Round one is done. The Flames have made their pick at sixth overall, the name now entered into the record alongside the others on every scout’s shortlist heading into Buffalo draft week: Carson Carels. But before anyone puts on a Flames sweater for the first time, it’s worth knowing what they are ultimately walking into.
The team went 34-39-9 last season, finishing some 13 points off a wildcard berth. As such, online betting sites have given Ryan Huska’s men little to no hope of mounting a Stanley Cup charge next term. Websites offering sports betting in Canada currently make Calgary a whopping +30000 afterthought to win the championship next term, the longest odds of anybody in the entire league.
Before you decide how to feel about draft night, it can help to know what Calgary has actually done when the lottery sends them this high. Since 2014, the Flames have held three top-ten picks. Decide for yourself whether they were a success.
Zayne Parekh, 9th Overall, 2024
Tij Iginla, son of franchise icon Jarome, had generated genuine buzz around Calgary’s range heading into Las Vegas draft night, but when he went to Utah at number six, the Flames were forced to pivot, arguably something even better. Zayne Parekh had produced 33 goals and 96 points in 66 Saginaw games, only the second defenceman in OHL history to score 30-plus goals in a first draft-eligible year. He was at number nine on most big boards before the Flames called his name.
He returned to the Spirit after draft night and raised the bar even further: 33 goals and 107 points in 61 games, consecutive CHL and OHL First All-Star Team honours. He made his professional debut on April 17 of last year, scoring against the Kings before adding five goals and eight assists at the World Juniors as Canada won bronze.
His first full NHL season has been what it always is for teenage defencemen, four goals and five assists through 37 games, 17-plus minutes per night, a stint on injured reserve. He can’t be sent to the AHL under his entry-level deal. Every mistake happens in real time, against NHL competition. He is 19 years old. That is not a knock. That is the weight of what Calgary is betting on.
Matthew Tkachuk, 6th Overall, 2016
What does it say about a franchise that the player taken sixth in 2016 went on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, with Florida, not Calgary, and is still one of the best players in the game?
The selection felt clean at the time. Calgary had finished with 77 points. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Jesse Puljujärvi were the mock-draft fixtures in that range. Then Matthew Tkachuk, scorer of the Memorial Cup overtime winner with London, ranked second among North American skaters, was still on the board at six. Draft analysts gave it an A.
Six seasons of genuine brilliance followed before the ice cracked. He finished his rookie year with 48 points and seventh in Calder Trophy voting, was named alternate captain at 20, and peaked in 2021-22: 42 goals, 104 points, Johnny Gaudreau and Elias Lindholm both hitting 40 on the same line, the first linemates to do that in 28 years.
Pacific Division title. Dallas in seven. Edmonton in five. Then two days after the playoff exit, Gaudreau walked. Tkachuk told the organization he wouldn’t sign long-term. The sign-and-trade sent 382 points in 431 games to Sunrise for Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt, and a conditional first.
Huberdeau scored 55 points in his first Flames season, down from 115. He never recovered. Tkachuk won the Cup. Then won it again.
Sam Bennett, 4th Overall, 2014
The first top-five pick in franchise history, and the NHL Central Scouting Bureau’s number one North American skater ahead of even Aaron Ekblad. Ekblad went first to Florida. Reinhart second to Buffalo. Draisaitl third to Edmonton. Bennett came to Calgary fourth without the Flames moving a thing.
He was 18 when recalled for the 2015 playoffs, three goals and four points in 11 games. His first full season produced 18 goals and 36 points, his Calgary career high. On January 13, 2016, he became the youngest player in Flames history to net a hat trick, scoring four in one night. And then he never found his footing: bounced between wing and centre, never locked down a top-six role, 12 points in 38 games in his final campaign.
His agent confirmed unhappiness in January 2021, and at the deadline, Bennett and a sixth-round pick went to Florida. The return: Emil Heineman and a 2022 second-round pick. For the highest selection in franchise history.
Bennett scored 15 points in his final 10 Panthers games. Won the Cup in 2024. Won it again in 2025 and took the Conn Smythe Trophy, 15 playoff goals, most in the postseason, first Panther in franchise history to claim the award. There is no piece of recent Calgary history that stings quite like it.
