We’re in the middle of summer, and not much is happening in the world of hockey. The Calgary Flames have had a quiet offseason thus far and look to be mostly content with their current group of players going into 2023-24. The 2023 NHL Entry Draft has also come and gone with the Flames selecting Samuel Honzek 16th overall, among others. The draft is, of course, one of the strongest ways a team can build success in addition to trades and signings. The Flames are surely hoping that this class coupled with the last few will help them achieve future team progress.
Related: Flames Have Some Talented Targets In Rounds 2-7 of 2023 Draft
However, not every player follows the same path of gaining access to the best hockey league the world has to offer. Many successful individuals play stellar junior or college hockey careers and go undrafted in each of their years of eligibility. The Flames are no exception to this, as three current players; Kevin Rooney, Walker Duehr, and newcomer Jordan Oesterle never had their names called on draft day. The team also boasts an impressive list of talented men that accomplished plenty in a Flames sweater in the past and weren’t selected by a team. Let’s delve into this and take a look at the five best undrafted players in Flames history.
5. Curtis Glencross
First on our list is a more recent fan favourite, forward Curtis Glencross. From 2006-2015 he played 507 games in the NHL and 418 of them were with the Flames. The Kindersley, Saskatchewan, native played his junior hockey with the Brooks Bandits of the Alberta Junior Hockey League back in the early 2000s and went on to play college hockey with the University of Alaska-Anchorage afterwards. Despite strong play in both leagues, Glencross went unselected in each of his draft-eligible years. Instead, he signed as an undrafted free agent with the then-Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2004. He cut his teeth in the minors and only played two games with them before being shipped to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2007. He played 43 games for them before he was again moved to the Edmonton Oilers in the middle of the 2007-08 campaign.
Glencross was a free agent in the 2008 offseason and chose to sign with the Flames on a three-year, $3.6 million deal. He made the move look genius as he progressed over the next six years with Calgary, blossoming into an effective secondary scorer to complement players such as Jarome Iginla. He was also a leader in the Flames locker room and was an alternate captain for three years. His best year with the team came in 2011-12 when he scored a career-high 26 goals and 48 points. Were it not for the lockout the next year, he would have hit the 30-goal mark as he finished with 15 in 40 matches which led the team. He was traded to the Washington Capitals in 2015 and retired before the start of the 2015-16 season. He was a spokesperson for the Special Olympics and was very active in the Calgary community; the team awarded him the Ralph T. Scurfield Humanitarian Award in 2012 for his efforts.
4. Jamie Macoun
Next up is Hamilton, Ontario’s Jamie Macoun. The two-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman played ten years in the NHL and 586 of his 1,128 games were in a Flames jersey. He spent his days in juniors close to home in the former Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League (OPJHL). Like Glencross, he next played in the NCAA and went on to star at Ohio State University. He too was left empty-handed on each available NHL Draft day. It was said that Macoun missed a class and was ruled ineligible to continue playing by the NCAA so he decided to drop out and sign with the Flames, joining the team for the rest of the 1982-83 season. He didn’t look back from there, as he quickly became a reliable two-way defender for the Flames.
Macoun’s 246 points are sixth in franchise history amongst defensemen. He played in 84 playoff games for the team, culminating in him lifting the Stanley Cup in 1988-89. He went on to be a part of the massive trade that saw him and Doug Gilmour go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1992. He played seven years there before being traded to the Detroit Red Wings, which is where he won his second Stanley Cup in 1998. Macoun retired at the conclusion of the following season. Today, Macoun and his family reside in Cowtown where he volunteers in numerous local charities, works as a real estate agent, and is the current president of the Flames Alumni Association.
3. Joe Mullen
At number three we have winger Joe Mullen who skated in 345 contests with the Flames from 1986 to 1990. He was born in New York City, New York and starred for the New York Westsiders of the New York Junior Hockey League in junior. He put up ridiculous numbers for an undrafted player including 110 goals and 182 points in the 1974-75 season. He too joined the college ranks and played all four years with Boston College where he continued his dominance to the tune of 212 total points in 111 career games. No team picked him likely due to his 5-foot-9 stature but the St. Louis Blues took a chance, signing him in 1979. He proved every other team wrong fast as he immediately scored at a point-per-game pace with the Blues and had back-to-back 40-goal campaigns in 1983-84 and 1984-85.
The Blues traded him to the Flames midway through the 1985-86 season and Mullen carried on scoring piles of goals and points. He led the team in scoring in his first full year, scoring 47 times and adding 40 assists in 79 games. With just 14 penalty minutes (PIMs) all season, he took home the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy as the league’s most sportsmanlike player. He claimed it again in 1988-89 with 16 PIMs but improved to a whopping 51 goals and 110 points, leading the team once more and putting up the third-highest single-season points total in franchise history.
Mullen followed that up by leading the NHL in playoff goal scoring with 16 goals through 21 games en route to the Flames winning the Stanley Cup. The winger played one more year in Calgary before being sent to the Pittsburgh Penguins where he won two more Stanley Cups (1991, 1992) before retiring in 1997. All in all, he scored 190 goals and 388 points in 345 contests with the Flames.
2. Joel Otto
While he may not have put up as many points or goals as some of his Flames peers, hulking forward Joel Otto was every bit as instrumental in the Flames’ 1988-89 Cup win. Born and raised in the “State of Hockey” in Elk River, Minnesota, the 6-foot-4 220-pound Otto played high school hockey before attending nearby Bemidji State University. He displayed an elite level of play as he recorded an outstanding 188 points in 99 games over three years. Somehow despite his immense skills and size, no NHL team called his name on draft day. The Flames gave him an opportunity in the form of a minor league deal. Otto seized it and never looked back. He impressed enough to get an audition in the big leagues in 1984-85 where he put up 12 points in 17 games. He was never sent back down to the minors again and spent the next 10 years in Flames colours.
Otto developed into the team’s premier defensive forward, tasked with shutting down the opposing team’s best forwards. He famously got into many tense battles with the rival Edmonton Oilers’ Mark Messier in the heyday of the “Battle of Alberta” in the late 1980s. Otto scored 19 points in 22 games during the Flames’ Cup-winning run in 1989 which included a Game 7 overtime-winning goal against the Vancouver Canucks in Round 1. Due to his defensive prowess, he was twice named a finalist for the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward in 1992-93 and 1994-95. He too is still an active member of the Calgary community and was a recipient of the Scurfield Award in 1993.
1. Mark Giordano
Number one on this list may seem obvious to some Flames fans, but it doesn’t negate the grandeur that is Mark Giordano‘s hockey career. The defenseman from Toronto, Ontario is the only player on this list to not play college hockey as he plied his trade in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) as a member of the Owen Sound Attack. He had a lone season in the OPJHL in 2001-02 but made the switch the following year. In the OHL, Giordano scored a solid 97 points in 133 games and was his team’s best rearguard in both seasons he played. However, his draft experiences were moot and he was about to enroll at York University before getting a late call to attend Flames training camp in 2004. He impressed then-general manager and head coach Darryl Sutter enough to earn a three-year contract.
Giordano spent two years in the minors before getting his shot at the end of the 2005-06 campaign where he played seven games and registered an assist. He made the team full-time the next season, took a brief one-year hiatus to Russia, then played the next 13 seasons with the Flames. Only Iginla has played more than Giordano’s 949 games in a Calgary jersey, and he is tops amongst all defensemen in franchise history. Giordano aged like a fine wine, seemingly getting better as time wore on. His best season came at age 35 when he put up a career-high 74 points in 78 games, capturing the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman.
Giordano held the role of team captain for a whopping eight seasons which also ties Iginla for the longest tenure in franchise history. He was selected by the Seattle Kraken in the 2021 Expansion Draft and was traded mid-season to the Maple Leafs where he remains active today at 39 years old. All told, he accumulated 509 points during his time in Cowtown and was charitably active with the Flames Foundation for Life, Habitat for Humanity, and his own Team Giordano Project. Surely his No. 5 will hang from the Saddledome’s rafters once he calls it quits.
This list of storied professionals and the successes they attained prove that draft day isn’t all it’s made out to be. While it is a tremendously important milestone and accomplishment for a young hockey player, it isn’t a necessity for future success. The Flames staff over the years clearly have a good eye for talent outside the draft, as this list combined for 676 goals, 1,813 points, one Stanley Cup, one Norris Trophy, and two Lady Byng Trophies. Most notable is the graciousness these men display to the team and community that gave them a shot as most reside in the Calgary area and used to or continue to donate to local charitable foundations.
