Ryan based on their respective off seasons please give us your thoughts on each Pacific team: better, worse, or the same as last season. Thanks!
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Kicking off August with prospect, goaltending and jersey questions
Photo credit: Mike Gould
Welcome to the month of August, everybody. It’s the final month of the calendar year without Calgary Flames hockey. But as you can see from the sheer volume and quality of reader questions we’ve received, a lot of you have hockey on the brain.
As we gear up for the final full month of summer, let’s dive into the mailbag!
We’ll be getting into this in much more detail on the site later this month. But from my perspective, a quick and dirty rundown:
- Vegas and Anaheim got better. Vegas added Mitch Marner and between the moves Anaheim made and internal improvements, I think they’ll take a step.
- Everybody else, you can make a case that they’re basically as good as they were before. Vancouver added Evander Kane but also moved out Arturs Silovs and Dakota Joshua. Edmonton added Ike Howard but moved out Kane. Seattle did a bunch of stuff that doesn’t really inspire much confidence. San Jose added some more vets, but their progression is dependent on their kids improving. The Flames did very little, and their progression is dependent on their kids improving. The Kings added some bodies, but I’m not sure what the plan was with all the additions there.
In the Pacific, on paper, it feels like Vegas is ahead of everybody else, and then there’s a bunch of teams trying to catch them.
Who will backup wolf this year?
Barring a rough pre-season performance, I think Ivan Prosvetov has the inside track right now. He has a bit more NHL experience than Devin Cooley does, and so there’s a bit more of a book on how he might handle the ups and downs of an NHL season.
What do you see as the logical next step in Conroy's "retooling" plan? Aside from signing RFA's. Does Calgary have anyone under contract to actually push to be slotted in for any Centre position? Thanks Ryan 👍
I alluded to this in an earlier answer: I think the Flames have accumulated a lot of really interesting young talent, and now they need some of them to push for NHL spots. And they need the ones already in NHL spots to become key NHL players. Y’know how Matt Coronato and Dustin Wolf not only grabbed spots, but made themselves really important pieces for the red team? The Flames need a bunch more of their prospects to do that.
And if one of them could suddenly become a Johnny Gaudreau-level player, that would be helpful. The Flames have a lot of youngsters that project to be good NHL contributors, but they really need someone to emerge as an ace.
Do you see the club bringing in anyone on the ever popular PTO heading into camp & pre season?
The Flames have sporadically brought in players on PTOs in recent years, but with the sheer glut of kids in training camp, I don’t think they’ll do too much of it this fall. There’s not much appetite to block kids from pushing for NHL roster spots, and they don’t want to bring in veterans that have no shot at NHL gigs either.
So what’s August going to look like for Flames management? Might there be any moves or will they be content to sit back and maybe enjoy some butter tarts until training camp?
The Flames will probably keep working on a deal for Connor Zary, and probably try to make some progress on a new Dustin Wolf deal. But aside from that, preparations for the season will begin for the coaching staff while the scouting staff heads to Slovakia and Czechia to check out the Hlinka Gretzky Cup under-18 tournament to kick off the road to the 2026 NHL Draft.
Do the Flames have plans to replace the Young Stars tournament with a different event. Great to see the future Flames in action.
I suspect we’ll get an announcement sometime in August about whatever replaces the Young Stars Classic tournament. There will be something.
What Blasty content do the Flames or FlamesNation have planned for the upcoming season?
I suspect we’ll get a jersey schedule announcement from the Flames sometime in September, closer to training camp. My current understanding and expectation is that the Blasty third jersey will return for 2025-26.
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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