The Calgary Flames need to pick up where they left off, and do more, to return to the NHL playoffs.
Calgary (41-27-14) capped last season with a 15-6-6 run after February’s 4 Nations Face-Off, but finished outside the post-season for a third straight year in a tiebreaker for a conference wild-card spot.
With most of the same personnel returning, and the youth movement general manager Craig Conroy injected last season, stronger from that playoff push, the Flames seek to both maintain their 15-point gain over the previous season and move the needle further.
“We’ve just got to take that step to find one, two, three more points,” said centre Nazem Kadri, who led the Flames with 35 goals and 32 assists last season.
The Flames open the 2025-26 regular season with back-to-back road games Wednesday in Edmonton and Thursday in Vancouver before their home-opener Saturday afternoon against the St. Louis Blues.
“It’s going to be a tough schedule to start the year off. It’s going to be fast and teams aren’t going to take us lightly,” said defenceman MacKenzie Weegar.
“Teams are going to want to come for us this year as opposed to last year, where maybe teams kind of [thought] it was going to be an easy night against us, I should say. This year, it’s going to be much harder.”
Ryan Huska starts his third season as Calgary’s head coach with some security after signing a two-year contract extension through the 2027-28 season.
Huska continues to rely on captain Mikael Backlund, who signed a two-year contract extension on the eve of training camp, Blake Coleman, Jonathan Huberdeau, Kadri and Weegar to drive a culture of “work hard and have fun.”
As he settled into the two-way, defensively responsible game Huska demands, Huberdeau’s 62 points — 28 goals and 34 assists — were the most since Calgary acquired him in a 2022 trade with the Florida Panthers and made him the Flames’ highest-paid player at a cap hit of US$10.5 million per year.
The status of veteran defenceman and longtime leader Rasmus Andersson remains a question mark as the 28-year-old Swede heads into the final year of a six-year contract that counts US$4.5 million against the salary cap.
Forwards Matt Coronato and Connor Zary, defenceman Kevin Bahl and goaltender Dustin Wolf, all under the age of 25, were rewarded with multi-year contracts over the summer after proving their worth to the Flames.
Wolf, who was runner-up for the NHL’s Calder Memorial Trophy as top rookie and the difference-maker in the team’s success down the stretch, signed a seven-year, $52.5-million extension kicking in next year.
Coronato ranked third in goals with 24 last season. Utility forward Zary can play up and down the lineup and on special teams, while six-foot-six, 230-pound Bahl cemented himself as a top-four defenceman.
“We talk a lot about the younger guys pushing the older guys and the older guys pushing younger guys. That’s what kind of drove our team last year,” Weegar said. “It’s going to have to drive our team again.”
For those who thought the Flames overachieved on the back of Wolf last season, the players vow to prove doubters wrong.
“Our expectations are high. Our standards are high, so, you know, whatever anybody else wants to say, that’s irrelevant — like it is most years — and we’ve got some talent,” Kadri said. “We’ve got great work ethic, great leadership, so we’ve got a good team here.”
Back-end depth to manage Wolf’s workload is important for the Flames this season. Can 19-year-old Zayne Parekh, who was the ninth overall pick by Calgary in last year’s draft, be a regular in the lineup?
The six-foot, 179-pound defenceman scored a goal in his NHL debut in Calgary’s regular-season finale in April after compiling 33 goals and 74 assists and a plus-42 rating with the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit.
“He’s just got to play his game,” Kadri said. “He did this amount of work to be a high-end draft pick and a high-profile pick. He’s got a lot to learn from an NHL standard perspective, but he’s a smart kid and I’ve got no doubts about him.”
Work continues on Scotia Place to replace the 42-year-old Saddledome, with opening scheduled for the 2027-28 NHL season.
The $1.2-billion project — a shared investment of the city, Flames owners and the provincial government — will include an 18,400-seat arena for games (20,000 for concerts), indoor and outdoor plazas, and a community rink.
Both Backlund and Wolf cited the new arena after signing contract extensions. When asked if the new arena made his job easier in terms of attracting players, Conroy replied: “For sure. I love the Saddledome … but everybody likes something new.
“I actually drive by the hole every day, and it’s exciting to see where the locker-room is, how it’s enclosed now, where centre ice is going to be. I can’t wait to get to the new building.”
