Folks, over the last few years, the Calgary Flames have traded away a lot of veteran players in exchange for prospects and draft choices. As a result, they’ve made a lot of draft picks.

And a lot of their picks have turned out to be pretty good hockey players.

As the 2026 NHL Draft approaches, the Flames have a system that’s suddenly starting to look pretty jam-packed with talented players. And they own 11 draft picks in the upcoming draft, including two first-rounders, four second-rounders and two third-rounders. (Oh, and they have five picks in the first three rounds in 2027 and 2028, too.)

So with oodles of promising prospects in their system, we were curious: is there an optimal number of picks the Flames should be making in this year’s draft? And if so, how many picks should they make?

Let’s work backwards.

Between 2020 and 2024, the Flames have had the following results at the draft:

That’s 35 picks and 19 signings over five drafts, for a signing rate of about 54%. Now, generally speaking, the Flames have had success integrating four or five players into their entry-level system per season. So if we’re aiming to have four or five players from this draft class move into the pro ranks, based on that signing rate, they should make between 7.4 and 9.3 picks this year.

So let’s split the difference and go with 8.35…. or just eight picks.

Now, this signing rate could probably skewed a bit higher this year because the Flames have so many dang early picks – again: eight in the first three rounds – and you would have a higher expectation of signing your earlier picks than your later picks. But as a general guideline, eight total picks probably would be in the wheelhouse that the Flames would be operating in to keep stocking their system… but to avoid creating a logjam by throwing too many newcomers into the pro system at once.

All that means that if you’re the Flames, you’re probably aiming to make some trade-up moves so that you can consolidate your number of picks a bit and opt towards a bit more of a quality over quantity model of drafting this year. They’ve drafted well over the last few years and they’ve established a quantity of pretty good prospects, but a system that arguably lacks elite talent could use a few home-run swing picks at this year’s draft.

And the sheer volume of picks at the Flames’ disposal could give them the ammunition to pursue a few home-run swings via trade-up scenarios at the 2026 NHL Draft.

We’ll see what they end up doing at the end of the month.