If you’ve followed the Calgary Flames at all this season you’ve probably heard quite a bit about young goaltender Dustin Wolf.
A California kid that played his junior hockey in the Western League, Wolf has become one of the more fun stories in the NHL this season. Selected fourth-from-last in the 2019 NHL Draft due to his small stature relative to other goaltenders, Wolf is among the league’s top rookies this season. This week over at Daily Faceoff, prospect guru Steven Ellis presented an update to his rankings for the Calder Trophy – awarded by the Professional Hockey Writers Association to the NHL’s top rookie.
Wolf was ranked fourth by Ellis, behind Montreal’s Lane Hutson, San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini and Phildelphia’s Matvei Michkov.
Here’s what Ellis had to say about Wolf:
Not only has Wolf been the best rookie goaltender this year, he’s actually been one of the hottest in recent weeks. He’s 5-1-1 since the start of December, and while he has had a few stinkers in the goals-against department, he almost always gives the Flames a chance to win. Wolf is still splitting starts with Daniel Vladar, with coach Ryan Huska not wanting to rush Wolf too much. And that’s fine – Wolf is getting results. The question, though: with Vladar a UFA and potentially on the trade block, will Wolf be the undisputed No. 1 by the March 7 trade deadline?
The 23-year-old Wolf is in his fourth year of pro hockey. In his first two seasons in the American Hockey League (2021-22 and 2022-23), he was the goaltender of the year. In 2022-23, he was the league’s most valuable player, too. In 2023-24, he played a third of the season in the NHL, subbing for injuries to Jacob Markstrom and Dan Vladar, and he was still one of the top goalies in the AHL.
Now a full-time NHLer, Wolf has made 21 starts for the Flames this season and posted a 13-6-2 record with a 2.60 goals against average, .914 save percentage and two shutouts. There are three rookie goaltenders that have made 10 or more appearances: Wolf, Nashville’s Justus Annunen and Philadelphia’s Aleksei Kolosov: Wolf leads these goalies in every goaltending category.
The Calder Trophy is awarded by the PHWA based on a vote by a geographically-balanced sub-set of the membership at the end of the regular season. We’ll see how Wolf performs in the second half of the season, but so far he’s made a strong case to be on ballots in the spring.
