The Calgary Flames entered Tuesday’s NHL Draft Lottery with a 9.5 percent chance of jumping to the first overall pick. Instead, they dropped two spots, landing sixth overall and extending one of the more quietly painful streaks in the league.
The Flames have now never made a top three selection in franchise history, a distinction they share only with the Vegas Golden Knights and the Utah Mammoth. For a team in the middle of a deliberate rebuild, the result stings.
A Familiar Spot With High Stakes
A top three pick in this year’s draft, widely regarded as one of the strongest in recent memory at the top, would have accelerated Calgary’s timeline considerably. Sixth overall is still a valuable selection, but it is a very different conversation.
The Flames have selected sixth overall on five previous occasions. The most recent was in 2016, when they used the pick on Matthew Tkachuk, a selection that defined the franchise for the better part of a decade.
General manager Craig Conroy will be hoping for a similarly transformative outcome this time around. Conroy told media after the lottery that Calgary has identified six players they are targeting and that the final decision will depend heavily on the choices made by the five teams drafting ahead of them.
The Flames dropped Rasmus Andersson, MacKenzie Weegar, and Nazem Kadri during the 2025-26 season in a significant sell-off that netted two first-round picks, several second-round selections, and a collection of young prospects. That stockpile gives Conroy options.
He has expressed openness to trading up from existing picks if the right opportunity presents itself, though he has been cautious about the classic rebuilding temptation of swapping draft capital for established players before the pipeline has fully developed.
The Anaheim Blueprint Is Watching
Calgary’s front office has made no secret of their admiration for what the Anaheim Ducks have built. The Ducks emerged as a legitimate playoff contender this season without ever landing the first overall pick, instead building through consistent drafting, smart trades, and patient development.
With young forwards Matt Coronato and Connor Zary occasionally being used as healthy scratches, the Flames clearly still need high-ceiling additions at the top of the lineup rather than further depth. The sixth pick, paired with their additional first-round selection and prospect depth, gives Calgary the raw material to keep building intelligently.
The lottery did not turn out in their favor on Tuesday. But the Flames have enough assets around them to ensure that sixth overall can still matter.
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