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A look at the Flames’ 2026-27 season-opening salary cap picture

Photo credit: Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images

By Ryan Pike

Sep 30, 2026, 08:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 29, 2026, 23:58 EDT

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The Calgary Flames announced their 2026-27 season-opening roster on Monday afternoon.

The roster contains 23 active players – two goaltenders, eight defencemen and 13 forwards – plus one player on the injury reserve list. External expectations may be low, but salary cap flexibility is very high – and that’s despite the Flames starting the season with the most cap commitments they have ever had.

Here’s a snapshot of how things look as the curtain rises on 2026-27.

The opening roster, at a glance

Goalies [2]: $8,850,000	Wolf – $7.5 million Cooley – $1.35 million
Defencemen [8]: $24,403,750	Nemec – $7.25 million Bahl – $5.35 million Middleton – $4.35 million Whitecloud – $2.75 million Hanley – $1.75 million Pachal – $1.187 million Parekh – $953,750 Kuznetsov – $812,500
Forwards [13]: $42,487,916	Coronato – $6.5 million Sharangovich – $5.75 million Farabee – $5 million Strome – $5 million Frost – $4.375 million Zary – $3.775 million Backlund – $3.25 million Pospisil – $2.5 million Tsyplakov – $2.25 million Klapka – $1.25 million Othmann – $975,000 Gridin – $953,750 Honzek – $909,166
Injury Reserve [1]: $10,500,000	Huberdeau – $10.5 million
Retained Salary [2]: $3,850,000	Coleman – $2.45 million Kadri – $1.4 million

All-told, the Flames have cap commitments of $90,091,666 on their opening roster, which translates to $13.908 million in cap space if carried through the full season. In previous seasons, the Flames have barely dabbled into the $80+ million range for their cap spending, so this is a big jump. Yet they’re way below the $104 million cap ceiling.

Three players are on entry-level deals and are eligible for performance bonuses. These bonuses are above and beyond their “regular” cap hits, which are based on base salary and signing bonuses, and the bonuses only count against the cap if they’re achieved.

Zayne Parekh has $1 million of bonuses, connected to “Category A” bonuses.
Sam Honzek has $500,000 of bonuses, also connected to “Category A” bonuses.
Matvei Gridin has no performance bonuses in his deal.

(“Category A” bonuses are connected to a player meeting certain statistical benchmarks or qualifying for the All-Rookie Team.)

In a bit of a quirk, with the new collective bargaining agreement kicking in, and increases in minimum NHL salaries over the next few years, the cap hits for Parekh, Honzek and Gridin have actually been bumped slightly up from last season. (Increasing everyone’s NHL salaries for 2027-28 to $900,000 – from $855,000 for Honzek and $877,500 for Parekh and Gridin – changes their cap hits a little bit over the remainder of their deals.)

Finally, the Flames’ roster features five players who are on pace to become unrestricted free agents at the end of the season: Ryan Strome, Morgan Frost, Maxim Tsyplakov, Joel Hanley and Brayden Pachal. They could potentially be on the move between now and the Mar. 1 trade deadline.

We’ll see how the Flames take advantage of their ample cap flexibility over the next 190-ish days.

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