To finish better than many expect of them, the Calgary Flames need big seasons from Matt Coronato, Matvei Gridin and Dustin Wolf.

External expectations are low for the Calgary Flames as they embark on their 2026-27 season.

Most experts have them finishing near the bottom of the NHL’s standings and winding up with one of the top picks in next year’s draft.

The Flames have surprised people before, though, most recently in 2024-25 when they came storming out of the gate to start the season and only missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker.

You won’t find anyone in the locker room at the Saddledome who is ready to accept their fate.

“Inside our room, all I can say is there’s a strong belief in the people in the room,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “What we’ve tried to do hasn’t changed for the last number of years … we try to get them to sort of quiet out the outside noise. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.

“When we say things inside the dressing room, that’s what matters. When players say things inside the dressing room, that’s what matters.”

What would actually have to happen for the Flames to exceed expectations, though?

What’s needed if they are going to wind up in contention for a playoff spot?

This is probably asking a lot, given that Matt Coronato scored 18 goals last season and Matvei Gridin only put up six in 37 games.

But they’re the two forwards most likely to make a jump this year. Coronato scored 24 times two years ago and Gridin is entering his second season in the NHL and said in April that he wanted to lead the team in points in 2026-27.

Both young wingers will start the season on a line with Morgan Frost at centre and will be getting a lot of opportunities on the Flames’ top power-play unit.

The team needs to get offence from somewhere and Gridin and Coronato are the leading candidates to make a big jump.

It’s not like Dustin Wolf was bad last season. Not by a longshot. It’s just that he wasn’t quite as great as he was the year before.

In 2024-25, he posted a .910 save percentage and a 2.64 goals-against-average. Last season, his save percentage was .899 and his GAA was 3.01.

Obviously, goaltending is important for every team and, if Wolf can get those numbers back up, he’s going to give the Flames a chance to win a lot of games.

There’s reason to believe he’ll be able to do that. Last year, the Flames didn’t have a ton of confidence in Devin Cooley at the beginning of the year and that meant Wolf had to take on an unsustainable workload.

With Cooley having earned the coaching staff’s trust, they should be able to better balance the amount of time each guy spends between the pipes.

The Flames had the second-worst power play in the NHL last season, converting on only 16.2% of their opportunities.

There’s real optimism about it improving this year, though, and that’s largely driven by the performances of young defencemen Zayne Parekh and Simon Nemec.

They’ll each be quarterbacking one of the Flames’ power-play units and have legitimate playmaking prowess that can be electric to watch. If they’re as dangerous as we believe they can be, the Flames should be a lot better in 5-on-4 situations.

Early in training camp, Huska was asked about what it would take for his forward group to score more goals and his answer was revealing.

“You have to go to the net to score goals,” Huska said. “We look at a lot of clips over the summer and we have some Grade A scoring chances coming down on one of these NHL goaltenders.

“Even if you’re in a prime scoring area, nine times out of 10 you’re not scoring on them. If you put someone in front of them and you bother them with your sightlines, now you improve your odds.

“We have to be willing to be a little more uncomfortable when it comes to that side of the game.”

The Flames don’t have a ton of skilled players who are going to deke their way through opposing defences, so they’re going to have to score goals the old-fashioned way: Getting to the net and creating a little chaos.

The Flames need to be better defensively than they were last year, when they allowed the 11th-most goals in the NHL.

There are a lot of things that go into that, but the reality is that they probably aren’t going to score a lot this season, so if they’re going to have any chance at success, they need to win low-scoring games.

They’ve got a new-look defence, with both Jake Middleton and Nemec joining in the off-season, and Huska preaches a responsible, defensively minded approach.

They’re going to need that if they’ve got any hope of exceeding expectations this season.

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