The Calgary Flames didn’t give their fans much to celebrate in 2025-26, finishing with the third-fewest points in the NHL. The results were rough, and plenty of players had seasons they’d rather forget. Still, there’s a reason to keep an eye on 2026-27: a few younger Flames could be ready to take a real step forward, even if the team’s record stays stuck near the bottom.
Matt Coronato looks like the cleanest bet to pop.
The Flames’ 13th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft already showed what he can do in 2024-25, when he scored 24 goals and finished with 47 points in his first full NHL season. Last season, the raw totals dipped a bit to 18 goals and 45 points, but the deeper numbers tell a different story.
Coronato’s expected goals climbed from 21.16 to 23.4, his scoring chances rose from 195 to 218, and his high-danger chances jumped from 64 to 90. The one thing that went the wrong way was his shooting percentage, which fell from 13.33% to 9.09%.
Even with that drop in finishing, Coronato still drove play at a strong level. His individual point percentage improved to 70.31% from 58.22% in 2024-25, which means he was involved in seven points for every 10 goals Calgary scored while he was on the ice. With Jonathan Huberdeau back, Matvei Gridin getting more impactful with each game, and Simon Nemec and Zayne Parekh expected to log more minutes to help with puck movement and transition, Coronato has a path to a big year.
Connor Zary is another name that stands out, though his situation feels less settled.
There are trade rumours around him, but wherever he ends up, the case for a breakout is still there if he’s used properly. Zary was taken 24th overall in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft after a huge WHL season with the Kamloops Blazers, when he put up 38 goals and 86 points in 57 games.
His development since then hasn’t followed a straight line. He played just 21 games in 2020-21 between Kamloops and the then-Stockton Heat, then spent two more productive seasons in the AHL before reaching the NHL in 2023-24.
Across that NHL debut season and 2024-25, he averaged 0.52 points per game while playing fewer than 16 minutes a night. Last season, though, that number dropped to 0.33 points per game, and his ice time fell to a career-low 14:22 per game.
The issue, as laid out here, comes down to how Ryan Huska has deployed him. In Zary’s first two seasons, when he was producing at a half-point-per-game clip, he was getting 12.03 offensive zone starts and 24.40 offensive zone faceoffs per 60 minutes.
Last season, those numbers sank to 8.86 offensive zone starts and 18.4 offensive zone faceoffs per 60 minutes. His on-the-fly shift starts were the third-highest on the team, behind only Ryan Lomberg and Adam Klapka, which suggests he was being asked to handle a lot of less favorable minutes.
Zary is described here as a smart offensive player and a transition puck handler more than a pure play driver. The idea is simple: put him with other offensive-minded players who can skate, think quickly, and actually finish when the puck gets to them. If he gets that kind of usage, along with more power-play time and some consistency in his line assignments, a 20-goal, 60-point season is on the table.
Then there’s the defense pair of Simon Nemec and Zayne Parekh, who are grouped together because the bigger question is less about talent and more about how Calgary uses them.
The belief here is that at least one of them is going to break out, and maybe both. They share a similar profile: both like to jump into the attack, and both are often described as roamers because of their defensive-zone shortcomings. That can be a problem if a team doesn’t support them properly, but the argument is that players with similar skill sets have thrived elsewhere when their teams built structure around them.
For the Flames, that means Huska may need to adjust the system to fit them instead of asking them to fit the system. The key is simple enough: keep forward support around them so odd-man rushes don’t pile up when they activate offensively.
Power-play usage will matter too. Which one gets top-unit time?
Could both? The more likely setup may be to run them separately, especially since most power-play units use four forwards and one defenseman, and Calgary may not have a third option if both are on the same top unit.
The confidence level in both players is high, as long as the Flames adapt to what they do well. The tricky part is projecting exactly how much ice time each will get in different situations, but the bold prediction here is that one of them could wind up as Calgary’s most effective player next season.
The bigger picture is still pretty clear: 2026-27 is likely to be another hard year in the standings. But if that means more opportunity for younger players in meaningful roles, the Flames may at least get something useful out of the pain.
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Frosts appeal is easy to understand after a career year and better work in the faceoff circle, and that is exactly why multiple teams are circling without anything close to a deal yet. For the Flames, the question is less about whether there is a market and more about timing, because waiting could change the return, but so could moving too soon. [Read more 🡒]
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Flames May Have Another Mid Round Steal Brewing In Their System
Ethan Wyttenbach has already given the Flames something worth tracking closely. The 2025 sixth-rounder at Quinnipiac arrived with some intrigue after rumors pointed him back to the USHL, but instead he chose the NCAA route and wasted no time making it look like the right call. As a freshman, he put up a scoring pace that turned heads around college hockey and put him firmly on the radar as one of the more interesting young forwards in Calgarys system.
For a club that has seen mid-round picks turn into real NHL players before, that kind of early production matters. Wyttenbach is still in the part of the process where development can go in a lot of different directions, and the jump from college dominance to pro impact is never simple. But when a prospect is already producing at that level in his first season, it gives the Flames another name worth watching closely as the system continues to take shape. [Read more 🡒]