Flames' Wolf and Weegar serve as a reminder of the imperfect NHL draft process

CTV News

2 days ago

Calgary Flames goalie Dustin Wolf celebrates with MacKenzie Weegar after defeating the Buffalo Sabres in NHL hockey action in Calgary on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Larry MacDougal)
The future stars of professional hockey are set to take the stage at the 2025 NHL Entry Draft in Los Angeles on Friday, but it's not a perfect process.
Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf almost went undrafted in 2019, not selected until the seventh round.
'Being a late draft pick, I couldn't have been much later – [I was] fourth from last,' Wold said. 'You have a chip on your shoulder trying to prove people wrong every day.'
Over the course of the 2024-25 season, he proved a lot of people wrong, compiling a 2.64 goals against average and .910 save percentage. Wolf won 29 out of the 53 games he started.
Wolf was then nominated for the Calder Memorial Trophy, given out to the league's top rookie.
TSN's director of scouting, Craig Button, was asked where Wolf would go if teams could re-draft him.
'Everybody's looking for a number one goaltender, and now you know that he's a number one goaltender. Not only is he a number one goaltender, but he is also amongst – in his rookie year in the NHL – amongst the top 10 to 12 goaltenders in the entire NHL. I would even go further, [and draft him in the] top half of the first round.'
Button points to Wolf's smaller six-feet-tall frame for what held him back.
'Everybody is looking for a number one goaltender, you got to find them. [The Flames] found him in the seventh round. He was the best goaltender outside the NHL for five straight years. Two years in Everett in the Western [Hockey] League, three years in the American [Hockey] League – and he hasn't missed a beat in his sixth year in the NHL.
'Once they show that they're capable and continue to show that they're capable, the opportunities will abound.'
Another player who found themselves waiting late for their name to be called was defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, selected in the seventh round in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft.
Button describes him as an incredibly versatile player.
'He's a first-round pick every day of the week,' said Button. 'MacKenzie might not have been the biggest guy, MacKenzie might not have been the fastest guy, but all MacKenzie continued to do was just improve and improve and work in improving.'
Weegar was initially passed by in his first year of draft eligibility in 2012 when he was playing with the Halifax Mooseheads.
Instead, he was selected 206th the year after.
That same draft, the Mooseheads had Nathan Mackinnon selected first overall, Jonathan Drouin third, while goaltender Zachary Fucale was taken in the second round.
'He might have been overlooked a little bit because, when you talk about oxygen in a room, Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin took up a lot of the oxygen in the room. That might have been just a case of MacKenzie was just a quiet, effective player, and maybe didn't grab your attention the way those other two guys did.'
Weegar and Wolf are just a few examples of how imperfect the draft process is.
'Every player you draft – whether it be in the first round or the seventh round – anywhere you think they got a chance to make it, that's why you draft them, and you believe in them. But the NHL is a big step, and you're watching these players at 17 and 18, and there's so much growth ahead of them, and what I call the natural laws of maturity: physical, mental and emotional. So not only do you have to look at those players and project them to where they'll be when they're 22, for the most part, but then how are they going to handle the challenges?
Wolf had the following advice for those waiting to be drafted.
'For guys that don't get drafted, or even get drafted late, it doesn't matter,' he said.
For the Flames, they could use a few more hidden gems found in the late rounds, and they might have the right guy in charge, as the team general manager Craig Conroy was a sixth-round selection of the Montreal Canadians back in 1990.