Next men up: the most NHL-ready Calgary Flames prospects

Friends, the Calgary Flames have some decisions to make this off-season. Big decisions. Expensive decisions. Decisions that will obliterate what salary cap flexibility they might have. If the Flames have any hope of keeping all their key players – looking at you Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane and Oliver Kylington – and fielding a full roster, they’ll need inexpensive help from the farm.

Here are the five prospects in the best position to step in as full-timers in 2022-23.

C Glenn Gawdin

(24; right shot; $750,000 cap hit, pending Group 6 free agent)

If we did one of these lists in each of the past two seasons, Gawdin would’ve been on them. Gawdin is a prototypical “quad-A”…