{"id":497206,"date":"2026-03-10T22:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/497206\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:17:23","slug":"as-pro-ready-as-they-come-flames-excited-about-new-prospect-jonathan-castagna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/497206\/","title":{"rendered":"‘As pro-ready as they come’: Flames excited about new prospect Jonathan Castagna"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jonathan Castagna first heard that the Calgary Flames<\/a> might be trading MacKenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth, he didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big deal right there, and even a highly-regarded prospect like Castagna doesn\u2019t just assume that he\u2019ll be a part of a package for an established NHL star like Weegar.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty chaotic couple of hours, it felt like I got drafted again,\u201d Castagna explained. \u201cI was getting phone calls from the management team in Calgary, it was all pretty spur of the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Castagna didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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, \u2018Listen, Jonathan, I don\u2019t want to keep you much today. I know you\u2019re in the middle of playoffs and I don\u2019t want to get in the middle of that\u2019,\u201c said Flames director of player development Ray Edwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to know each other a bit better and went through some of the stuff we do and some of the stuff that\u2019s important to the organization, but we tapered it and said, \u2018let\u2019s pick this up after the playoffs are over\u2019.\u201c<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

What\u2019s clear is that the Flames are excited about what they got in Castagna, who was a key part of a package for Weegar<\/a> that included veteran defenceman Olli Maatta and three 2026 second-round draft picks.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s 14th most in the ECAC.<\/p>\n

You hear a lot about prospects being 200-foot players, but that\u2019s exactly what Castagna happens to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s probably as pro-ready as they come because he plays the right way,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cHe\u2019s 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\u2019t be diving in?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s little things like that. He\u2019s a highly intelligent player who wins faceoffs at a high, high rate, and on top of that he\u2019s been producing. He truly is a 200-foot player in a true sense of that word that we\u2019re very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when could Calgary fans get the chance to see Castagna playing professionally in their city? We\u2019ll have to wait and see.<\/p>\n

Castagna is finishing his third year at Cornell and hasn\u2019t made any decisions about his future.<\/p>\n

Being involved in the Weegar trade made for a wild Wednesday, but his focus quickly turned back to the job that\u2019s immediately in front of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting into a really important time of the year,\u201d Castagna said. \u201cIn regards to any sort of decisions beyond what will happen after the season, that\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jonathan Castagna first heard that the Calgary Flames might be trading MacKenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,58074,7182,896,5,58046,2339,4,13363,40204,66,3154],"class_list":["post-497206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary-flames","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-flames","tag-calgaryflames","tag-castagna","tag-cornell-university","tag-flames","tag-hockey","tag-jonathan-castagna","tag-mackenzie-weegar","tag-nhl","tag-olli-maatta","tag-ray-edwards","tag-toronto","tag-utah-mammoth"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116207199433857345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}