Calgary Flames Director of Amateur Scouting, Tod Button, sat down with the media following the conclusion of the 2026 NHL Draft. He broke down every player the Flames selected. Here’s what he had to say about the Flames’ haul this year.
Carson Carels – Round 1, Pick 6
Top player. So excited to have him play every situation. Culture guy, leader. He’s going to be one of those guys that is is going to be here for a long time. He plays every situation. He’s a winner. I don’t have much more to say. I know Connie loves the kid. We were ecstatic. Really ecstatic.
Jack Hextall – Round 1, Pick 30
He’s a hockey player. That’s what he is. He’s a hockey player. Some guys, they have more skill or they’re more fancy and you have their individual parts might look better, but they can’t put it all together. The sum of all the parts is what Jack Hextall is. He can play center. He plays every situation. He’s good on faceoffs. And when we first started interviewing him and talking to him, he had such a great command of what he was going to be. He knew what he was. He knew his path. Being from a hockey family, he knew what his path was and he knew he wasn’t going to go to Michigan State next year and be on the power play. It’s a really good team. And he said I’m going to do this the first year. I’m going to get some penalty killing time. I’m going there because they have a track record with their sports science department. I need to add strength and speed and everything. So, it was really cool to have a kid that was really mature and had a his own path already set out before he even talked to us. So, two-way player, multiple-situation player. Really, really happy to add him.
Chase Harrington – Round 2, Pick 36
He’s a gritty, tenacious guy. He creates room for his linemates. He’s he’s possession skill. He scores in the hard areas. He’s a rebound trench area guy. We talk about goals in the hard areas with a guy draped on his back or tying up his stick. He’s fearless in that way. And he’s really good in and around the net areas. And he can play with good players. And we saw that this year with the players he played with. We’ve seen it last year with the players he played with. He has a B game which is physicality and tenacity and grit and jam. So he was a very attractive guy for us.
Tobias Trejbal – Round 2, Pick 42
[Jordan Sigalet] Jordy loves this kid. He thinks he’s a number one goalie. He’s going to UMass. Good pick there.
Alan Shaikhlislamov – Round 2, Pick 55
He was a guy that, I say this a lot because Dennis Gbeskov does such a good job for us and since we haven’t been able to travel into Russia, having eyes on players, we did it without a Russian scout for a while and having eyes on a guy and having a guy that played in the NHL for so long and a guy that can talk to these guys in their native language and interview him, he just liked the guy. He just thought he was diligent, hardworking. He’s one of those guys Dennis said he could play more flashy and try more risk but he doesn’t; he just plays the right way all the time and I was telling Pat Steinberg like years ago we there was a guy that played the same way in London and he didn’t play with flash, he was maybe a point a game his draft year but he played every situation. And I’m not comparing this guy to him but it’s the same style and it was Robert Thomas. And then Robert Thomas, we’ve seen what he’s done so this guy’s the same way, he plays the right way. We’re hoping that uh he can play with better players and as he gets to higher levels, he’s going to get more offense to him, but we’re really attracted by the diligence and the hard work and the two-way game that he shows. He’s a thick strong kid and he plays he plays an honest game.
Joe Iginla – Round 3, Pick 65
I know Joe played with an injury this year and coming into the year we saw him at the 17s last year and he’s just he’s got the DNA. He’s got hockey sense. He’s got hands. He’s just needs to develop physically. He needs physical maturation. And we know that takes time, but we also know the again the DNA and the work ethic. So, we think at that point it was a no-brainer. He was the next guy on our list and we’re happy that he was there. And to be honest, I thought we had a chance at him there because we knew where he was rated, but you never know. So, that’s why you work your list and you do it your way. You don’t worry about what anybody else says. But I know central scouting had him very low, but I think because of the injury and he didn’t have a great start in Edmonton, but he picked it up in Vancouver, I think we got a really good player there in the third round.
Egor Barabanov – Round 4, Pick 100
He played the last two years in the USHL. So he came on the radar mostly with Terry Dorne because we’re watching Klepov so much. So he played a line with Klepov in Saginaw and a guy we’re going to talk about next year, Dima Zhilkin, who’s going to be a top pick next year, and they were a dynamite line offensively. So, that’s how we started watching him. He’s a lighter kid. He’s got skill, he’s got vision. He can see the ice, he makes plays, he’s a little bit feisty, like sneaky feisty, like he’ll pop you when you’re not expecting it. And then where we were that was a value pick totally for us with taking a shot at a center iceman first of all but high skill, high skill.
Simon Kaltalicky – Round 5, Pick 132
Czech guy, played in Finland the last two years. When our guys came back from the U17s a couple years ago they talked about this guy like he’s going to be a good player for this draft. He went through a bad year as far as he was sick, he had appendicitis, he had injuries. He also played with ribs [injury] and our finish scout thought he never really got his traction, he could never get consistent games and he was always fighting it. But at that point it was like you know in the fifth round and this guy we’re talking about late first early second at the beginning of the year he it was again value. He’s got size. He works. He’s competitive. He’s a good skater. He’s going to Sarnia.
Bode Laylin – Round 6, Pick 164
Going to Everett next year. Very cerebral, puck-moving defenseman. Uh Jimmy and Mike Craig [area scounts] again USHL, They really liked him they were really supported by the analytic group. When it came to that pick, there was a couple guys we talked. The analytics provided them with the confidence that this is a good swing. Maybe he’s undersized for sure but puck mover, skater, we got time. He’s going to go to school so you know three four years down the road we’ll see.