Hi Ryan, This is more pertaining to next season's Farwell to the Dome. Is there a Flame or two from the past that you feel hasn't been honored yet and should be recognized at the Saddledome before it's shuttered?
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Heading into the final four weeks of the season
Photo credit: Mike Gould
The Calgary Flames have 12 games remaining on their 2025-26 regular season schedule. They’re not going to be in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and they’re firming looking towards the future.
As we prepare for the final four weeks of the season, let’s delve into the mailbag!
I’ll give you two: Hakan Loob and Kent Nilsson.
Loob was the first, and to date only, Swedish player in NHL history to score 50 goals in a season. Nilsson’s 131-point 1980-81 campaign still stands as the best-ever by a Flame and best-ever by a Swede. It’d be a nice thing to tip their caps at some excellent, under-recognized Flames before moving up the road.
Hey Ryan! Just wanted to know your thoughts on the play of Frost and Farabee. Is it safe to say that Calgary won that trade with the Flyers by a mile now? And probably discovered new core pieces moving forward? Thanks!
I’ll say this: Joel Farabee has been consistently really good for the Flames this season. Even when he wasn’t scoring, he’s been doing a lot of really smart, useful things. Whenever Blake Coleman finds himself elsewhere, I would point to Farabee as the heir apparent for his role as a two-way checking winger. Flat-out: Farabee’s game has a clear identity now, and it’s made him really useful and valuable for the Flames.
Morgan Frost’s game has had more ups and downs. When he’s up, he’s really, really good. But there’s just the question of what he does to help the team win when he’s not scoring that needs to be fully answered.
Ryan can you please give us a player with the first 3 tiers of picks you think the Flames should target with an offer sheet this offseason? Keep up the great work!
I’d lean “nobody.” I think with the sheer volume of pretty effective depth wingers and many, many picks that the Flames own, they can probably do a better job of finding value via trade than via offer sheet. Teams almost always match offer sheets anyway.
How many of the 12 available picks this year will be actual picks? Which, if any, maybe be used to acquire talent thru trade?
I would argue that the Flames using all of their picks would be perfectly fine, but it’s probably the “worst-case” scenario. They have a ton of prospects already in their system. What would be better would probably be moving up in the draft and having a handful of higher-value picks rather than a slew of medium-value picks.
The four second-round picks, in particular, I think could be used to move up in the draft to take some bigger swings at higher-ceiling prospects.
Hi. What is a normal gameday for you? Like today, game time is 6 on a sunday night?
For a 6 p.m. start, it’s usually a 9:30 a.m. morning skate for the Flames, and when I attend morning skate – which is probably about a quarter of home games due to other commitments – I try to get in 15-20 minutes beforehand to get coffee and see if anybody is skating early – like goalies or injured players. After morning skate there are interviews with players and the head coach. If there’s anything newsworthy from morning skate we file something for the site, then head home. (When the road team also skates, add another hour on after the Flames skate.)
I usually try to be at the rink around 90 minutes before game time to have dinner and catch up with other media members on things happening around the league. We tend to be at the rink for around 60-90 minutes after the game doing post-game interviews and working on things to file for the site.
Things tend to vary a bit, though, depending on time of year and different circumstances. If I need to do put something together for my YouTube channel, I’ll get to the rink a bit earlier to work on that, too.
Assuming top two picks are set in draft, who do you have Flames picking 3,4 and 5.
If we’re saying Gavin McKenna is 1 and Ivar Stenberg is 2, I would have three defencemen after that: Keaton Verheoff at 3, Chase Reid at 4 and Albert Smits at 5.
After McKenna, do you see another 1A center in draft?
The top centre in the draft is generally thought to be Tynan Lawrence, with many also having Caleb Malhotra high on their rankings.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/BlueSky at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan.Pike [at] BetterCollective.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)
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