Calgary Flames 2026-2027 Team build

[Monahammer]

I was thinking recently that it may be fun to keep a long-term estimate at what the club will potentially look like "after" the "rebuild". That way, we can laugh at ourselves and see how vastly different reality turns out in a few years.

My hope is that we use this description of existing contracts as a basis, and then speculate over the next year or 2 over what will occur, occasionally updating the signed contracts and agreed upon roster as signings or trades occur. Then, whoever got the closest the earliest gets some sort esoteric "yer a wizard, harry!" like kudos from the rest of us.

I chose 2026-2027 as the start season for the end of the rebuild for a few reasons:
1. Most of our contracts on the roster are up by then, except for some notable exceptions
2. The ELCs for the most recent draft players all come up that year.
3. It's the season following the McKenna draft, which many around here have been joking is our year to win 1st overall. It's also a draft in which we have a healthy amount of draft pick potential.
4. Frankly, most can't envision tanking at all so I suspect the tolerance for losing seasons to be at 2-3 max.

For the purposes of this exercise, I would guess that we work to resign Wolf, Coronato, Zary, and Bahl from the current RFA pool. BUT, because those contracts are unsigned, I won't include them in the set roster. But, in my own guess what's going to happen, I will include them.

With that aside, here is what the club would look like based on currently signed contracts:

Huberdeau-Kadri- Honzek
Coleman-X-Sharangovich
Basha-X-Gridin
x-x-x

Weegar-Parekh
Morin-X
X-Brzustewicz

X
X


Cap Hit for this is just a hair over 40 Mil

[Monahammer]

Some immediate notes:

- We are weak as hell organizationally at centre. No surprise, but even the pipeline is bone dry of down lineup centres. That is pretty alarming.

- We are also pretty weak at left D. Though notably, Solovyov and Kuznetsov are not accounted for here and could be resigned. Both could be decent players.

- We really don't need to pick up wingers and could probably get rid of coleman sooner without feeling the impact in a deep way. Signing Mantha was puzzling.

[Ba'alzamon]

Morin is a LD.

[Monahammer]

Thank you! Modified.

[Funkhouser]

Flames 26/27:

Honzek - X - Coronato
Suniyev - Zary - Sharongovich
Basha - Kadri - Pospisil
Stromgren - Backlund - Klapka
Huberdeau - Ciona

Weegar - Brzustewicz
Bahl - Pareyk
Morin - Pachal
Grushnikov

Wolf

Assumes Coleman and Anderson are traded.
Assumes Huberdeau is LTIR or permanent press box


Obviously, we have a lot of depth, but are still missing elite talent. Fingers crossed we can find some over the next 2 years.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Funkhouser

Flames 26/27:
Assumes Huberdeau is LTIR or permanent press box

He'll never be pressboxed and might be on LTIR in 2029 if they are lucky...

[traptor]

Guessing Backlund get's traded in his final year at TDL for a cup run. We re-sign Rasmus. Can't trade any of the other vets. Sign some UFA's to fill a couple gaps (Specifically at center). Still issues with finding a top center (but we have a few in the pipeline now).

Honzek - Zary - Coronato
Pelletier - M. Geekie - Sharangovich
Huberdeau - Kadri - Pospisil
Stromgren - Sissons - Coleman
Morton

Bahl - Andersson
Weegar - Brzustewicz
Solovyov - Pachal
Grushnikov

Wolf
Lyon

[stemit14]

I’ll be extra bold:

Honzek - McKenna - Coronato
Basha - Michael Misa - Sharangovich
Gridin - Zary - Suniyev
Posposil - Kadri - Klapka
Huberdeau - Ciona

Weegar - Brzustewicz
Bahl - Pareyk
Morin - Pachal
Grushnikov

Wolf

[gvitaly]

Huberdeau - Frost - Sharangovich
Pelletier - Zary - Coronato
Honzek - Backlund - Pospisil
Ciona - Kerins - Klapka
Kirkland/Duehr

Weegar - Mews
Bahl - Parekh
Kuznetsov - Pachal
Brzustewicz

Wolf
Cooley

---
Key players traded: Kadri, Coleman, Andersson.

I don't expect the D core to have all of: Mews, Parekh and Brzustewicz. I am hoping for 2 of them, with Pachal and Kuznetsov rounding out the D as the 6th/7th.

I have no idea who will be on the 4th line, but likely none of the players I mentioned.

[Monahammer]

Ugh this deleted as i took too long to make it the first time, had a much more detailed write up:

Andersson to Detroit for Kasper, Wallinder, 2nd.
Coleman to Dallas for Chase Wheatcroft, 2nd a la tanev.

resign: Wolf, Bahl, Zary, Coronato. Also on smaller contracts: Kuznetsov and Stromgren.

Sign as UFAs: 25': Glass, Chychrun; 26': Logan Stanley

Potential lineup:
Huberdeau-Zary-Coronato
Honzek-Kadri-Sharangovich
Stromgren-Kasper-Gridin
Basha-Glass-Wheatcroft

Chychrun-Weegar
Bahl-Parekh
Stanley-Brzustwicz
Morin-Kuznetsov

Wolf
X

[traptor]

How competitive does everyone think we'll be at this point?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by traptor

So I know we don't have a crystal ball.

Any player could pop off at any time. Maybe we get a McKenna and he puts up a ppg in his first year. We don't know the true ceiling of any prospect. But we can kind of project out what they're expected to be. Same with the vets two years down the road.

With that said...

We will be in year 4 of Conroys tenure in 26-27. Potentially 4 years out of playoffs. There was a 3-5 years plan.

Does anyone look at these rosters and see us as seriously competitive?

Four years is not enough to go down and up.

IMO, the rebuild started this summer, after moving some players last year. Four years of a rebuild would be very successful, IMO, so having a competitive team in 28/29 would be the target for me.

Expecting anything quicker is really unfair to Conroy. And if anything, we should be expecting longer than that.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by traptor

How competitive does everyone think we'll be at this point?

Not very unless they already have a surprise #1C in the system

[traptor]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Four years is not enough to go down and up.

IMO, the rebuild started this summer, after moving some players last year. Four years of a rebuild would be very successful, IMO, so having a competitive team in 28/29 would be the target for me.

Expecting anything quicker is really unfair to Conroy. And if anything, we should be expecting longer than that.

Yeah I agree that 4 years is tight.

The tough part is we havnt really gone down yet.

We missed playoffs two years now but havnt really bottomed out, finished 16th and 24th respectively.

We' re trending again for a mid teens finish.

I guess that's the tough question
Do we even end up bottoming out and if not, can you create a contender without bottoming out?

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by traptor

Yeah I agree that 4 years is tight.

The tough part is we havnt really gone down yet.

We missed playoffs two years now but havnt really bottomed out, finished 16th and 24th respectively.

We' re trending again for a mid teens finish.

I guess that's the tough question
Do we even end up bottoming out and if not, can you create a contender without bottoming out?

I think we may find out.

The play of Wolf alone may keep us out of the bottom 5.

We really need to win the lottery one of those years.

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

I think we may find out.

The play of Wolf alone may keep us out of the bottom 5.

We really need to win the lottery one of those years.

And if we win the lottery, we need it to be in a year when there is a franchise-changer at the top of the draft. I don’t know if this year features that kind of a player, but 2026 and 2027 appear to - McKenna and Dupont. I think rebuilds with high picks sometimes fail simply for having their high picks in the wrong years.

[Monahammer]

I don't disagree that the timeline is short for a rebuild. But I don't think management or ownership will let that happen, unfortunately. The timeline was chosen to align with McKenna draft and probable timeline set internally to be on the updating again.

[Monahammer]

Looking ahead to the 25-26 season post trade deadline, this is what we have going:

Huberdeau-Kadri- Coronato (RFA)
Zary (RFA)- Frost (RFA) -Farabee
Coleman-Backlund-Pospisil
Lomberg-Sharangovich-Klapka (RFA)

Wranglers/minors contracts: Gridin, Honzek, Stromgren, Basha, Bell, Ciona (Kerins and Morton RFAs)

Bahl (RFA) - Andersson
Bean - Weegar
Solovyov/ Grushnikov- Pachal

Wranglers/minors contracts: Parekh, Brzu, Morin, Jurmo (Kuznetsov and Poirier RFAs)

Wolf
Cooley

(Murphy and Ignatjew are RFAs)

Also have 1.875 mil retained on Markstrom for 25-26 still.

Total cap without RFAs: $60,726,667
Cap 25-26: $95,500,000
Remaining: $34,773,333
RFA estimates to fill roster:

Coronato: 6 mil x 5 years
Zary: 5 mil x 5 years
Frost: 4.5 mil x 3 years
Klapka: 1 mil x 2 years

Bahl: 6 mil x 7 years

Total: 22.5 million

Remaining cap: $12,273,333 million.

Well, that should be enough to go after someone like Marner I suppose. But, that would probably put us right up against the cap and I can't help but think we'd have a pretty weak roster. Our LD is looking particularly pathetic unless we have some really good upwards movement from our D prospects (Kuznetsov, Solovyov, Grushnikov, Poirier.)
I also feel like the forward core will be pretty stagnant. I don't think we have good line chemistry across the board right now.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Signing Mantha was puzzling.

Pump and dump.