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Carson Carels tops Daily Faceoff’s Flames top 10 prospects countdown

Photo credit: James Doyle - Prince George Cougars

By Ryan Pike

Jul 12, 2026, 12:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 12, 2026, 02:35 EDT

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Since Craig Conroy took the helm of the Calgary Flames back in May 2023, the hockey club has very much leaned into their youth movement.

Call it a retool or a rebuild or a re-whatever, but the long and the short of it is that the Flames have traded a lot of established NHL players for younger players and draft choices. And in doing so, they’ve dramatically overhauled their prospect pool.

Over at Daily Faceoff, our pal Steven Ellis is in the midst of his annual breakdowns of the 32 NHL club’s prospect pools. On Friday, he hit the Flames’, and provided his top 10 listing of the club’s youngsters.

Here’s how Ellis began his breakdown:

The Flames might very well have the best pipeline in hockey.
A pair of star defenders? Check. A potential top-six center? Yup! One of the best goaltending prospects in the game? You betcha. Calgary has done a good job of drafting prospects in the first round and finding some hidden gems. Ethan Wyttenbach, in particular, was one of the most exciting prospects in the game this past season. No matter what level of hockey you watched, if there was a Flames prospect involved, they were typically one of the best players in the league.

Topping Ellis’ top 10 rundown is the Flames’ most recent top pick, sixth-overall selection Carson Carels. Here’s what Ellis wrote about Carels:

It always felt like if the Flames were going to take a defenseman, they would try to snag the best left-handed blueliner on the board. The New York Rangers ultimately took Alberts Smits at No. 5, but I still like Carels more. He was one of the best young defenders in the CHL, and scouts love him. Carels brings that rugged, heavy-lifting mentality he and his family use on the farm right onto the ice. When you combine his elite defensive awareness, seamless two-way game, punishing physique and off-the-charts hockey IQ, you get a truly premium defensive prospect. He showed high-end flashes during the World Juniors, and he possesses every tool necessary to become a top-pairing defender one day. You won’t find many more defensemen as rounded as him in the draft, and he hits like an absolute truck. Carels is the type of prospect who’ll work his tail off no matter what, and you have to love that.

The rest of Ellis’ top five included Zayne Parekh, Cole Reschny, Matvei Gridin and Hunter Brzustewicz.

Our annual prospect rankings are coming up next month. And while we have slightly different criteria – we use Calder Trophy eligibility so Parekh, Gridin and Brzustewicz have played too many games to be considered prospects under our ranking – but it’s always illuminating to see who Ellis, someone who watches a ton of hockey across every organization and league, sees as the Flames’ best prospects.

Head on over to Daily Faceoff for Ellis’ full Flames prospect list breakdown!

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