Calgary Flames' Last Season At The Saddledome Will Be Hard To Watch, But It's Necessary Pain

As the Calgary Flames prepare to play their final season in the ancient Saddledome, they’ve, in some ways, turned the corner in their rebuild.

No more veterans are bound to be traded the way Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman, Rasmus Andersson, and MacKenzie Weegar have been dealt in the past year. Calgary has plenty of young players who must prove they’re worth investing in.

And the anticipated inconsistency of their youngsters will result in many, if not most, games ending in defeat for the Flames.

That’s the bad news about this 2026-27 season. Although Flames GM Craig Conroy has been making shrewd moves – including picking up young defenseman Simon Nemec from the New Jersey Devils – Conroy would be the first to tell you his team is going to struggle at times.

That’s a natural development as the organization separates the wheat from the chaff and figures out who they can count on and who they can't.

So if you’re a Flames fan, you can focus on this coming season as almost certainly another season at the bottom of the Pacific Division standings. Or you can take the more optimistic view and see this season as a proving ground, with golden opportunities for Calgary’s young, inexperienced players to rise to the occasion.

The Flames’ top pick in this year’s NHL entry draft – slick blueliner Carson Carels – is heading to the NCAA with the University of North Dakota. So patience will remain a virtue for Calgary fans and management alike. But there’s legitimate talent in the Flames’ system, and if Calgary fans take the positive view, they could be rewarded by seeing youngsters assert themselves as part of the solution.

That list of players starts with Nemec. The 22-year-old has been stuck behind a logjam of D-men in New Jersey, but Nemec showed the beginnings of a breakout last season, posting 11 goals and 26 points in 68 games. Flames coach Ryan Huska will give Nemec every opportunity to develop into a bona fide force at both ends of the ice.

Meanwhile, another key young player for Calgary is winger Matt Coronato. The 24-year-old’s numbers regressed slightly last season, as his 18-goal, 45-point season was less impressive than his 24-goal, 47-point season in 2024-25. But improvement isn’t always linear, so Huska and Conroy will be delicate with Coronato as he continues to push himself for better results.

Similarly, star goalie Dustin Wolf aims to correct course and improve his 2025-26 numbers, including an .899 save percentage, down from a .910 SP in 2024-25. The 25-year-old Wolf has had a heavy workload the past two years, appearing in a combined 110 regular-season games. Wolf could only do so much playing behind a porous Flames defense, but the dominance he displayed in his first full season is what the Calgary brass are counting on for this generation of the team.

Now, Calgary does have some veterans to set the tone for the team. While winger Jonathan Huberdeau will always be judged by his mammoth contract, he’s still a proud professional who represents the organization very well. The same goes for captain Michael Backlund, winger Joel Farabee, and centers Morgan Frost and Ryan Strome.

But by the time this Flames team evolves into the year-in, year-out Stanley Cup front-runner Calgary fans are desperate to see, many of those veterans will be retired, traded, or both.

It’s all shaping up to be another challenging season for the Flames. But we’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and when Calgary moves into the Scotia Place arena at this time next year, Flames fans will want to see the skeleton of a true Cup contender.

They’re getting there, slowly.

But this season will have more than its share of trying times for Calgary, and how they respond to the opportunities in front of them will go a long way toward the Flames firming up their identity and showing the hockey world this pain was worth it.