This is genuinely MASSIVE for the Flames’ future | Calgary Flames News

Scott Wheeler's highly anticipated NHL drafted prospect rankings have been dropped and the Calgary Flames are well represented, which is genuinely massive for the future of the franchise. We know the future is bright in Calgary, but it's good to get some outside recognition. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest. I'm Mark Gravith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure you subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family, and yes indeed we have the first edition of the prospect rankings from Scott Wheeler throughout the year, and this of course is the NHL drafted prospects. Obviously there's some younger guys coming up maybe in next year's draft, the draft after guys like Landon Dupont, who would probably be in the top 100 prospects overall, but these are ones who have been drafted and are obviously affiliated with a certain team. So from Scott Wheeler, my annual top 100 drafted NHL prospects ranking is out at the Athletic. He does full reports and projections on everyone. There's tiers for all these players. It's honestly really, really good. If you want to go take a look, it would take hours to read the whole thing because he really does a deep dive on every single player, but what we care about, who we care about of course, are our drafted Calgary Flames, and there are actually seven players listed. So as Flames Prospects points out, seven Flames players feature on Scott Wheeler's summer top prospects list, and it even has their numbers there, and we're going to dive into each player individually here, but look at that. Our top two guys are in the top 11 of NHL drafted prospects. So at number six, Zayn Parekh, at number 11, Carson Carls. How amazing is that? That could be genuinely our top D pairing for the next, what we're hoping is something like 15 years. After that, you got Matt in the 30s, Cullen Potter at 86, Brustevich at 90, and Ethan Wittenbach, a man who probably should have won the Hobie Baker, clocking in at number 100, just making the list. And think of all the good prospects that the Flames have as well that don't even make the top 100. That is really, really impressive. Some of those guys who we just drafted, like a Hextall, you have other guys who have been drafted in the past, like Mews, you know, really good players overall. We could go on for a long time about our prospects, but either way, some are more NHL ready, some not as much, but let's take a little deep dive into each. Again, he writes a lot for each player, and I just don't have the space on each video to put everything he says about each player. It would also take me so long to read. So I just grabbed a screengrab, one screengrab per player here. So let's start with just the, I guess, the intro to the article. So welcome to the Summer 2026 edition of his ranking of the NHL's best prospects at the Athletic. This two-part, twice-a-year project ranks the league's top 100 drafted skaters and top 20 drafted goalies, which will be released tomorrow. We might have a goalie in there, probably not. This edition of my top 100 drafted prospects ranking includes 24 players from the 2026 draft, 25 from 2025, 23 from 2024, 18 from 2023, and 10 from 2022. It doesn't look like it's gonna take that long to say all that, but it does. It's made up of 70 forwards and 30 defensemen, 13 lefties and 17 righties. As we know, we love a right-sided defenseman. I actually take back what I said earlier. We will definitely have one goalie in that top 20 there, but either way, let's start with Zane Parekh, since if we flash back here, he was at number six. So Parekh is one of the most talented prospects in the sport and has the potential to be an offensive game changer. He plays an aggressive and natural offensive style where he looks to attack off the line, into the slot, or even the front of the net or below the goal line. He'll also regularly involve himself in the rush, much like a winger does, driving down the wall in control to challenge defenders and attack into his shot or create an odd man rush. He's extremely confident offensively and opens up his feet where necessary around the zone without going to his heel-to-heel by default. He has great hands and a casual looking skating posture, which he uses to carry pucks with a visual ease and beat the first layer of pressure to get to his spots. That is a lot of positive attributes there about Big Z. You'll love to hear that again. This goes on for a long time. Feel free to go read it all. Honestly, I will always accept some Parekh glazing. I absolutely love that guy. Next up, as we saw, number 11, Carson Carl. So let's get into that. Carl's production had a major uptick in his draft year to round out a game that already possessed an attractive combination of skating strength and natural physicality. He's an all-around defenseman who plays the game firmly and directly in all three zones and on both sides of the puck. His game is more about instinct rather than being super cerebral, and he can be a little sloppy at times with his stick placement closeout decisions on the puck, but he's quite toolsy and looks like a pro in a lot of ways. If it was up to him again, he would want to go pro right away, but good decision to go to school for at least one year for him before maybe making a few appearances for the Flames at the end of the season. But either way, he really does seem like as close as it gets to a sure thing of what should be a very good NHL player. I cannot wait for him to make that leap. So excited to see how he develops this year down at UND, of course. Back to this list. Number 31 is Matt Vey Gritton, who was arguably and maybe not even arguably, but pretty easily the most exciting Flame to watch last season. So Gritton has a quick NHL look to his release. He really does. He can play a north-south direct game and an east-west one with impressive poise and an ability to slow everything down. He regularly tries and pulls off difficult plays on the ice. Again, exciting. He has shown he can snake his way out of trouble or play pucks through or pass defenders, but he can also play off his line mates as more of a quick strike option. Part of that is a credit to his ability to think and adapt quickly on the ice. I've seen him lift his head from a pass reception and make several instinctual, no-panic plays under immediate pressure in a split second. He has good size and good enough skating. It also goes on to say he has taken positive strides in his development, yada yada, and then goes on for a long time as well. But we absolutely love Gritton. He has been such a nice surprise. I know he was a first-rounder, but still wasn't as highly touted as some of these other guys, and he already genuinely might be the Flames' best forward. That is how good he is. Nothing but love and admiration for Gritty here. Let's head back here. So the next is Cole Reshny at 38, which could he be our 1C of the future? Potentially. So one of Scott Wheeler's favorites from the 2025 draft class, Reshny is highly skilled but also highly competitive and has driven both play and creation in junior and college as a center who is strong, involved, and committed in all areas of the ice. He's really good at face-offs too. Remember the world juniors and stuff? That was impressive. He has a motor and defensive zone know-how and commitment, but he's also a natural playmaker with soft skill under pressure and with limited time and space. He creates chances for himself and his linemates as a natural handler and a capable finisher and passer. He will then work off the puck and takes pride in his play in all three zones. Such a complete player. Absolutely love to see that. Obviously, you want that number one skilled guy to really be your 1C. You know, your types like Sidney Crosby, stuff like that. And I'm not that I'm saying Crosby isn't a complete player. Holy crap, is he ever. But a guy like Reshny could very well go down as our 2C for many, many years. If not, could be a really good 1C. I love Reshny as well. Hopefully, he can also continue to develop very well at UND. Back over here. So taking a huge jump, almost 50 spots. We head to Cullen Potter, who was drafted in that first round with Cole Reshny. Let's get into Potter here. Ah, this one. One of hockey's best skating prospects, Potter is a smallish but talented player who uses his electric speed to put defenders on their heels, create opportunistic chances, get out in transition and jump onto loose pucks. He's a fun player to watch with his ability to go inside out and outside in on players, round corners on and his desire to attack off the rush and challenge D, sorry, challenge D by turning on the jets, burning them wide or blazing into a quick stop up. Scott Wheeler loves a long sentence, but so do I. Listen to all those attributes. He's tough to catch in straight lines or track in and out of cuts. He has some cleverness one-on-one. He can be creative with the puck on his stick and can really get going in a hurry and has shown an ability to finish plays as well with a great release. Overall, what I'm getting from that whole paragraph there is he's just really, really fast and really exciting to watch. He's got loads of skill. It would be awesome if he develops into the player that the Flames thought they grabbed when they drafted him. Obviously had that big injury last season, but this season, clean slate. Hopefully he'll continue to develop. Would love to see him in a few NHL games at the end of this season as well. Moving on, just four spots is the man on here who I think maybe has played the most NHL games. Maybe that's written. I'm not too sure, but either way, let's talk about Hunter here. So he has become more and more active in transition. He can comfortably play his offside. His on ice intelligent gets high grades for how methodical and pinpoint accurate his execution is in the offensive zone. His head is always up and he's comfortably beating the first layer of pressure to make his plays. Even if he's not a who will break multiple ankles in a sequence. He projects as a smart, offensively inclined, but defensively capable number four. And I thought about ranking him a few spots higher, maybe taking Colin Potter spot, but it is true. He does seem like a very solid guy. We spoke about him a lot just a couple of videos ago. Well, I guess a few videos ago now, but is he going to be the odd man out? Would it be better to develop him in the AHL for the first bit of the season? Maybe trade away one of the other demon by the trade deadline and get Bruce Savage upper, just have him there. Maybe as a guy who slots in every other game, kind of as that, like six, seventh defenseman sort of thing. Um, well, we'll see what Paul and Hanley end up doing, but either way, it's, it is still a conundrum with Bruce Savage heading into the season, but there's no doubt. He's still a really good prospect and will be a very good NHL player. Now the final one is a man who we loved talking about last season. And that of course is Ethan Wittenbach again, a man who very well could have won the Hobie Baker trophy. So Wittenbach skating, which got an average grade pre-draft and is never going to be a separator, showed improvement this year. And while his play defensively still needs some work, he tracked and got back more pucks than I expected and cut down on how much he was gliding. And the offense didn't just look legit last year. He created a lot of it himself. He can play the game at different paces himself, uh, or sorry, he can play the game at different paces with the puck, maybe with himself, pause, don't even know what I'm saying anymore, but either way he gets open off it, uh, continuing and as high end skill as a handler, it just continues with the innuendos. Playmaker and shooter with an ability to beat coverage, beat goalies one-on-one and pick spots in the net off the flank with his curl and drag release. I'm sorry. I'm so immature. Uh, he's also a highly intelligent offensive player who understands spacing, timing and execution on offense. He's going to be an interesting case study in the NHL because of his makeup, but it's hard to ignore what he accomplished this season. If he can repeat it next year as a sophomore, we could be seeing him in NHL games as early as spring 2027. And according to Conroy and Wittenbach himself, that is definitely the plan. Would love to see that. I just like how Ethan Wittenbach, he's such a calm guy, even calm player, but he seems quite excited when it comes to the flames, which is super, super cool. Very excited to see what happens there, but overall fantastic that we're so well represented in this top a hundred hats off again to our scouting team and the management group for just having wonderful drafts over and over. Would love to see how maybe more of our guys from this year's draft develop and we'll see what happens. And of course the drafts of the next couple of years. Now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we love to do here on the channel. It does unfortunately come from a couple of videos ago as I am pre-recording this one. So I don't have one from the crazy McDavid video, but either way the Draco seer here says, I just don't see white cloud getting moved so soon, maybe next year, but why not? If there's a deal that they like all say, do it. And again, money always talks. It depends what's on the table, what the market for white cloud is. If there's an offer you can't refuse, you have to take it. But either way, there's a lot of value in keeping him for this season. And maybe you ship him out next year when his contract is expiring, but either way, I think no matter what the flames are good with white cloud. So love to see it. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please subscribe.