2022 FlamesNation Prospect Rankings: The individual lists

Our consensus list has been revealed. The Calgary Flames’ top prospect according to our voting panel is reigning American Hockey League goaltender of the year Dustin Wolf.

Let’s take a look at how our list came to be.

Our six voters were tasked with sifting through Calgary’s 36 eligible prospects and crafting a list of who they deemed the top 20. (What constitued a “top prospect” was left deliberately vague and up to each voter’s interpretation.)

With each ballot submitted, FlamesNation managing editor Ryan Pike assigned 20 points to every prospect ranked No. 1 on each individual ballot and a single point for each No. 20-ranked prospect (and divided up as such for the in-between spots).

Nine prospects — Daniil Chechelev, Lucas Ciona, Lucas Feuk, Demetrios Koumontzis, Carl-Johan Lerby, Cade Littler, Mitchell Mattson, Josh Nodler and Eetu Tuulola — received no votes and, correspondingly, earned zero points towards their final ranking. (When we did the vote, Mattson was still Flames property.)

Parker Bell, Cole Jordan and Adam Klapka each earned one point, while Jake Boltmann received two points, Cameron Whynot three points, Dennis Gilbert five points and Cole Huckins six points. All ultimately missed the cut. Everybody that was on more than one ballot reached the top 20 list.

Here’s how the top 20 came together:

* – Phillips and Poirier each received 78 points and were in the exact same spot on four of six ballots. Ultimately, Phillips won a coin-toss to break the tie.

Seven new players feature on the 2022 rankings. Cole Schwindt joined the Flames via trade, Topi Ronni was their second-round selection in the 2022 NHL Draft, while Ben Jones joined the club via free agency. Four players rebounded from missing last year’s list to land on this year’s top 20: Jack Beck, Arsenii Sergeev, Ilya Nikolaev and Walker Duehr.

Daniel Vladar (No. 12) graduated to the NHL from last year’s list. Connor Mackey (No. 7) and Johannes Kinnvall (No. 17) aged out of this year’s list. Ryan Francis (No. 8), Glenn Gawdin (No. 10) and Emil Heineman (No. 14) all left the organization. Cole Huckins (No. 19) was eligible for this year’s list but didn’t receive enough support.

The 2022 top 20 features two goaltenders, three defencemen, and 15 forwards. In geographical terms, the list contains eight Canadians, three Americans, three Russians, two Slovaks, a Swede, a Finn, a Belarusian and a Norwegian.

Eight of our contributors submitted individual lists for the 2021 rankings. Here’s the breakdown:

Everybody had Wolf, Coronato and Pelletier 1-2-3 in some order, but things got a bit chaotic after that.