Free agency has been open for more than two weeks, and a handful of familiar names are still waiting for the phone to ring.
The biggest headlines have gone to players like Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko, but several former Calgary Flames are still out there looking for new deals and a way to keep their NHL careers going. Some are coming off rough seasons.
Others still bring enough utility to make a team think twice. Either way, the wait continues.
Cam Talbot is one of the veterans still searching for a landing spot. The 39-year-old goalie, most recently with the Detroit Red Wings, put up a 3.19 GAA and an .883 SV% in 34 games during the 2025-26 season.
That kind of year makes the market a tough one, especially for a 567-game veteran with limited runway left. Even so, Talbot has built a long track record as a dependable NHL goaltender, and teams that need help in net could still come calling later in the summer.
Jake Bean is in a different spot, but the uncertainty is just as real. The 28-year-old defenseman finished last season with the Calgary Flames, appearing in just 16 games after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed injury in December.
He had 1 goal, 1 assist and 2 points. Bean, selected 13th overall in 2016, hasn’t come close to matching the expectations that came with that draft slot.
Still, he can fill a bottom-pairing role, and that alone could keep him on a team’s radar.
Travis Hamonic is also still out there after spending last season with the Detroit Red Wings. The 35-year-old played in 26 games and recorded 2 assists.
He’s long past the point where he was considered a top-four defenseman, but he has kept finding NHL work anyway. This time, though, the road may be harder.
Hamonic hasn’t announced retirement, and there’s one milestone hanging over everything: he’s 74 games shy of 1,000 in his career. That could be enough to push for one more contract.
Curtis Lazar remains a useful depth piece, even if the scoring never matched the early hype. The 31-year-old center/right wing played 45 games for the Edmonton Oilers this past season, finishing with 4 goals, 2 assists and 6 points.
His value is in the details: he can win faceoffs and kill penalties, two traits that always have a place somewhere in the league. The question is whether those skills outweigh the limited offense when teams start filling out their bottom six.
Derek Forbort rounds out the group, and his situation is tied directly to health. The 34-year-old defenseman battled through hip problems before eventually undergoing season-ending surgery in 2025-26.
At his season-ending media availability, he made it clear he hopes to keep playing in the NHL. When healthy, Forbort is the kind of bottom-pairing, shutdown defender teams can trust in a limited role.
The issue now is whether he can get back to that level after a major surgery.
In Other News...
Flames Draft Future Hinges On A Scouting Problem They Still Havent Solved
The 2026 NHL Draft is already forcing teams to rethink how they sort prospects, and Calgarys amateur scouting department is feeling that pressure as much as anyone. The NCAAs decision to let Canadian major junior players compete starting in 2025-26 has changed the way talent flows between college hockey and the CHL, making it harder to compare players who are developing in very different environments and at different ages.
Flames director of amateur scouting Tod Button said the club is still working through how to evaluate that new mix fairly, which means the usual draft board logic is getting a lot more complicated. Calgary is trying to adjust its scouting and analytics process to account for players coming from the SHL, WHL, college hockey and even high school hockey, but the broader problem remains the same: the Flames still have to find a better way to measure all of those paths against one another. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Keep Sending A Clear Message About Life Behind Dustin Wolf
The Calgary Flames have been busy quietly stocking the cupboard in net, and the latest moves around the Calgary Wranglers fit the same pattern. Owen Say is back on an AHL deal, Semyon Konopsky is in on one too, and both add more depth to an organization that has made a point of building out the goalie pipeline rather than leaving the future entirely on Dustin Wolfs shoulders.
That approach has become even clearer over the past year, with management drafting three goalies since May 2023 and spreading them across different development tracks. Kirill Zarubin is staying in Russias MHL, Yegor Yegorov is headed to NCAA hockey, and Tobias Trejbal is set for UMass, giving Calgary multiple layers of long-term insurance while the present still belongs to Wolf. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Just Sparked A Goalie Debate Despite Dustin Wolf Owning Net
The Flames added another goaltending name to the pipeline in the 2026 NHL Draft, taking Tobias Trejbal in the second round even with Dustin Wolf already entrenched as the starter. It was the kind of pick that says as much about planning as it does about the player himself, with Calgary clearly looking beyond the present and into a future where netminding depth matters just as much as a proven No. 1.
Trejbal is headed to the University of Massachusetts, where the expectation is that he will take time to develop before he is anywhere near NHL-ready. For Calgary, the appeal is obvious: Wolf gives them stability now, while Trejbal gives them a possible answer later if the goalie picture shifts, which is exactly the sort of contingency teams are increasingly building into their roster plans. [Read more 🡒]