path for him to build something there.
Michael Benning has taken a different route, and his career has followed the same pattern at every stop: he keeps finding a way to be useful. The right-shot defender isn’t big at 5’9″ and 176 pounds, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a dependable piece at the junior, college and pro levels.
He was a strong AJHL defender with the Sherwood Park Crusaders, then developed into a standout at the University of Denver and won a national championship there. Calgary signed him as a free agent on July 1 after he spent time in the Florida system, where he played 18 NHL games last season and held his own.
Benning has also settled in as a steady AHL producer, usually landing in the 30-35-point range. He’s the kind of player who makes sense in offensive situations, so power-play time and favorable zone starts should be part of the package.
At this point, he’s a known quantity, and the question is whether he gets another NHL look to prove there’s more there.
Jaden Lipinski fits the modern college-prospect mold almost perfectly. At 6’4″ and 209 pounds, he has size, versatility and enough intelligence to handle centre or wing.
Calgary grabbed him in the fourth round of the 2023 NHL Draft, and after nearly four full seasons with the Vancouver Giants, he moved on to the University of Maine in 2025-26. His junior career never turned into pure domination, but by the time he was 19 he was just shy of a point per game, which is a solid base for a player still working toward his ceiling.
He spent his 20-year-old season on a try-out with the Wranglers, didn’t find a clear role, and returned to the Dub for his overage year. At Maine, he put up 12 points in 30 games and landed in the middle of a large group of players producing at a similar rate behind the team’s top offensive five.
That’s not a breakout, but it is a step. For a prospect group as packed as Calgary’s, though, Lipinski will need more offense if he’s going to push toward the pro level.
Cade Littler is the most intriguing name of the bunch. The big forward, who can play centre or the wing, comes from coaching stock as the son of long-time bench boss Bliss Littler.
He spent time in the BCHL and USHL before heading to the NCAA as a 20-year-old freshman two years ago, landing at the University of North Dakota. For a player with size and raw skill who still needed polishing, that older college path made sense, and his freshman season in 2024-25 was solid.
The problem was that he didn’t move up the depth chart much as a sophomore, with a wave of talent arriving from Canadian major junior and crowding the picture. Littler transferred to Arizona State University for 2026-27, and the move gives him a chance to grab a bigger role.
He’s still very much a project, but the combination of family background, size and tools explains why there’s real curiosity around him.
In Other News...
Sean Monahan Trade Looks Different For Flames Than Fans First Thought
When Sean Monahan left Calgary for Montreal, the move was widely framed as a straightforward salary-cap decision, a way for the Flames to get out from under an injured players contract and reset part of their books. At the time, it seemed like a deal that said as much about the Flames roster pressures as it did about Monahans future, especially after the injuries had altered the way his career was being viewed.
What has unfolded since has made that transaction look far less simple than fans first assumed. Montreal came to see Monahan as a useful asset, and his value kept showing up in ways that reached beyond that first trade, with his name surfacing in later moves as teams around the league tried to manage him as part of a broader asset cycle. For Calgary, it is a reminder that even trades made for financial relief can end up looking different once a player keeps finding ways to contribute elsewhere. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Prospect Depth Looks Better Than Fans Might Realize
With 38 players eligible for the Flames' summer prospect rankings, the organization has more young depth than it may first appear, and not all of the interesting names are clustered near the top of the list. Beyond the obvious headliners, Calgary can point to a few lower-profile prospects whose backgrounds and development paths still make them worth tracking as the offseason unfolds.
Luke Misa, Yan Matveiko and Jakob Leander all landed outside the top 20, but each brings a different kind of intrigue. Their draft status, previous playing history and next steps in development give the Flames more layers in the pipeline than a simple rankings list can capture, which is why the bottom half of the pool could end up being just as important to watch over time. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Fans Still Have Reason To Debate The Tyler Toffoli Trade
Nearly four years after the deal, the Tyler Toffoli trade still gives Flames fans plenty to chew on. Montreal sent the winger to Calgary on Feb. 14, 2022, and the return was a mix of immediate depth and future value in Tyler Pitlick, Emil Heineman, a first-round pick and a fifth-round pick. For Calgary, Toffoli brought the kind of reliable offense the club was looking for right away, and he kept producing after his time in red and white ended.
The reason the debate lingers is simple: the Canadiens were playing the long game, turning the package into rebuilding capital that helped them keep building out the roster and maneuver for other moves. Heineman and the draft picks became part of that larger asset pile, while Calgary had to decide whether the scoring it got in the moment was worth what it gave up. Even now, the trade sits right in the middle of the classic deadline dilemma: win now, or keep collecting pieces for what comes next. [Read more 🡒]