Pals, not a lot worked for the Calgary Flames during the 2025-26 season. But with the emergence of Calgary Wranglers starting netminder Devin Cooley as a pretty dang good backup at the National Hockey League level behind starter Dustin Wolf, the Flames had a goaltending pairing they felt pretty good about.

Cooley received a two year contract extension at the end of December, worth $1.35 million per season. Combined with Dustin Wolf’s own hefty extension from the summer, worth $7.5 million per year, the Flames have their NHL goaltending sewn up through at least the 2027-28 season.

Not only is the NHL group locked up, but behind Wolf and Cooley, the Flames have prospects Owen Say, Arsenii Sergeev and Kirill Zarubin under contract for the coming season. So the AHL group seems pretty solid, too, for the time being.

With stability at the position, is it reasonable to assume the Flames will use one of their many, many draft choices at the 2026 NHL Draft to select a goaltender?

Yeah, probably.

Past behaviour is a pretty big indicator of future behaviour. And while Jordan Sigalet only formally ascended to the Director of Goaltending position in 2020, he’s been someone consulted regarding potential goaltending additions – in the draft or otherwise – for even longer. Including 2019, when the Flames selected Wolf in the seventh round, the Flames have drafted five goaltenders across seven drafts:

Yegorov has committed to Miami University for the fall and we imagine he’ll be in college for a couple of seasons. But the Flames don’t have anyone coming up in the ranks behind Yegorov, and given their history of staggering goalie draft picks every couple of years so there’s always someone on their way up, we suspect the Flames will be targeting a netminder at some point in the draft.

We don’t think the Flames will necessarily need to prioritize a goaltender early – and we would be surprised if they targeted one of the top netminders available like Tobias Trejbal, Dmitri Borichev or Filip Ruzicka – but on the second day of the draft, perhaps in the fifth or sixth round, we wouldn’t be shocked if Sigalet has a few players in mind. The Flames’ goaltending department targeted Sergeev in the seventh round in 2021 and Yegorov in the sixth round in 2023, so another goaltending pick-up along those lines would be very much in the club’s wheelhouse.

After all, you can never have enough goaltenders.