Former Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving often quipped that the game of hockey should simply be called “goaltending” because of how crucial that position is to having success. After all: if you have goaltending, you have a lot. But if you don’t have goaltending, you don’t have much.

In 2024-25, the Flames had goaltending because of Dustin Wolf, and it’s hard to argue that there were many players more integral to their club’s success last season.

But as Craig Conroy continues to work on fleshing out the rest of the club’s roster with young, high-end players, he’ll be relying heavily on Wolf to hold things together and keep the team competitive in individual games and the overall standings. With the Flames finishing oh-so-close to a playoff berth in 2024-25, they’ll need Wolf not only to maintain his standard of play from his rookie year… but somehow find another level.

At a position where there’s a ton of year-to-year volatility and variability, can Wolf avoid the sophomore slump in 2025-26?

Over the past three decades, most goaltenders that made the All-Rookie Team in their first NHL seasons have tended to turn out pretty well – they were strong rookies and then maintain that level of play for awhile. But we’ve seen a few players have brief windows of brilliant play for a season or two before crashing back down to Earth a bit: among them, Jim Carey, Dan Blackburn, Sebastian Caron, Steve Mason and Alex Nedeljkovic.

There are tons of reasons why goaltenders can regress in their performance after early success.

On the opposition side, teams do their homework. After a year in the league facing NHL shooters, each team’s video and goaltending staffs would be working to figure out a goaltender’s tendencies and traits – look at how many teams worked to get additional screens and tips against Wolf in the back half of 2024-25 as an example of these adjustments.

On the Flames’ side, just think of how the Flames took the training wheels off Wolf in the back half of the season after using Dan Vladar to insulate him early on, and think of how the Flames suddenly have less established backup goatending than Wolf had to rely on in his rookie year. As a result, the Flames will be leaning on Wolf more and more, and he’ll be operating without much of a safety net. The Flames’ situation with Wolf – realizing they have a good netminder on their hands and taking the training wheels off – isn’t atypical of a team that has a goaltender that performs this well; they’re simply removing a safety net that doesn’t seem to be necessary.

So, why might Wolf not regress?

The Flames have a lot of confidence in Wolf because, well, he’s Dustin Wolf, and has been since he migrated to the Western Hockey League in 2017. He put up preposterous numbers in the Dub and racked up wins and shutouts at a record pace – take away the COVID-19 pandemic shortening the 2020-21 season and he’s probably the top goalie statistically in WHL history. He went to the AHL and after a quick adjustment, did the same thing. And we saw how he adjusted to full-time NHL work in 2024-25: he thrived. His resume, in terms of consistently strong individual performances dating back to 2017-18, is pretty bonkers.

There are plenty of reasons to look at conventional goaltending wisdom and go, “Oh man, I’m worried that Wolf might backslide a bit in 2025-26.” But Wolf has been defying conventional goaltending wisdom for the better part of a decade in high-end hockey.

We’ll see if he can keep doing it this season.

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