Craig Conroy watched the ping-pong balls do what they always do to this franchise. Nothing.
The Calgary Flames entered the 2026 NHL Draft Lottery as a team that hadn’t landed a top-three pick since relocating from Atlanta in 1980 — one of only three active clubs that can say that, and the other two haven’t been around long enough to feel the weight of it. The Flames had a 9.5 percent chance at first overall. They got sixth.
Conroy, to his credit, didn’t flinch publicly — reminded reporters that Sean Monahan came from sixth, that Matthew Tkachuk came from sixth, that good things have happened at this spot before. He’s right. He’s also a GM doing the only thing a GM can do after a lottery gut punch: find the silver lining before anyone else has time to identify the wound.
Gavin McKenna is Surely Toronto Bound
Here’s what sixth actually means, right now, in this moment: The Maple Leafs won the lottery with an 8.5% chance. Gavin McKenna — the most electrifying Canadian prospect to enter this draft in years, a teenager who skates like the ice belongs exclusively to him — is almost certainly now going to the Maple Leafs. At least, that’s what the online betting sites believe. Popular Sportaza online sportsbook currently lists him as a huge -550 favourite to be selected first overall.
Calgary is standing five picks further back, running the math on what might still be available, trying to turn a lottery disappointment into a franchise-defining night. The 2026 class is deep enough that sixth isn’t just a consolation but a legitimate opportunity. But who are the names that the ice hockey media are linking with the Flames at sixth overall? Let’s take a look.
Daxon Rudolph – ESPN
ESPN has Daxon Rudolph as fifth on their big board, but Rachel Kryshak projected the Prince Albert Raiders blueliner to the Flames at sixth overall in her mock draft immediately following the lottery’s conclusion. The 18-year-old posted 41 points as a rookie in 2024-25 — fourth among all WHL rookie defencemen — then came back for his draft year and went nuclear: 28 goals, 50 assists, 78 points in 68 games.
Twenty-eight goals. From the blue line. In a WHL rink in Prince Albert. That’s a defenceman who genuinely threatens to score every time he winds up, the kind who makes penalty killers think twice about leaving him at the point. TSN’s Craig Button has him eighth on his big board. Kryshak’s same ESPN lands on Noah Hanifin and Evan Bouchard as the comparables — two right-shot defencemen who don’t just play on good teams; they’re central reasons those teams are good.
Now place that next to Zayne Parekh. The Flames’ 20-year-old cornerstone is already developing into one of the league’s most intriguing young blueliners — but right now, he’s the Flames’ entire blue-line conversation. Rudolph doesn’t duplicate Parekh; he potentially creates the left side/right side partnership that transforms a back end from “promising” into structurally intimidating. Two puck-movers with elite skating and complementary instincts, both under 22. That could well be the platform upon which this entire rebuild is built.
Caleb Malhotra – SB Nation
What if the best centre in this draft is still on the board when Calgary steps to the podium?
That’s the question that should be making every Flames fan’s stomach flip between now and June 26. Caleb Malhotra began last season with 26 understated points in 44 BCHL games with the Chilliwack Chiefs, then detonated in his OHL debut with the Brantford Bulldogs: 84 points, 29 goals, 55 assists in 67 regular-season games — second among all OHL rookies. Then the playoffs arrived. Fifteen games. Twenty-six points, 13 goals, 13 assists, over a point-per-game in the most intense environment junior hockey offers.
Central Scouting ranked him sixth among North American skaters. Multiple publications have called him the best centre available in the entire 2026 class. Some mocks have him going as early as fifth to the Rangers. SB Nation’s post-lottery mock has him falling to Calgary at six.
His comparables — Matty Beniers and Sam Bennett — are not accidental. This is a competitive, two-way, play-driving centre: the specific archetype that Calgary’s prospect pipeline does not have at the top end, the franchise pivot they’ve been blueprinting toward for years.
There are genuine arguments that he shouldn’t survive five picks, with Vancouver at number three even considered a possibility. The chain of events that delivers Malhotra to Calgary is fragile — Vancouver takes a defenceman at three, the Big Apple pivots at five, the board breaks exactly right. If it does, this could well be a franchise-altering event.
Keaton Verhoeff – The Athletic
Keaton Verhoeff had 45 points — 21 goals, 24 assists — in 63 WHL games with the Victoria Royals in 2024-25. He could have stayed comfortable, padded his junior numbers, and coasted toward a guaranteed top-five pick. He chose to head to the University of North Dakota at 17 years old instead. There, he logged 20 points in 35 games against college men in one of hockey’s toughest conferences, handled 20-plus minutes a night, and added four assists in five games at the World Juniors in helping Canada to a Bronze Medal.
The scouts arguing over skating efficiency clips at 11 pm have a point; there’s been some slippage from his earlier top-two billing in certain rankings, and it’s a genuine knock, not a dismissible quibble. But The Athletic’s post-lottery mock has Verhoeff sliding to sixth for Calgary — and the reason he’s worth that selection is written into the Aaron Ekblad and Thomas Harley comparables. A big, right-handed shot who eats difficult matchups and quarterbacks a power play from the point — precisely the complement to Parekh that this organization has needed since he arrived.
Carson Carels – Yahoo! Sports
Twenty goals. Fifty-three assists. Seventy-three points in 58 games. Then 10 more in 10 playoff games. From the left side. At 17.
Carson Carels was named alternate captain for the Prince George Cougars at 17 — one of the youngest to hold that designation in WHL history, an organization publicly declaring what it thinks of this kid’s maturity and command. ESPN’s post-lottery mock doesn’t have him reaching Calgary — he goes fourth to Chicago. Sportsnet’s Sam Cosentino had him 11th on his opening big board. Yahoo! Sports, however, projects him headed to Calgary at number six.
Carels is a play-driving, left-shot defenceman who sees the ice the way power forwards do. If any team picking second through fifth recognizes that — and they will — he won’t be within reach when Conroy steps to the podium. Landing Carels at sixth is a coup, and it requires a fragile, specific chain of events to unfold perfectly. That’s why Yahoo is almost alone in projecting it. That’s also why it’s the projection Flames fans will obsess over the most between now and Buffalo.
