It sure seems like June is Craig Conroy’s month.

Two years ago, his Calgary Flames knocked it out of the park with a fantastic 2024 draft class. The following summer, they picked up right where they left off with a centre-heavy crop of intriguing prospects.

And now, here we are, with all seven rounds of the 2026 NHL Draft in the books, and Conroy has ushered another wave of highly talented young prospects — including another potential franchise cornerstone — into the Flames’ overflowing talent pool.

A frequent Frank J. Selke Trophy candidate at the peak of his playing career, Conroy has continually emphasized his desire to build a strong defensive pipeline since taking over as the Flames’ general manager in 2023. He proceeded to assemble a formidable group of right-handed defenders essentially from scratch over a span of six months during the 2023–24 season, acquiring Hunter Brzustewicz in one of his first major trades and capping off the year by drafting Zayne Parekh and Henry Mews.

Conroy added yet another right-shot defender with sky-high potential in a blockbuster deal with the New Jersey Devils this past week, sending out a package headlined by two future first-round picks in exchange for Simon Nemec, the No. 2 overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. Like Parekh, Nemec isn’t the most imposing or defensively stout, but he has skill to burn and, at just 22 years of age, already has 155 games with the Devils under his belt. With so many righties now in place, Parekh may start next season playing on Zach Whitecloud’s left side, where he enjoyed his greatest NHL success to date during the 2025-26 stretch drive.

Parekh and Nemec could both become legitimate top-pairing defenders in Calgary. But even with those two in the fold, Conroy wasn’t done strengthening the position that wins championships. After all, with due respect to Kevin Bahl and Yan Kuznetsov, the Flames still seemed to be one blue-chip lefty away from putting together a truly balanced defensive group, and it just so happened that there was one tailor-made for them at the No. 6 spot in this year’s draft.

Carson Carels is a farm boy from rural Manitoba. He’s a great skater and a highly physical player who scores a ton of goals with his cannonading shot. In a lot of ways, he projects to be an ideal partner for Parekh or Nemec. He’s arguably the most well-rounded defender in the 2026 draft class, and now, he’s a Calgary Flame.

Carels scored 20 goals with the Prince George Cougars in the 2025–26 season as one of the WHL’s youngest draft-eligible defenders. He tied winger Brock Souch for second on the Cougars with 73 points in 58 games, and he locked down a spot on Team Canada at the 2026 World Juniors, an impressive feat for any 17-year-old rearguard. It’s been a long time since the Flames have had a defence prospect of this calibre; over their first 45 years in Calgary, they never drafted a defender higher than No. 9 overall.

In the end, it was Calgary’s most iconic No. 9 who made the Carels pick official at No. 6.

After the Flames drafted Carels on Friday, they didn’t take another defenceman until their very last pick the following afternoon, because they didn’t need to. Carels is a potential No. 1 D joining a Flames team with a defensive pipeline that now rivals any other.

The San Jose Sharks’ prospect pool may be the class of the league, but even they don’t have the horses on their blue line to match what Calgary has assembled. The Montreal Canadiens have Lane Hutson, whom the Flames absolutely should’ve picked in 2022, but their depth doesn’t remotely compare. Chicago? Utah? Anaheim? Not even close. Calgary’s defensive pipeline is the envy of the NHL, and its strength will define the early years of Flames hockey at Scotia Place.

For all the potential gripes about the Flames building a slightly one-dimensional defensive group under Conroy, Carels is now the lead of a surprisingly strong cast of rugged, hard-nosed types. But while players like Bahl, Kuznetsov, Mace’o Phillips, and Axel Hurtig more closely resemble the archetypal shutdown defence prospect of yesteryear, Carels himself is plenty capable of making an impact at both ends of the ice — and off of it. Just ask Conroy, who described Carels on draft night as “a character that could become a captain one day of the Calgary Flames.”

Conroy embraced the theme of making the Flames harder to play against throughout this year’s draft, selecting a pair of highly projectable and hard-working forwards in Jack Hextall and Chase Harrington in the 30s before trading up to take Tobias Trejbal, the top goaltender in the class, at No. 42. And with mid-range picks Alan Shaikhlislamov, Egor Barabanov, and Simon Katolicky, the Flames added three more good-sized forwards consistently ranked close to (or higher than) where they were picked. Late-rounder Bode Laylin seems like a worthwhile project on the blue line, and of course, there’s just so much to love about Joe Iginla.

It’s more than fair to say the Flames are set on defence for years to come. Carels, Parekh, and Nemec could each become a No. 1 or 2 in the right environment; Bahl, Brzustewicz, and Mews, among others, project to be ideal complementary top-four pieces. And with Trejbal joining Dustin Wolf, Devin Cooley, Kirill Zarubin, and Arsenii Sergeev, the Flames have one of the strongest groups of goaltenders in the NHL.

Conroy’s next task, and certainly the most difficult one, will be to find that elusive No. 1 centre prospect, something the Flames haven’t had in a very long time. But even still, they already have Cole Reschny, Cullen Potter, Theo Stockselius, and Hextall as top prospects down the middle, as well as Matvei Gridin, Matt Coronato, Ethan Wyttenbach, Andrew Basha, and Sam Honzek on the wings. The Flames have built a strong foundation, and all they have to do is find the same types of star-level prospects that they have on defence.

Many of the necessary pieces are already in place. With a little lottery luck — also something they’ve seldom had — the Flames won’t have to wait long to be able to put on a good show for their fans at the new rink.