Craig Conroy made major moves to blow up the Calgary Flames’ core, trading MacKenzie Weegar, Nazem Kadri, and Rasmus Andersson in exchange for draft picks and prospects. In doing so, he sent a message to the fanbase and the league- the Calgary Flames are entering a rebuild. The team is projected to pick top-five at the 2026 NHL Draft, and has 14 picks in the first two rounds across the next three drafts. Add in the strong prospect pool, which includes Cole Reschny, Cullen Potter, Zayne Parekh, and Matvei Gridin, and the team is building a new core to become a perennial contender. Here is a realistic year-by-year look at what comes next and when we could see the Flames back in the playoffs again.
What do the Calgary Flames actually have right now?
After spending the three years after the Matthew Tkachuk trade middling, the Flames are finally bottoming out. The team enters the 2026 NHL Draft with two first-round picks and four second-round picks. They also have two firsts and two seconds in each of the following two drafts in 2027 and 2028. While the team did mention that they are not expecting to use all of these picks this year, the fact that they have this many lottery balls bodes well for their future.
The big one to watch is their 2026 first-round pick, which is currently a top-five pick. There is a chance that they could win the Draft Lottery this year if they continue to be at the bottom of the league, but with how badly the Vancouver Canucks have been, it’s more likely they take first overall.
However, picking a top-five player in this year’s draft is excellent for the team. That player adds to an already deep prospect pool, with Cole Reschny, Cullen Potter, and Ethan Wyttenbach three names to watch for the future. They join Hunter Brzustewicz, Zayne Parekh, Dustin Wolf, and Matvei Gridin as part of the team’s future. These four are already in the NHL and are already starting to make names for themselves.
The Calgary Flames’ Rebuild timeline, year by year
However, the team still lacks game-breaking forwards. As good as Gridin has been, and he’s been very good, he’s not likely to be an elite talent. He likely tops out similar to Matt Coronato as very good or high-end, but not in the same conversation as some of the elite forwards across the league. Looking at the Edmonton Oilers, the Flames do not have a single player in the organization in the same conversation as either Leon Draisaitl or Connor McDavid. They do not have a player like Nathan MacKinnon, Maclin Celebrini, Michael Misa, Connor Bedard, or any of the other exceptional forwards in the league.
Being good is not good enough. This team needs to draft at least two or three forwards with the potential to be generational if they want to develop into a perennial playoff contender.
Year 1: 2025–26
Let’s treat 2025–26 as year one of the rebuild. The Flames got younger, faster, and hungrier by trading away a few veterans. Younger players got bigger roles this season, but this team is nowhere near a playoff spot currently, even while playing in the very weak Pacific Division.
The Flames this year need to draft at least one elite talent this year, and if they continue to be in the top five of the NHL Draft, that looks likely. If they can win the lottery and take Gavin McKenna, that immediately speeds up the timeline, but taking a player like Keaton Verhoeff or Ivar Stenberg would be fantastic as well.
McKenna or Stenberg would be preferred, as they both are elite forwards who look to be extremely talented future NHL stars. The defender Verhoeff would be great as well, but the Flames have two right-shot offensive defencemen already in the organization. This is not a major need.
What the team ideally needs is a strong left-shot defenceman and two elite forwards, one of which is a centre. If you cast your memory back to the Jarome Iginla era, the Flames’ biggest organizational need was an elite centreman, and with due respect to Craig Conroy and the others who centred Iggy, they simply didn’t have one.
If they can solve one of these two issues in the draft this year, that would be a massive step forward.
Year 2: 2026–27
Next year should be more of the same for the Flames. The team has 14 forwards and eight defencemen under contract already, and will undoubtedly be looking to move one or two this summer. Blake Coleman is likely on his way out this summer, but there will have to be more moves either out of the organization or down to the AHL for this team to be roster compliant to start the season.
It will likely be a soft year for the Flames in 2026–27 as they continue to develop their young core and grow their team. What the Flames do at the deadline with Olli Maatta, Zach Whitecloud, and Ryan Strome is going to be key to watch. The three are all over 30, and are guys that playoff contenders would target. Strome is a pending UFA after the 2026–27 season, while the other two have one more year left. The Flames’ culture argument will likely hold for one of the three, but the other two are likely to be dangled for a trade next season.
If the team does bottom out next year and again sits in a bottom-five position in the league, they should look to address the open holes in the prospect pool. Calgary-born Landon Dupont is the biggest name in the 2027 NHL Draft, with the right-shot offensive defenceman expected to go first overall.
Behind him are four centremen in Jaxon Jacobson, Alexis Joseph, Carter Meyer, and Milan Sundstrom. The 17-year-old Jacobson had 85 points in the WHL this season, finishing 13th in scoring in the league. Not a bad prize if they don’t get Dupont next year. If they can get a couple more prospects with high ceilings, the future is starting to look very bright for this team.
Year 3: 2027–28
Scotia Place is expected to open this season, and the Flames will want the team to take a step forward this season. Having added two years’ worth of draft picks, and with Cullen Potter and Cole Reschny likely jumping into the NHL this year, this team should be young and fiery, ready to push to be less-bad than they were the season before.
Joel Farabee, Mikael Backlund, Matvei Gridin, and Sam Honzek all enter the last years of their contracts, and the team will need to re-sign or trade some of them away. Likely, Backlund retires either at the end of this season, as he will be 39. The Flames will need to pay Gridin on a longer-term deal if he keeps performing the way he has so far with the Flames. Honzek and Farabee could go either way, depending on how they both perform down the stretch.
The team likely misses the playoffs again this season, but makes things interesting all season long. With the new arena, the team gets a big bump up in performance, but it’s not enough. They make two strong picks in the middle of the first round, but begin to turn the corner from here.
Year 4: 2028–29
This is the first year that the Flames make the playoffs. On the back of a really good young core, the Flames push all season long and make it interesting as they find their way into a playoff spot. It’s not likely to be a long playoff run, but the team with Zayne Parekh, Matvei Gridin, and Dustin Wolf get their first real taste of playoff action this year.
They make a handful of draft picks, but begin to move to win-now mode.
Year 5: 2029–30 and beyond
The Flames start to push their chips into the middle to become a playoff team. Having made the playoffs the year before, their first-round pick is in the back half of the draft instead of in the front half.
From here on out, they start trading away their draft picks for middle-six and top-six forwards, and look to acquire talent to help their core succeed. This is the first year that the team looks like a real contender and starts to push for the playoffs.
How could the Calgary Flames expedite their rebuild?
This is likely the best-case scenario for the Flames, and it relies on the team continuing to build well through the draft, their picks working out, and their young players continuing to work out. The tank cannot and will not last forever, and at some point, the Flames will need to turn the corner with the pieces that they have.
It’s not likely that the rebuild goes much faster than this, but if the team does trade a few of their picks for young players who are still developing, it might speed things up by a year or two. The likes of Kevin Bahl and Hunter Brzustewicz are players that the team acquired in trades that have made them better already.
The challenge is that teams don’t often give away good young players, because they value them highly as part of their own future. The Flames could get lucky by acquiring someone that a team undervalues and that player exploding in Calgary, but the odds are low of that happening.
The best way to expedite the rebuild is if the Flames end the season on an awful note and win the Draft Lottery this year, then are equally bad next year and get a top-three pick again. Between Gavin McKenna and a strong centreman with their first picks in each of the next two seasons, and a high-end left-shot defenceman and one more strong forward with their second first-round picks, they should be in a great place to contend in the future. If they can find a little bit of luck in the later round, like they appear to have done with Ethan Wyttenbach last year or Henry Mews or Luke Misa a couple of years ago, they might have even more going for them when they turn the corner.
What should fans expect?
The Flames probably won’t be good next year, and they probably won’t even be good the year after that. Pretending otherwise isn’t going to help anyone. Best-case scenario, this team is good in four or five years, but if we want the Flames to be a perennial Cup contender, this is the price to pay to get there.
The last time the Flames went through a rebuild, they started with a far smaller asset base, then rushed at the end when the Find-a-Way Flames made it to the second round of the playoffs in 2014–15. It took more than a decade of toiling in the mushy middle before the team decided to tear it down and rebuild.
The next few years won’t be easy, but the organization tearing it down to build a real contender is worthwhile in the long run, and this work all really starts at the 2026 Draft Lottery.
