Friends, the history of the Calgary Flames selecting goaltenders early in the NHL Draft is a bit messy. If you look at the history of goalies taken in the first few rounds, you’ll see a lot of painful names that represent some missed opportunities.

But sometimes the Flames managed to get it right when it came to netminders.

A local kid, Vernon grew up playing hockey in Calgary and worked his way up through the Calgary Canucks and Calgary Wranglers. He impressed a ton and was selected in the third round, 56th overall, in the 1981 draft. When I spoke with him for my book, On The Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Calgary Flames at the NHL Draft, former Flames assistant GM (and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee) David Poile joked that he and his wife spent their “date nights” at Wranglers games, scouting Vernon.

Vernon played a couple post-draft seasons in the Dub, capping off a junior career that saw him win the league’s MVP and top goaltender awards twice each. Due to a quirk in the CHL’s rules at that point, despite the Wranglers being eliminated from the playoffs in 1982 and 1983 he was able to be loaned to the Portland Winterhawks in both seasons for the Memorial Cup. (He won the tournament in 1983.)

Vernon went pro in 1983-84 and primarily played minor league hockey for two and a half seasons, toiling for the Central League’s Colorado Flames, the International League’s Salt Lake Golden Eagles and the American League’s Moncton Golden Flames. Vernon was called up to the Flames in January 1986 due to an injury to incumbent backup Marc D’Amour and ended up snapping a record 11-game Flames losing skid. He ended up hanging around as Reggie Lemelin’s understudy for the rest of the season, and was selected to start their first-round playoff series against Winnipeg due to his strong regular season performances against them that year. He led the Flames to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance and remained the Flames’ top netminder for years after that.

It’s hard to really describe Vernon because he wasn’t big, but he was a really athletic, battling small goaltender and did a great job keeping the Flames in games. He basically wrote the Flames record book when it came to goaltending. There was probably no better encapsulation of Vernon’s value than the 1989 Stanley Cup run: he didn’t make every save, but he made the important saves. Case in point: there may be no more important single stop in franchise history than his save on Stan Smyl in Game 7 against Vancouver.

Vernon remained the Flames’ top dog in net as the 1990s began, but the Flames began accumulating younger goaltenders as salaries began to rise. After the 1993-94 season, the Flames opted to hand the reins to 1990 first-round pick Trevor Kidd, who had spent 1992-93 as Vernon’s backup. Vernon was traded to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for blueliner Steve Chiasson. Kidd didn’t quite live up to Vernon’s standard, but when you consider Vernon’s age, Kidd’s youth, and their salaries relative to each other, you understand the impulse to move onto a younger goaltender.

Vernon won a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 1997. He returned to the Flames in 2000 and had a two-season curtain call before retiring. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023.

Yeah, given the risks involved and the variability of outcomes when drafting goalies early, the Flames’ recent tendency to take goalies late in the draft makes sense. But when you take a goaltender earlier, sometimes they turn into Mike Vernon.

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