The Calgary Flames come into the free agency period in a pretty unique position, having seen enough steps forward by their youngest players that they barely missed the playoffs last season. The Flames are seeking to continue their youth movement, and perhaps nudge themselves to the friendly side of the playoff cut line in 2025-26.

And they have enough available cap space that they can afford to get themselves a bit of help, if they want.

Here’s a quick look at the Flames’ roster and cap situation as free agency begins.

Forwards

The Flames have 11 forwards on one-way deals:

Jonathan Huberdeau – $10.5 million
Nazem Kadri – $7 million
Matt Coronato – $6.5 million
Yegor Sharangovich – $5.75 million
Joel Farabee – $5 million
Blake Coleman – $4.9 million
Mikael Backlund – $4.5 million
Ryan Lomberg – $2 million
Adam Klapka – $1.25 million
Martin Pospisil – $1 million
Justin Kirkland – $900,000

Restricted free agents Connor Zary and Morgan Frost both received one-way qualifying offers and are virtual locks to be on the NHL roster in the fall. Barring a player being moved, the forward group is close to being locked in.

Defencemen

The Flames have seven defencemen on one-way deals:

MacKenzie Weegar – $6.25 million
Kevin Bahl – $5.35 million
Rasmus Andersson – $4.55 million
Jake Bean – $1.75 million
Daniil Miromanov – $1.25 million
Brayden Pachal – $1.19 million
Ilya Solovyov – $775,000

He’s not on a one-way deal, but we’re just gonna note that Zayne Parekh would have a $942,500 cap hit on the NHL roster. We’re not including him in our salary cap calculations, y’know, just sayin’. The inclusion of Parekh would likely dislodge an incumbent, and there’s the X-factor of Rasmus Andersson’s status.

We suspect the Flames will probably make some additions here, to prepare for Andersson’s departure and/or to add a left-shot option so that MacKenzie Weegar can have the option of playing on his natural right side. Aside from Andersson, we would suggest that the spots for Jake Bean, Daniil Miromanov and Ilya Solovyov are far from guaranteed for 2025-26.

Goaltenders

The Flames have two goalies on one-way deals:

Dustin Wolf – $850,000
Devin Cooley – $775,000

The Flames are also paying $1.875 million of Jacob Markstrom’s cap hit this season in New Jersey.

Dustin Wolf was runner-up for the Calder Trophy and received Vezina Trophy votes last season… and he’s making $75,000 north of league minimum. Considering that Devin Cooley had a rough second half of 2024-25, the Flames will be adding a goalie, even just to create a competition for the backup job in the fall.

The overall picture

All-in-all, the Flames have 20 players under contract and one salary they’ve retained in a trade. They have a combined $73,912,500 in cap commitments, leaving $21,587,500 available to spend.

We don’t expect them to go big game hunting necessarily, but they definitely have the ability to make moves over the next few weeks.

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