Zayne Parekh’s first NHL season was never going to be ordinary. It turned into something stranger than that.
The Calgary Flames took him ninth overall in the 2024 NHL Draft after he had put together a jaw-dropping run in Ontario junior hockey. Parekh arrived with back-to-back 30-goal seasons, something no Ontario junior defenceman had done since Bobby Orr, and he reached 100 points for the first time since Ryan Ellis.
Offence was never the question. The real test was always how he’d handle the pace and the punishment of the pro game.
Early on, the answer was mixed. Parekh appeared in 11 of the Flames’ first 15 games and collected one assist.
He looked steady enough, with a few flashes that hinted at more. Then came the setback on Nov. 7, 2025, when he suffered an upper body injury in his final game before a long absence.
The injury did not require surgery, but it kept him out for quite awhile.
His season then took another turn when he joined Canada for the World Juniors in mid-December and stayed through the end of the tournament. That stretch was a showcase. Parekh produced 13 points in seven games, helped Canada win bronze, and set a Canadian record for the most points by a blueliner in a single World Junior tournament while also tying the Canadian mark for most goals by a defenceman.
After that, he needed more time to recover from an injury he picked up in the World Junior semifinals, so the Flames sent him to the Wranglers on a conditioning stint in mid-January. He spent two weeks there, played four games, and piled up five points. Each night, he looked more comfortable.
By the time he rejoined Calgary at the end of January, the picture around him had changed. Rasmus Andersson was gone to Vegas, and later MacKenzie Weegar was sent to Utah in early March, which led to a bump in Parekh’s ice time.
He made his NHL return on Feb. 2 against Toronto, his first game in nearly three months, and played 26 of the Flames’ final 28 games from there to the finish. He finished that stretch with eight points, all of them coming after the trade deadline, including some very nice goals.
The numbers tell the story in different ways. If you stretch his full 2025-26 season across 84 games, it comes out to 20 points.
But that early sample came while he was still learning the league and Calgary was still figuring out how to deploy him. From February through April, he played at a 29-point pace.
Over his final 20 games after the trade deadline, that jumped to a 34-point pace.
Parekh leaves the season with experience, lessons, and a much clearer sense of what the NHL demands. He also showed signs of finding his old swagger again in March and April.
He should be better in 2026-27 than he was in 2025-26. How much better is the real question.
Given what he has already done in junior hockey, it might be wise not to set a ceiling on it.
In Other News...
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Matvei Gridin gave the Flames one more young name to watch in a season that already leaned heavily into youth. Calgary opened the 2025-26 campaign with two teenagers on the roster, and Gridin ended up spending the year bouncing between the NHL and the AHL while showing enough skill at both levels to keep the organization intrigued. In 37 games with the Wranglers, he scored 10 goals and finished with 30 points, then carried that momentum into the big club when his opportunity came.
The path was hardly linear, but Gridins production suggests Calgary may have found a player worth patient investment. His work in the minors showed he could drive offense, and his NHL time offered a glimpse of how that might translate when the game speeds up. With another offseason ahead and the 2026-27 picture beginning to form, the real question for the Flames is how soon his growth turns from encouraging sample size into a permanent role. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Camp Could Reveal Who Really Matters In This Rebuild
With a shortened training camp and preseason ahead of the 2026/27 season, the Flames are heading into a stretch that feels less about immediate results and more about sorting out the long-term shape of the roster. Youth development is front and center, and the organization is clearly treating this as an important year for figuring out which prospects can begin to matter in a meaningful way, even if the standings are likely to look rough.
Abram Wiebe and Tyson Gross are among the names worth watching closely because they have the clearest path to pushing for an NHL spot out of camp. Jonathan Castagna, Andrew Basha and Axel Hurtig are in the conversation too, but they are more likely to start in the AHL, where their development can continue without the pressure of having to carry too much too soon. [Read more 🡒]