Pals, it’s been an eventful few days.

The Calgary Flames made nine selections at the 2026 NHL Draft on Friday and Saturday. On Monday, they opted not to tender qualifying offers to seven pending restricted free agents.

As we prepare for the opening of unrestricted free agency on Wednesday morning, let’s update our prior organizational snapshot as we get a better sense of what the 2026-27 edition of the Calgary Flames – and the Wranglers – could look like.

The NHL tandem seems set in stone, with Dustin Wolf and Devin Cooley. The AHL group looks to be first-year pro Kirill Zarubin and second-year pro Arseniii Sergeev. In his chat with Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg on Flames Talk on Monday, Flames director of goaltending Jordan Sigalet indicated the strong likelihood that Owen Say will be brought back on an AHL deal once he’s medically cleared from his surgery from last season and that another goalie will probably be added on an AHL deal, too.

[10 under contract]

Let’s work from top to bottom! Looking like NHL locks are Kevin Bahl, Olli Maatta, Zach Whitecloud, Simon Nemec, Zayne Parekh and Yan Kuznetsov. Battling it out for the one or two remaining spots behind them are Joel Hanley, Brayden Pachal and Hunter Brzustewicz; Brzustewicz is the easiest guy to send down because he’s waiver exempt, but we’ll see what happens.

It sure does feel like we’re going to get some AHL signings, though. At present, the Wranglers look to have Axel Hurtig and Abram Wiebe, both first-year pros, and… uh… several new faces. Whoever doesn’t make the NHL roster will be leaned on heavily, by the looks of it.

[7 under contract]

The NHL locks are the three veterans: Ryan Strome, Morgan Frost and Mikael Backlund. Who’s the fourth line centre? It could be Sam Morton, or Tyson Gross! Or perhaps an NHL-level winger, like Yegor Sharangovich or Martin Pospisil, are given a shot? Or Rory Kerins, used as both a centre and winger at the AHL level? Or do the Flames go out and sign somebody? Considering the exhibition season is just four games this year, and veterans can only play two games, we’re curious how this works itself out before games start counting in the standings in late September.

The Wranglers’ centres will primarily be Jonathan Castagna and some combination of Morton, Gross and Kerins. We’re operating under the assumption that Theo Stockselius is being loaned back to his Swedish club team until we’re told otherwise.

[15 under contract]

On Saturday, Flames general manager Craig Conroy indicated that Jonathan Huberdeau is on track for a return at the same start of the season. So, assuming everyone’s healthy and nobody is traded, the Flames have too many wingers at the NHL level. Locks on one-ways include Jonathan Huberdeau, Matt Coronato, Yegor Sharangovich, Joel Farabee, Blake Coleman, Connor Zary, Martin Pospisil, Maxim Tsyplakov and Adam Klapka. (We wouldn’t rule out the Flames waiving one of the last three players if they really struggle in camp, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.) Behind them, it’s basically impossible to keep Matvei Gridin off the NHL roster, and only slightly easier to keep Sam Honzek off of it. So that’s 11 wingers for eight spots. Even if one of them plays as a centre, they have too many bodies.

At the AHL level, Andrew Basha, Aydar Suniev, Rory Kerins, Dryden Hunt, Brennan Othmann and William Stromgren form a pretty decent-sounding top two or three lines, so we’ll see how that shakes out. (As noted in the centre section, Kerins has been used as both a winger and a centre in the AHL, so he’ll move around as needed.)