Should the Calgary Flames sign Cole Jordan?

The Calgary Flames have until June 1 to make some decisions on a handful of previously-selected draft choices. With those decisions still looming, we thought it was time to review the players the club still needs to commit entry-level contracts to… or let them walk away.

Next up on our rundowns of pending prospect decisions: blueliner Cole Jordan.

It really doesn’t take much to figure out what the Flames scouts liked about Jordan. Listed at 6’2″ and 200 pounds, the left-shot Jordan was touted by scouts in the Dub as a great skater with a ton of potential – between his hockey sense and his mobility, he was seem as somebody with a potentially high developmental ceiling. In his draft year with the Moose Jaw Warriors, he had 10 points in 23 games in the truncated 2020-21 season and was a fifth-round selection of the Flames in that year’s NHL Draft.

Since then? Jordan has had horrible injury luck that has left his immense potential as just that: potential. In 2021-22, he was limited to 36 games, missing 32 games due to injuries. In 2022-23, he missed the final 51 games after a season-ending injury. Out of 136 potential regular season games in his two post-draft seasons, he suited up for just 53 of them.

Jordan’s development was obviously hampered by his lack of game reps, but even in his fairly small sample size there wasn’t a pronounced jump in his offensive production.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: bad injury luck is nobody’s fault, and nobody’s going to give Jordan grief for his tough luck over the past two seasons. But it’s also extremely tough to project Jordan’s development based on the extremely limited sample size over the two seasons since he was selected.

Hopefully Jordan’s able to bounce back from his season-ending injury and he can catch on somewhere in the American Hockey League. If his skating remains a strength, it’ll give him a chance to develop. Plenty of players have bounced back from post-draft injuries and become notable pros.

But it’s tough to commit an entry-level deal to somebody who’s played as little as he has over the past two seasons. It seems very unlikely that the Flames sign him before June 1.