The Calgary Flames have signed reigning Calder Trophy finalist Dustin Wolf to a seven-year, $52.5MM extension, per a team release. The deal will carry a yearly cap hit of $7.5MM. That price tag will pull Wolf into the upper echelon of goalie contracts, making him the eighth-highest-paid goalie in the NHL.
Calgary is clearly confident after Wolf’s unprecedented play on his entry-level contract. He was once an overlooked goaltender, falling to the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft largely thanks to his slight 6-foot, 160-pound frame. Wolf was playing with the WHL’s Everett Silvertips at the time of his draft. He returned for a fourth season in Everett in the following year, and wrapped up his WHL career with a staggering .935 save percentage in 149 games – the highest save percentage ever recorded across multiple WHL seasons.
Wolf moved to the AHL’s Stockton Heat in 2021-22 and earned the starter’s crease within just a few months. He was flashy and energetic, even as a first-year pro, and worked his way to a phenomenal 33-9-4 record and .924 Sv% in 47 games. That mark was enough to earn Wolf the AHL’s Baz Bastien award, handed out annually to the league’s top goalie. Not to be outdone, Wolf managed an even better record (42-10-2) and better save percentage (.932) in more games (55) in his second pro year, again taking home the Baz Bastien Award. With that, he became just the third goalie to ever win the award twice, and just the second to win it in back-to-back years.
That gave Wolf an incredible amount of momentum headed into last season. He played 18 games in the NHL between 2022 and 2024 – and managed a stout 8-7-1 record and .923 save percentage. But fans knew more was to come when Wolf finally broke into the Flames’ roster full-time. New Flames general manager Craig Conroy cleared the path for that to happen when he traded Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils in 2024. The lights were shining bright and trained solely on Wolf, headed into last season.
Wolf wasted no time proving he belonged in an NHL role. He won his first three games of the season with a .936 save percentage and managed his first shutout in his ninth game of the year. By the end of December, Wolf was touting an impressive 12-5-2 record and a .914 save percentage. Those numbers slipped slightly as Wolf worked his way up to 53 starts on the season – the 17th-most in the league. He finished his rookie season with a 29-16-8 record and .910 Sv% – tying Stuart Skinner, Pekka Rinne, and Andrew Raycroft for the eighth-most wins by a first-year starter.
It was a truly electric performance. Calgary’s chances to win rose significantly when Wolf took the net, and his athleticism and confidence were both unwavering. Advanced stat site Evolving Hockey estimates that Calgary received five wins-above-replacement (WAR) from Wolf – the fifth-most in the NHL, just narrowly behind Vezina Trophy finalist Darcy Kuemper and above Ilya Sorokin. That’s an incredible mark, and one that Calgary will quickly reward with a long-term extension. Teams have been duped in the past by strong rookie seasons. Hockey fans will surely remember the short-lived peak of Steve Mason. But Wolf seems well set to earn the starting role in every season of his new deal. He boasts all of the skill, speed, and sharp thinking to play at the top level, and will look to vindicate a great rookie year and hefty extension with a growing performance this season.
Photo courtesy of Brett Holmes-Imagn Images.
Very questionable move by Craig Conroy, Wolf has 37 career games in the NHL, What part of small sample size do GMs not understand?
Normally I would say lock up a player with potential. Goalies are tough though.
Totally agree and there’s definitely risk here but I actually don’t hate it. And it does seem to be the growing trend in general. Forwards are obviously less risky but Frank Nazar has even less of a track record and got a similar reward.
He’s got 71 games, actually – and I’d argue he’s performed at every level he’s been placed at.
Always a risk giving a young guy the big extension but Wolf looks like the real deal.
Not being all that fair to Mason here. He may have had a short-lived peak for *Columbus*, but he spent over four years with the Flyers at just as good a level.
I’ve been watching this kid closely for the better part of a decade. I have Wranglers season tickets, so watched every home game he played close up and met the kid a couple of times. He’s the real deal.
The wife and I feel like proud parents, which could be considered a little biased. Every level that he played, he topped out in goaltender fashion. He’s not just a good goalie…he’s a student of the game. This is why he will be considered one of the better goalies in the league for years to come.
That’s the kind of insight that someone that pays a lot of attention to the person as well as the stat sheet provides. Thanks, H’sense.
I had the good fortune of watching an Everett game and left extremely impressed with Wolf. He just plays like a winner. (Highly subjective, I know, but it’s the impression he gave me.)
I hope the NHL gets off its “big goalie or nothing” horse. Guys like Levi and Wolf could change that tired narrative.
@portucool: No kidding, that has pissed me off for years now. You don’t keep the puck out of the net by being huge. You keep the puck out of the net by being GOOD. I will take a good 5’9″ goalie over a 6’6″ stiff any time.
It also starts with his set up and awesome jump before puck drop. I’ve never seen a goalie do anything like that for his game setup. I think it just pumps up the rest of the team and fans watching.
Another player to keep an eye on for the Flames is Klapka. Big man with big skills. I think he’s gonna turns heads this year.
Cheers PortuCool! I would have loved to see Wolf tear it up in juniors. I just feel lucky now to live in Calgary and watch him close up constantly.
The “Portu” stands for Portugal, which is where I live now. My days of tooling around North America making business travel arrangements centered around hockey are behind me. Now I settle for Sweden, Czechia, and Finland for the most part.
I loved watching a Flames game, but can understand why they want to replace the Saddledome.
Cheers, and if you find yourself in sunny Portugal sometime let me know.
The Saddledome is iconic, but very old now. Will miss it for sure, but excited for the new digs in a couple years. We are getting our fill of games and concerts while we still can. I’ve been living in Calgary most of my life, but just recently took in a Dinner & Tour of the dome. Lots of history that I didn’t even know about. I would definitely recommend it for anybody that comes to Calgary within the next couple of years. Gonna miss it on all of Calgary’s cityscape pictures and NHL games.
Going to the Dominican this year. Maybe next year we may stretch our horizons. Definitely will let you know if we are close to there. I know a few Canadians that have made Portugal their retirement destination.
who knew a goalie who clocks in at under 6’2” is pretty good at stopping the puck .. maybe a few other teams should give a smaller goalie or two a legit shot .. flyers ? oilers ? sabres ?
Calgary got the d, the goalie, now we just need a true number center we can build around and we will be back to playoffs