We’ve reached the final day of our pre-prospect rankings miniseries here at FlamesNation. The real countdown will begin on Thursday, but we still have two honourable mentions to get through before that can happen.

After talking about Russian goaltenders Arsenii Sergeev and Yegor Yegorov, Canadian winger Parker Bell, and Swedish defenceman Axel Hurtig earlier this week, it’s time to take a closer look at a pair of forwards who just barely missed the cut for our main rankings. We’ll kick things off this fine Wednesday morning with of the oldest Calder Trophy-eligible players in the Flames’ system.

To start things off with a bit of perspective, Sam Morton began his junior career in the BCHL the same year Matthew Tkachuk made his NHL debut with the Flames. He skated in his first NCAA games with Union College in 2018-19 and proceeded to spend parts of six seasons playing college hockey (no, that’s not a typo) before finally turning pro with the Calgary Wranglers this past spring.

For all intents and purposes, Morton is hardly a prospect anymore, and that fact seems to have damaged his standing in the eyes of some of our panelists. Seven of our 10 voters left him off their ballots entirely, and of the three who did include him, only one ranked him higher than 20th — way higher, in fact.

But, in all fairness to my FlamesNation colleagues who did vote for Morton, he did just put together a genuinely impressive … er, triple-senior season at Minnesota State – Mankato, racking up a team-leading 24 goals and 34 points in 37 games with the Mavericks. He then proceeded to amass eight goals and 11 points in his first 19 pro games with the Wranglers over the final stretch of the 2023-24 regular season and into the playoffs.

Morton won a BCHL championship in 2018 with the Wenatchee Wild (back when they still played in that league) before making his first foray into the NCAA the following year. However, after struggling to make a mark over parts of two seasons at Union, Morton returned to Wenatchee to conclude the 2019-20 campaign before transferring to Mankato.

Granted an extra year of NCAA eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Morton took full advantage of the circumstances. He did all he could to fine-tune his game over his four seasons with the Mavericks, although he never quite popped off from an offensive standpoint until his final year: Morton scored more goals in his sixth season of college hockey than he did in his first five years combined.

Once he joined the Wranglers at the tail end of the 2023-24 season, Morton quickly established himself as a trusted option for Wranglers head coach Trent Cull. He spent much of his brief stint with the club playing centre, the position at which he excelled during his final year at Minnesota State, and was one of only three Wranglers players to score multiple goals in the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs.

Morton is one of the oldest Calder Trophy-eligible players in the Flames’ system. Much like fellow ex-Maverick standout Connor Mackey before him, he arrived in Calgary much closer to being a finished prospect than most other prospects. Morton is older than guys like Martin Pospisil, Connor Zary, Kevin Bahl, and Brayden Pachal, all of whom played at least 50 NHL games last season; he has played zero. If he’s ever going to make it, it’ll probably have to be now.

The good news for Morton is that he won’t have to face a ton of competition to steal a roster spot out of training camp this fall. The benchmark for him will simply be to outplay guys like Kevin Rooney and Dryden Hunt; his waiver-exempt status may hurt his chances, but another spot could open up if the injury bug bites.

Morton might not have the same pure upside as some of the players who didn’t receive any votes from our panel, but what he does have going for him is the potential to make the show pretty much immediately. He’s as close to playing his first NHL games as anyone else in the system — and there’s a chance he could carve out a nice little niche for himself, much like Garnet Hathaway or Derek Ryan before him. But it’s now or never.