It isn’t always the end of the world for a player to be passed over in their first year of NHL draft eligibility.

In 2024, the Calgary Flames picked two players (Trevor Hoskin and Eric Jamieson) who had gone unselected the previous year despite being there for the taking. Andrew Mangiapane, one of the team’s biggest draft success stories of the past decade, went to the Flames in the sixth round in 2015 after being passed over entirely in 2014.

Not many players receive that second chance, but the ones who do typically get it for a reason. Even so, it’s uncommon for teams to take a swing on a re-entry player earlier than the second round, and if a team does elect to take an early swing on an older prospect, it’s usually on a goalie: Adam Gajan was the first re-entry off the board in 2023 (No. 35 to Chicago), followed by Ilya Nabokov last year (No. 38 to Colorado).

No two draft lists are the same, and it’s entirely possible that a certain team holds a certain prospect in higher regard than the public scouting sphere, but hardly anyone expects to see an over-age player drafted in the first round this year. However, it’s entirely possible that we start to see teams roll the dice soon thereafter on some of the older and more complex prospects who have already taken major steps forward in their development — albeit, in most cases, a year or two behind schedule.

Here are four intriguing re-entry prospects whose names the Flames could call at the 2025 NHL Draft later this month.

If you took even a passing interest in Andrew Basha’s return from injury to help Medicine Hat earn a spot in the Memorial Cup, you probably noticed Pickford at some point along the way. The Edmonton-born rearguard has now been a part of two WHL championship teams and finished the season on one of the most impressive goal-scoring runs we’ve seen from any junior defenceman in recent history.

Pickford concluded the WHL playoffs on a record-setting eight-game goal-scoring streak, finding the back of the net 10 times over that span, and continued with two more goals in the Tigers’ 5-4 win over the Rimouski Océanic to open the Memorial Cup. He was held off the scoresheet in their final three games of the tournament but still fired nine shots on goal. He’s not the biggest guy — 6′, 190 pounds — but his offensive upside is quite substantial.

After scoring just eight goals in 121 games over parts of three seasons with the Seattle Thunderbirds to begin his WHL career, Pickford was traded to the Tigers ahead of his second year of NHL draft eligibility and immediately took off, racking up 20 goals and 47 points in 48 games during the 2024-25 regular season. His playoff run, as you might expect from the aforementioned scoring streak, was even better: 13 goals, 24 points, a +23 rating, and 64 shots in just 18 games. Pickford was a big scorer in his AAA days up in Wainwright, and it took a change of scenery — and a bigger role — for him to finally rediscover that aspect of his game in the ‘Dub.

The Flames already have more than their fair share of average-sized right-handed defenders with strong offensive tools, but Pickford offers a ton of value as a mid-round target and could feasibly end up being one of the first names off the board on Day 2. If he does end up falling into the third or fourth round … well, you can never have enough righties, hey?

Zayne Parekh assisted on a lot of goals scored by Epperson in Saginaw this past season. He’s obviously no Michael Misa, and he probably isn’t Igor Chernyshov, but Epperson is a worthwhile project in his own right who has long been regarded as one of the more talented American-born players of his age group, albeit not without his flaws.

Two years ago, Epperson emerged as a quality secondary scorer for the USNTDP junior team alongside the likes of James Hagens, Cole Eiserman, Gabe Perreault, and Will Smith. The Shattuck St. Mary’s alum collected 13 goals and 29 points in 39 USHL games that year and scored at a similar clip with the National U17 team. But here we are, two years later, and pretty much every notable member of the 2022-23 USNTDP Juniors has either been drafted or is a consensus 2025 first-rounder in the making — except Epperson.

Scott Wheeler, who coincidentally published his own list of the top re-entry players for 2025 at The Athletic late last month, shed a little more light on Epperson’s situation in that piece:

So, there’s a bit of a push and pull at play here. On one hand, Epperson scoring 27 goals and 80 points in 58 OHL games is no joke, even on a high-flying offensive team like Saginaw. For comparison’s sake, Flames 2024 second-rounder Jacob Battaglia, who is two months older than Epperson, managed 90 points in 68 games with Kingston last year. At the same time, talent only takes you so far in the NHL. Epperson is widely expected to be drafted at some point this year, and he’ll have plenty of time to mature — he’s starting at the University of Denver next season — but the Flames will certainly want to weigh all these factors before they use a pick on him.

It wasn’t planned this way, but it just so happens that all four of the players on this list have played alongside current members of the Flames’ prospect pool. Last year, Dell’Elce was a freshman on a UMass Minutemen team led by sophomore forward and Flames 2023 third-round pick Aydar Suniev, who capped off the year by turning pro and making his NHL debut.

Like Pickford, Dell’Elce is a smallish defenceman (6’1″, 179 pounds) who looks to be a bit of a late bloomer. But while Pickford has exclusively demonstrated his considerable talents against junior competition, Dell’Elce has already been able to show what he can do against older, more mature counterparts. He’s also a lefty, which generally wouldn’t be of note — quality left-handed D typically outnumber righties — except that, aside from Étienne Morin and Jérémie Poirier, the Flames’ system sorely lacks quality défenseurs gauche.

Dell’Elce has been named to his league’s All-Rookie Team the last two years running, with Hockey East recognizing him in 2025 after the BCHL did the same in 2024. The King City, Ontario product joined the Penticton Vees for the 2023-24 season after two strong years at St. Andrew’s College, but while he may not have forced his way into serious draft consideration 12 months ago, Dell’Elce is certainly in the conversation one year into his tenure at UMass.

A particularly strong skater and shooter, Dell’Elce managed 24 points (seven goals, 17 assists) in 40 games with the Minutemen in 2024-25 and was leaned upon particularly heavily to quarterback a power-play unit — uncommon for a freshman. He was one of 10 players at UMass to skate in every single game and finished the year a +18, tying for second on the team. Simply put, Dell’Elce had the kind of D+1 year you’d really hope to see out of a kid drafted in the third or fourth round in his first year of eligibility. Now that teams know he can survive and thrive in an NCAA environment, he’ll be picked for sure.

Cerrato didn’t just play with Flames prospect Arsenii Sergeev at Penn State this past season; he was also teammates with none other than Kristian Epperson at the USNTDP two years ago. Now, he’s one of the most highly regarded NCAA prospects not currently affiliated with an NHL team — although that’s likely to change in a few weeks’ time.

After playing a secondary role with the National Team in 2022-23, it wasn’t terribly surprising to see Cerrato get passed over in his first year of draft eligibility. He was good, but not great, with the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms in 2023-24. But now, coming off a great freshman season at Penn State, Cerrato is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing under-the-radar 2025 draft targets.

Despite spending more than his fair share of time away from top scorer Aiden Fink at 5-on-5, Cerrato finished second on the Nittany Lions with 42 points (15 goals, 27 assists) in 38 games. He plays an aggressive, up-tempo style that allows him to make his presence felt away from the puck while also enabling him to make plays like this:

Cerrato is an average-sized centre (6’0″, 190 pounds) who could probably stand to benefit from another year or two at school, but he has all the makings of a quality mid-round pick with the potential to outperform his draft positioning. Think of it this way: If the Flames drafted an 18-year-old in the third or fourth round who became a point-per-game NCAA centre two years later, we’d probably all be excited about him, right?

With the organization’s dearth of centres extensively documented by now, the Flames need to make as many bets as they can on guys like Cerrato. He’d be a nice secondary or tertiary piece for their 2025 draft class.

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