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At Only 28 PIM, He's the Black Sheep of the Hextall Family: 8 Things About Jack Hextall

Ron Hextall's cousin put up only 28 penalty minutes in his draft year. In that family, that makes him the black sheep. Here's the notebook on Calgary's newest centre.

Taylor Brooks Flames Beat Writer
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Stylized ember-on-ink illustration of Flames prospect Jack Hextall in a cream jersey with a hinted number 17, lit by orange embers against a black background.
Illustration: Flames Scout Wire

The Flames used pick No. 30 on a right-shot centre from Rolling Meadows, Illinois, by way of the USHL. Jack Hextall is not walking into the Saddledome tomorrow. He is, however, the calmest Hextall you are likely to meet. Here is the notebook. Every item below has been checked against the record.

  1. At only 28 PIM, he’s the black sheep of the Hextall family. Jack is a distant cousin of former Flyers goalie and GM Ron Hextall, from the same tree that produced Hall of Famer Bryan Hextall Sr. Ron built a career on mayhem: stick-swinging, crease wars, the kind of nights that emptied benches. Jack’s draft year with Youngstown: 28 penalty minutes in 59 games. Rookie year before that: 30 in 53. In that family, that is a quiet Tuesday. He stays out of the box so he can help on the power play. Ron made the other team terrified to go on the power play. Same name. Completely different relationship with the sin bin.
The other Hextall. Video via YouTube.

  1. He already has family in Alberta. Chicago suburb on the birth certificate, Blackhawks games as a kid. His dad, Cory, grew up in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, and Jack’s grandparents and cousins live in Calgary and across Alberta. When the Flames called, he was not inventing a Canadian connection. He already had one.

  2. Central Scouting had him 34th. Calgary took him 30th and put Lanny on the mic. Slight reach, not a panic pick. Lanny McDonald announced it from the podium, and Sportsnet noted Hextall was the first non-NTDP USHL player taken in the entire draft. Craig Conroy’s read was simple: right-shot centre who plays hard on the inside, does the little things, competitive kid with skill. Calgary has spent real capital on centres the last two drafts. This one fits the shopping list.

  1. The jump year was real. As a Youngstown Phantoms rookie he put up 34 points in 53 games. Draft year: 20 goals, 38 assists, 58 points in 59 games, a 24-point bump, and a spot on the USHL Third All-Star Team. Youngstown also posted a franchise-high 91 points with him down the middle. That is the production climb scouts actually trust.

  1. More than half his offence came on the power play. Thirty-one of those 58 points were with the man advantage (9 goals, 22 assists). His coach, Ryan Ward, called him extremely intelligent on the power play and the first guy out the door on the penalty kill. Special-teams middleman is the early identity. Five-on-five impact is the next ask.

  2. He opened his draft year with gold. At the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, Hextall had seven points (2 goals, 5 assists) in five games for the United States. In the gold-medal win over Sweden he had a goal and two assists and was named U.S. Player of the Game. Then he carried that into the 2025-26 USHL season. Not a one-week spike.

  1. He wrestled before he was a full-time hockey kid. Lacrosse, baseball, and basketball were in the mix too. The compete level Conroy and Ward keep mentioning did not start on a drawing board. It started in other sports that punish soft edges.

  2. He is headed to Michigan State, not Calgary. Hextall is on the Spartans’ 2026-27 roster wearing No. 17, alongside fellow Flames first-rounder Cullen Potter (32nd overall in 2025), who transferred in from Arizona State. Three and a half hours from home, Big Ten hockey, and the muscle is already going on: Michigan State lists him at 195 pounds, up from the 185 to 188 he measured around the draft. File the NHL arrival under “later,” not “September.”

The read

Calgary drafted a right-shot, two-way centre with a famous surname, a real Alberta family thread, and a season that moved him from interesting to first-round tangible. The power-play production is the loud number. The complete-game reputation is the quieter one that tends to age better. Watch Michigan State this winter. That is where the next chapter of this notebook gets written.

Independent commentary. Not affiliated with the Calgary Flames or the NHL. Player facts verified against public hockey media as of September 2026.

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