Friends, when the 2026 edition of the Stanley Cup playoffs begins on Apr. 18, there’s a pretty big chance that the Vegas Golden Knights will be taking part. (Our friends at The Athletic give Vegas a 92% chance of qualifying for the post-season.)

With the Calgary Flames distinctly outside the playoff picture – mathematically alive but with a sub-1% chance of making it – many Flames fans will be watching the post-season as dis-interested observers. Or rooting for their secondary teams.

But the Flames have a pretty unique incentive to pay attention to the post-season, connected to the Rasmus Andersson trade. If Vegas wins the Stanley Cup this year, the 2028 second-round pick the Flames received in that trade upgrades to a 2028 first-round pick.

But with the Flames owning Vegas’ 2026 first-round pick already, from the Noah Hanifin trade, there would be some trade-offs.

So which scenario would be the best for the Flames’ draft hopes? We consulted PuckPedia’s Perri Pick Value Calculator tool to weigh the options.

If Vegas wins the Stanley Cup this year, their first-round pick would be 31st overall – normally it would be 32nd overall, but Ottawa’s pick is cemented at 32nd overall as punishment for the Evgenii Dadonov no-trade list hubbub. If that happens, Vegas’ 2028 second-round pick would upgrade to a 2028 first-round pick.

In the Perri calculator, the 31st overall pick is worth 10.87. If we ballpark the first-round pick to the middle of the first round, 17th overall, that pick value is 22.18.

So in this scenario, total pick value is about 33.05.

If Vegas does not win the Stanley Cup this year, their 2026 first-round pick could fall anywhere from 17th to 30th overall. Their 2028 second-round pick would remain unchanged.

If we ballpark the best-case scenario for the 2026 first-round pick, Vegas would be the last wildcard team and have the 17th overall pick. (Valued at 22.18.) A mid-round 2028 second-round pick, 49th overall, would be valued at 5.19.

In this scenario, the best-case scenario with the highest value 2026 first-rounder the Flames could receive from a playoff-bound Vegas team in 2026, the total pick value is 27.37.

The difference in pick value between Vegas winning the Stanley Cup and Vegas not winning the Cup would be 5.68, the equivalent of the Flames receiving an additional mid second-round pick. And that’s with the non-Cup scenario having the highest-value first-rounder possible; it’s likely that the gap between the two scenarios will be even larger in actuality. (It feels unlikely that Vegas will have the worst first-rounder of the 16 playoff teams.)

Long story short: it’s better for the Flames maximizing draft pick value if Vegas wins the Stanley Cup this year and the Flames get a first-round pick instead of a second-round pick in 2028. If Flames fans want the best draft-related outcome for the Flames, they may need to be cheering on the Golden Knights between now and the end of June.