The Calgary Flames have their scouting meetings in two weeks (and hope to have a GM by then)

Discussing the process now that the Flames know where they’re selecting, Maloney laid out a bit of a timeline for the club’s amateur scouting meetings as they try to finalize their draft list.

“The scouts will all come to Calgary in a couple weeks,” said Maloney. “This is the time we really drill down to get our order in place. Now that we know we’re at 16, we can kind of focus on that group of players. You can pretty much say with certainty there’s seven or eight players definitely won’t be there. You’re always hoping maybe the ninth pick on your list is there at 16.”

Maloney described the 2023 NHL Draft class as a “deep draft,” and noted the variety of different players at various positions potentially available to the Flames when they pick.

But he also disclosed that the Flames “hope” to have a replacement for departed GM Brad Treliving in place by their draft meetings.

“As we all know, we’re searching for a general manager now,” said Maloney. “We hope to have one in place by the time our meetings show up. It may not happen, it may not be quite that quick. But in an ideal world we’ll have a manager in place who’ll have his own views on what he sees as a priority for the team.”

There are a few layers of interviews to be conducted on candidates – Maloney mentioned Calgary’s two “very good” assistant GMs, Craig Conroy and Brad Pascall, as “strong contenders” – and he declared that once they have someone in place, they’ll announce it.

But at the very least, we got a pretty strong hint in terms of hopeful timelines.