Our annual prospect rankings are complete for 2020. It’s the sixth consecutive year we’ve done a Top 20 list of Calgary Flames prospects and given that this tenure overlaps significantly with Brad Treliving’s time as general manager, it seems prudent to take a trip down memory lane.

Here’s a quick rundown of the prospect rankings we’ve done since Treliving was hired as GM in April 2014.

(Players in bold played enough NHL games the following season to use up their Calder Trophy eligibility and graduated from the list.)

Note: In 2014 we did a Flames 15 prior to the NHL Draft, which morphed into our Top 20 the following season with tweaked eligibility requirements.

Man, that 2014 group drops off pretty quickly, eh? This is the prospect group that Treliving inherited. Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau obviously have become cornerstone pieces. Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Morgan Klimchuk and Brett Kulak were converted via trade into Rasmus Andersson, Hunter Shinkaruk, Andrew Nielsen, Rinat Valiev and Matt Taormina – of which only Andersson remains. Everyone else on the list left the the organization for no return. (Honestly, the 2015 list isn’t all that better either.)

Valimaki obviously seems like the strongest contender to graduate from the 2020 list.

Beyond the improved depth in the organization, it’s interesting to see some trends:

What trends do you see across the past seven rankings? Sound off in the comments, then join us on Friday as we close out the 2020 prospect rankings with a discussion of how our various panelists came up with their individual rankings.