Calgary Flames 2026-27 Player Projections: Matthew Coronato – The Hockey Writers – Calgary Flames

The summer is flying by, and the 2026–27 NHL season is quickly approaching. With that comes the opportunity to start looking ahead at expectations for the Calgary Flames and their roster.

In this series, we’ll take a closer look at each player individually and provide a statistical projection based on historical performance, expected role, and future opportunity.

I’ve blended two approaches when building these projections: one based solely on each player’s historical stats, and another based on each player’s historical share of the Flames’ overall production. Combining both methods helps account for both what a player has produced individually and how they have produced relative to the team’s overall offensive output.

The model uses three-year weighted data from the previous seasons (2025–26: 50%, 2024–25: 30%, 2023–24: 20%), giving the more recent seasons the greatest influence.  

The variable part of these projections reflects adjustments for expected role changes and age. Players taking on greater or lesser responsibilities at even strength or on special teams will see those changes reflected. At the same time, age adjustments account for expected development or decline based on each player’s career stage.

One last disclaimer: these projections are done on a per-game basis. Rather than attempting to predict injuries, the goal is to estimate what each player can produce if they’re healthy for all 82 games.

With the methodology out of the way, let’s take a look at Matthew Coronato and what to expect from him during the 2026–27 season.

Matthew Coronato Baseline

The Flames selected Coronato 13th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft. He made his NHL debut at the end of the 2022-23 season, then cracked the Flames’ starting roster out of training camp for the 2023-24 season, but ultimately ended up splitting his time between the NHL and the Flames’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers.

His breakout season came in 2024-25, when he scored 24 goals and totaled 47 points, the third-most on that Flames team, only behind Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau.

He followed that up last season with 18 goals and a team-leading 45 points. While on the surface this probably feels like a drop in production, it should be noted that he lost most of his offensive help when Kadri, Mackenzie Weegar, and Rasmus Andersson were traded mid-season, and the Flames also had to shut down Huberdeau due to injury.

If you look at his underlying advanced metrics, he improved his production in nearly every facet across the board in terms of chance creation and shots. His regression in the box score stats came from a more than four percent drop in his shooting percentage and a decrease in minutes per game compared to 2024-25.

Potential Usage Changes

Last season, Coronato was the fifth-most-used Flames forward per game at even strength, and the third-most-used forward on the power play.

With that, there isn’t much more room to take on a larger role. However, I anticipate him being head coach Ryan Huska’s go-to offensive weapon all season. Now, without Kadri and Blake Coleman, Huska has very few goal-scoring options left, which has opened the door for Coronato and maybe someone like Matvei Gridin.

We likely see that combination quite a bit running the wings on the Flames’ top line, most likely with Morgan Frost centring the top line. He has shown signs of being the type of player who can be the face of the Flames’ franchise, especially now that the rebuild is in full swing. I expect the Flames to put that theory to the test and give him every chance to have another breakout campaign and establish himself among the top offensive players in the league.

Somewhat similar to how they deployed Kadri last season, before he was traded, playing nearly two minutes more per game than any other forward on the team.

2026-27 Projections

To me, these numbers appear lower than I expected from Coronato before putting any numbers into a spreadsheet, and, for transparency, the reason is that the model still accounts for his first extended stint in the NHL, where he had only 9 points in 34 games.

These numbers will slightly drag the projection, even with the expected development I’ve tried to account for in his age-24 season, after his November birthday, and the larger role I expect him to play all season.

However, anything beyond this projection will be incredibly hard to achieve. The Flames may be the worst offensive team in the NHL again this season, as they were last season, averaging a pitiful 2.51 goals per game.

Without any presence of  Kadri, Andersson, Weegar, and Coleman this season, it’s realistic that this number could drop even further from last season. Without reliably replacing the offensive production those guys provide, it’s hard to see a way for some of the Flames’ up-and-comers to break out and show top-end production.

That said, Coronato’s stat line at the end of the season could make his development look quite stagnant. But, to me, that’s not the case. Hockey is a team game, and Coronato doesn’t have the teammates to break out in the same way many younger players have in recent seasons.

Previous Projection Piece: Jonathan Huberdeau