Every few seasons, the Calgary Flames make a selection out of the United States Hockey League, America’s top major-junior circuit, that turns out to be pretty savvy. Sometimes they make the pick late in the draft, and sometimes they make it early.

In 2011, they nabbed Johnny Gaudreau in the fourth round. In 2021, they selected Matt Coronato at 13th overall. In 2025, they chose Ethan Wyttenbach, then the first-ever winner of the USHL’s Gaudreau Award and now the reigning NCAA leading scorer, in the fifth round.

On Friday evening, with the 30th overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, the Flames selected Jack Hextall, a centre from the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms.

If his last name sounds familiar, it may be because long-time NHLer Ron Hextall is a distant cousin of his father’s. But in the scouting community, Hextall’s garnered quite a bit of attention for his year-over year progression, pace and competitiveness.

A product of the Chicago suburbs, Hextall starred with the Windy City Storm U13 and U14 teams in 2021-22 and 2022-23, then moved onto the Chicago Mission’s U15 team for 2023-24 – his teams won championships in 2023 and 2024. He made the jump to the USHL in 2024-25, as a 16-year-old, where he had 34 points as a rookie and won a gold medal with the American entry at the Junior A World Challenge as the youngest player on that team. In 2025-26, he nearly doubled his offensive output to 58 points and won a gold medal with the American entry at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, sitting second on that team in scoring.

Headed to Michigan State University in the fall, where he’ll be joined by 2025 Flames first-rounder Cullen Potter, Hextall expressed his appreciation for what his USHL time taught him.

“I love Youngstown and my time there,” said Hextall, speaking to Calgary media over Zoom on Friday evening. “Yeah, I learned a lot my first year. I grew up playing centre and then played winger my first year and kind of had to adjust. And I felt like that really helped me just being able to play both and being able to play on the wall and stuff like that. And I feel like when you play winger and then you go back to centre, you can kind of, you know, be better at centre coming from winger because you know what the wingers are thinking and stuff like that.”

In his final draft rankings, Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis observed that Hextall’s games “[showcased] a dynamic skill set with an endless motor” and praised his versatility. Speaking to the media in Calgary following the first round, Flames general manager Craig Conroy echoed Ellis’ assessment of his newest forward.

“He’s, you know, competitive,” said Conroy. “He does everything well. You know, right shot centre. You know, he plays hard on the inside. He’s going to do, he does all the little things you need to do to win games.”

The Flames don’t have a well-defined centre group moving forward – their most reliable pivot, captain Mikael Backlund, turned 36 on St. Patrick’s Day. But the Flames have been prioritizing adding centres with interesting skill-sets like Potter, Cole Reschny, Theo Stockselius, Max Curran, Jonathan Castagna and Tyson Gross to the fold, with the thought that they may find a gem.

With his unique combination of scoring touch and snarl – and right-handedness – Hextall represents a really exciting addition to the prospect group. We’ll see if he can continue the progression we’ve seen from him over the past few years as he heads to college in the fall.