Has Ryan Huska lost his faith in Dustin Wolf or is he simply just riding the hot goalie; if so, do you think Wolf continues to crumble and lose the crease to Cooley, or is there still belief from the coach that he can regain his form from last season?
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Talking goalies, trade rumours and the draft
Photo credit: Mike Gould
November was an odd month for Calgary Flames fans.
In addition to the Flames going 7-6-2 on the ice, we saw some existential discussion stemming from Don Maloney’s intermission interview midway through the month and the usual hand-wringing that you would naturally expect from fans of a hockey club flirting with the basement of the standings.
And yet… there was also a bit of hope here and there, usually in the form of some young players performing well.
As we begin December: onto the mailbag!
Via Flames TV, here’s what Ryan Huska said in response to Eric Francis’ question after Sunday’s game about the approach to goaltending (and whether they’re at a “win and you’re in” mentality):
“The nice part about it now, Devin’s been really good, so there isn’t a sense that we have to over-play Dustin or always go back to a certain guy. We have two good goaltenders now and Devin’s proven that we need to look at him that way. So he’s done an excellent job. Short answer would be ‘no,’ we’re not at that.”
The idea of going back to Cooley frequently in recent games has been to reward him for his strong play.
How much of a distraction has all this trade speculation been to the Flames roster? Or do players tune out the noise?
Right now, I would say it hasn’t really been. The big trade chip the Flames have is Rasmus Andersson, and he’s been great at just playing well and not making it a big deal. He addressed his status at the beginning of the season at the golf tournament, and since then it hasn’t really come up in conversation all that much with the media.
Blake Coleman was featured in a recent piece from Postmedia’s Wes Gilbertson about his strong start (and the subsequent trade chatter), and he noted that he’s not paying much attention to it. A lot of veteran players opt not to spend much time on social media because they’re busy enough with their families and kids and other things.
Ryan, hypothetical question. Could the flames take Vegas’s first round pick and a first they get in a potential Ras trade to obtain another top 10 pick in this years draft? Keep up the great work on the walk and talks!
Hypothetically, it’s possible, but the big challenge is that the closer you get to the draft, the more teams holding picks have clearer ideas of the players they would be taking. Or, in the case of trading picks, the player they would be turning down an opportunity to get. So the more excited a team becomes about drafting a particular player at a particular spot, the tougher it’ll be to convince them to move that pick.
With Conny seemingly having two of our best drafts in what seems like forever, with this year being considered very strong, with his and his team's eye for talent, do you think this draft could be our best ever?
According to the definitive book on Calgary Flames draft history, written by me, the best-ever Flames draft was their 1984 class that landed them Gary Roberts, Paul Ranheim, Brett Hull, Jiri Hrdina and Gary Suter. In the modern, seven-round draft era (beginning in 2005), I would argue that their masterclass was their 2015 group that produced Andrew Mangiapane, Rasmus Andersson and Oliver Kylington.
I think the Flames’ last few drafts under Craig Conroy have all been really promising, though, with 24 players taken over the three drafts and four of them already having played some NHL games with the Flames. There’s a lot to like about both the Flames’ recent draft results and the 2026 class as a whole, so optimism is probably merited. We’ll see how everything shakes out.
Yan Kuznetsov is a very good hockey player. Zayne Parekh is a very good hockey player. They both play the same position, but they have extremely different roles and styles.
Kuznetsov was drafted in 2020 and he’s 23 years old. He played against grown men for two seasons at the University of Connecticut, and the 2025-26 season is his fourth full professional season. Simply put: he’s big, he has experience defending against grown men, and his skills and play style compliment MacKenzie Weegar’s really well.
Parekh was drafted in 2024 and he’s 19 years old. This is his first season playing against grown men, and sometimes that’s pretty apparent. He’s a really fast, smart, dynamic offensive defender. When he has a chance to fill out the off-puck details of his game, he could be a really good pro. Honestly, it might just be a situation where his body needs to catch up with his brain a bit.
I’ll be honest: I’d love to see Kuznetsov and Parekh played together a bit after Parekh returns from the World Juniors. I have no clue what the rest of the Flames defensive group looks like in early January, but Kuznetsov went through a really interesting learning curve in his pro career – including playing AHL games at 19 and 20 – and he could be a really great resource for Parekh as he transitions back to the NHL.
I have no idea about the inner dynamics of the Flames ownership group. But I would expect that the ownership chairman and majority shareholder would hold the most sway within the group simply because of owning a bigger piece of the hockey club than the others.
Can you update us on Pospisil? Why wasn’t he put on LTIR? Did he have surgery? If it’s due to a concussion then we should be worried about his future in hockey.
The last time I asked about Martin Pospisil, who’s out with an undisclosed injury, is that he’s still a ways away from returning. When more information is shared from the hockey club, we’ll pass it along. He wasn’t placed on the long-term injury reserve (LTIR) because that’s only really used when a team is out of cap space and needs to use an injured player’s cap hit to exceed the salary cap. Since the Flames have ample cap room, Pospisil has remained on “regular” IR.
Is there any chance this pathetic franchise could just leave town for good??
The Flames signed a 35-year lease at Scotia Place which begins when they take control of the completed building in 2027-28, so you’re stuck with them until (at least) 2062-63.
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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