The Calgary Flames have a pretty deep prospect base. After adding nine new faces at the 2026 NHL Draft, the depth chart features 38 players eligible for the Calder Trophy – the basis we use for considering a player a prospect.

With 38 players in the mix, not everybody could crack the top 20 in our staff’s annual balloting. But with the prospect base as deep as it’s ever been, we felt everyone in the Flames’ system deserved profiling.

Here are four players that didn’t crack our top 20.

This is the last year we’ll have Chechelev on our rankings, as he’ll age out next year. He was selected in the 2020 draft with the pick the Flames acquired from Buffalo in the Michael Frolik trade. Chechelev was a really good junior goalie in Russia – with a .921 save percentage in 103 MHL games – but he just never quite the developmental reps to build his game much beyond that.

Some of that is because of the sometimes challenging politics of Russian hockey, as club teams in Russia don’t have much incentive to give anyone a ton of playing time if they think they might head to North America. Some of that is because when he came to North America in 2021-22, he was playing behind a minute-muncher in the AHL named Dustin Wolf who earned a ton of playing time… which didn’t leave Chechelev much of a role beyond being a reliable ECHL option.

He’s since returned to Russia and he showed well last season as the third goalie with the minor-pro VHL’s Olympia Kirovo-Chepetsk. Hopefully he can carve out a role for himself in European hockey if that’s what he wants to do.

He’s not huge physically, but Michael Benning has consistently found ways to be a reliable, productive, useful player for teams at every level of hockey. He was a really good AJHL defenceman with the Sherwood Park Crusaders. Then he built himself up to being a really good college defender with the University of Denver, winning a national championship there. And while he hasn’t found a foothold at the NHL level quite yet – he played 18 games for the Panthers last season and was pretty solid – he’s built himself into a really good AHL blueliner. He signed with the Flames as a free agent on July 1.

At the AHL level, Benning’s been a pretty consistent 30-35-point producer. He’s better suited to offensive situations, so expect to see him get power play time and a lot of offensive zone starts, but three seasons into his pro career he’s a known quantity. We’ll see if he can get another NHL opportunity to showcase himself, but at the very least, he’s been a good AHLer.

Man, Cade Littler is kinda fascinating. The son of long-time coach Bliss Littler, who’s been behind a bench in pretty strong leagues since the 1990s, Cade is a big, toolsy forward that plays centre or the wing, depending on what his team needs.

He played in the BCHL and USHL for a few seasons before going to the NCAA as a 20-year-old freshman two years ago, landing with the University of North Dakota. For someone with size and a ton of raw skill probably needing a bit of polishing, the “old” college environment seemed to fit him like a glove. Unfortunately, despite a pretty solid freshman year in 2024-25, he didn’t really move up the depth chart at North Dakota as a sophomore due to the arrival of a slew of talent from Canadian major junior.

He transferred to Arizona State University for his junior year in 2026-27. The Sun Devils have less depth than a lot of the bigger college programs, and on paper it seems like a great opportunity for Littler to take on a bigger role and grow his game. He remains a bit of a project, but between his family ties, tools and size, you can understand some enthusiasm about his potential.

A pretty versatile, big-bodied forward who can play centre or the wing, Jaden Lipinski feels like the exact type of major junior player that collegiate opportunities for built for. He’s got size and smarts, but seemingly needed a bit more time to work on his tools so his game can find another level.

Lipinski spent essentially four full seasons in the Western League with the Vancouver Giants, progressing to the point where he was just shy of a point-per-game player in his 19-year-old seasons but not quite dominating offensively. He began his 20-year-old season on a try-out with the Wranglers, but couldn’t find a clear role and soon returned to the Dub for his overage season.

He joined the University of Maine in 2025-26 after playing out his junior eligibility, and he had 12 points in 30 games, landing in a big group of Maine players with more or less the same scoring rate behind their top group of five offensive players. Moving to college – and the other side of the continent – is a big jump, and carving out a regular role but not being a top college player as a freshman is still a positive step. But with a pretty crowded prospect group in Calgary’s system, Lipinski will need to take a step offensively if he has pro aspirations.