A pair of Calgary Flames players will be continuing on playing hockey into the spring.

During Friday’s exit interviews, it was announced that goaltender Devin Cooley and forward Martin Pospisil will be representing their countries at the upcoming 2026 IIHF World Hockey Championships in Switzerland in May.

Cooley will be suiting up for the United States and Pospisil will be playing for Slovakia.

The 28-year-old Cooley just finished his first NHL season after spending time working his way up the hockey ladder. Since he turned 20 in 2017, he’s played three seasons in the NCAA, then spent time in the ECHL, AHL and NHL. After spending last season in the AHL with the Calgary Wranglers – with a spectacular first half derailed by a mid-season concussion – he won the backup job behind Dustin Wolf during training camp, then established himself as one of the better-performing backup in the entire NHL this season. He was named Calgary’s nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy earlier this month.

In 31 appearances with the Flames in 2025-26, he went 10-10-6 with a 2.69 goals against average and .909 save percentage. This will be his first-ever opportunity to represent USA Hockey at any sort of major event.

The 26-year-old Pospisil just finished his third NHL season. Since he went pro in 2019-20 just before turning 20, he’s been a mainstay in the Flames minor league system, performing well enough to generate call-up buzz but having rough enough injury luck to prevent himself from getting into the NHL.

He finally got called up in 2023-24 and carved out a niche for himself as a strong forechecker and agitator at his best, but his unfortunate injury luck has persisted. He suffered a concussion during training camp this past fall, and he got into zero NHL games until after a protracted rehabilitation process and a pair of AHL conditioning stint games. When he finally got into the lineup, his long layoff likely led to consistency challenges, and he ended up playing just 22 games and posting just three points, sliding down the depth chart and becoming a fourth-line/healthy scratch player.

Pospisil has been a mainstay of Slovakia’s national team program in recent years, appearing for them at the recent 2026 Winter Olympics. Given the year he’s had, a good showing at the Worlds would go a long way towards giving him some momentum heading into the off-season.

The 2026 IIHF World Hockey Championships go May 15-31 from Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland.