It’s really difficult to guess where the flames will draft at this point. The difference between picking 6th overall and 17th overall is only 7 points right now (assuming no one outside the bottom five teams in the standings win the draft lottery).
Add to it the fact that is really tough to gauge how well the flames will do the rest of the year. If they trade Tanev, Lindholm, Hanifin and Markstrom in the next month, I could see them struggling down the stretch. Mostly from losing Hanifin and Tanev IMO because they have no one in the system ready to step up (as far as as I know). I could see Wolf and Vladar playing well down the stretch though. It gets even tougher to guess where they finish if they trade only half of those players though.
Of the teams near the flames in the league standings, I think only Montreal and Minnesota could be considered sellers at the deadline. The rest either don’t really have much to sell or are just committed long term to all their young players that they likely won’t sell (Buffalo and Ottawa, for example). If we use the simple logic of teams that sell their top UFAs should get worse after the TDL - which is not always the case - Calgary, Minnesota and Montreal should be poised to drop further down.
None of them are likely to drop into the bottom four in the standings though. It would take a horrendous period of losing for that to happen. Something like a 15 game stretch of 3-10-2… I don’t think any of those teams have been that bad for that long this season and their goaltending is too competitive for that to happen IMO (even in the unlikely event that Markstrom is traded).
My guess is everything evens out and the flames stay around the range they are at now and end up picking in the 11th to 7th overall range.
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