When Jonathan Castagna first heard that the Calgary Flames might be trading MacKenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth, he didn’t think much of it.

That’s a big deal right there, and even a highly-regarded prospect like Castagna doesn’t just assume that he’ll be a part of a package for an established NHL star like Weegar.

A few hours later, he got a call from his agent letting him know that he was a key piece in the package going to Calgary.

“It was a pretty chaotic couple of hours, it felt like I got drafted again,” Castagna explained. “I was getting phone calls from the management team in Calgary, it was all pretty spur of the moment.

“I was joking with a lot of people afterwards, I can only imagine the guys who are active in the NHL and they have lives and families that just got upturned because they got traded.”

Fortunately, Castagna didn’t have to worry about that. The 20-year-old Toronto native is playing at Cornell University this year and will be completing his season and the semester before considering whether to turn pro.

In the short term, being involved in the Weegar trade only changes so much. With the NCAA playoffs in full swing and Cornell taking on Harvard in a best-of-three ECAC Quarterfinals this weekend, the Flames have checked in but want him focused on the task at hand.

“I sort of gave him the rundown of what we do on the development side and the process and how it works, but I did say, ‘Listen, Jonathan, I don’t want to keep you much today. I know you’re in the middle of playoffs and I don’t want to get in the middle of that’,“ said Flames director of player development Ray Edwards.

“We got to know each other a bit better and went through some of the stuff we do and some of the stuff that’s important to the organization, but we tapered it and said, ‘let’s pick this up after the playoffs are over’.“

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What’s clear is that the Flames are excited about what they got in Castagna, who was a key part of a package for Weegar that included veteran defenceman Olli Maatta and three 2026 second-round draft picks.

Selected in the third round, 70th overall of the 2023 NHL Draft, Castagna has only seen his stock rise in the years since. Officially listed at 6-foot-2 and 203 lbs., he’s a left-shot centre who has the best faceoff winning percentage in the conference, at .647, and has scored 14 goals while picking up 18 assists in 29 games this season. That’s 14th most in the ECAC.

You hear a lot about prospects being 200-foot players, but that’s exactly what Castagna happens to be.

“He’s probably as pro-ready as they come because he plays the right way,” Edwards said. “He’s been very well-coached, you can just tell from the way he plays and the details. How does he use his stick? Is he on the right side of the puck? Is he above people? Is he diving in when he shouldn’t be diving in?

“There’s little things like that. He’s a highly intelligent player who wins faceoffs at a high, high rate, and on top of that he’s been producing. He truly is a 200-foot player in a true sense of that word that we’re very excited about.”

So, when could Calgary fans get the chance to see Castagna playing professionally in their city? We’ll have to wait and see.

Castagna is finishing his third year at Cornell and hasn’t made any decisions about his future.

Being involved in the Weegar trade made for a wild Wednesday, but his focus quickly turned back to the job that’s immediately in front of him.

“We’re getting into a really important time of the year,” Castagna said. “In regards to any sort of decisions beyond what will happen after the season, that’s going to have to wait until after the season because I really do want to make a push here and hopefully win a national championship.”