{"id":767256,"date":"2026-06-28T18:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/767256\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:20:21","slug":"grading-every-pick-of-the-calgary-flames-2026-nhl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/767256\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading Every Pick of the Calgary Flames 2026 NHL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">The 2026 NHL Draft has come and gone for the <a href=\"https:\/\/flameforthought.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Calgary Flames<\/a>, and while many hoped this would be a franchise altering night for the rebuilding organization, some fans have come away from things feeling underwhelmed.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">Despite this, the team came away with nine new prospects for fans to get excited about, and while they weren&#8217;t all hits, there&#8217;s enough talent that the team now hope they&#8217;ve added some significant pieces of the future. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">We won&#8217;t ultimately know what this draft looks like for at least another three years, but with some potential star power, plenty of grit and a potential long-term goaltending option sprinkled in, let&#8217;s take a look at all nine picks and grade the 2026 NHL Draft for Calgary.<\/p>\n<p>No. 6 Overall: LHD Carson Carels<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">Lost in the shuffle of day two is the fact that the Calgary Flames landed a cornerstone piece of their organization on Friday, drafting defenseman Carson Carels from Cyprus River, Manitoba. The 6-foot-2 blue liner plays with an edge while possessing some of the best offensive tools in the draft, and given that he&#8217;s got the talent to play all scenarios and 20+ minutes a night in the NHL, he will be a long-term piece for the Flames.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">On top of that, several times during the draft he was mentioned as a potential future letter wearer in the league, and maybe even a captain, showing just what type of character the team are getting as well. While he may not live up to those lofty heights, Carels was the obvious pick for a team building from their blue line out, and with all of the physical attributes, the character and the fit in Calgary, the board fell perfectly for Craig Conroy.<\/p>\n<p>Grade: A+<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow flameforthought.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=flameforthought.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NHL Draft has come and gone for the Calgary Flames, and while many hoped this would&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-767256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}