2024/2025 Season trade rumours and speculation thread

[Strange Brew]

Flames have lost 6 of 7 after being on a PDO heater for much of the year.

I don't like taking a cherry picked stretch of games and using it to extrapolate the rest of season, but there's definitely a decent chance this is worse than a mushy middle team. It will be interesting to see how they handle a horrible Preds team on Tuesday.

[Monahammer]

The team policy should be not to give anyone over 27 a new contract unless we're competing.

Giving Rasmus a contract today instead of trading him at peak value would be a back breaking move for our hopes of competing over the next 5 years. And what's the point?

We need the picks/prospects that trading him can net the team. We also need to be worse in a shorter time frame.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

If we are doing the Colorado route we need to sign some older free agents now.

Their route was draft MacKinnon and have a surprising good year.

Then sign Iginla and Beauchemin to big money contracts.

Then suck for awhile. Then find a second generational talent to go with their first generational talent along with their other franchise player. Then win a Cup.

We need to complete the signing old free agents portion first to follow the Colorado model. Parekh could be the first part (drafting a franchise/generational player) but we need to sign some old guys now to properly follow the bullet proof Colorado template.

We don't have MacKinnon yet. Need MacKinnon first. Parekh is not a MacKinnon. Could Parekh be a Landeskog? Sure, maybe - but we need a MacKinnon.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

I crave the Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida route.

Which is the same as the Buffalo and Edmonton routes, just with less incompetence.

When you look at Tampa and Florida - they didn't really do anything unachievable in Calgary. Florida managed to woo Bobrovsky - that's the biggest thing that Calgary likely couldn't do (and it shouldn't be downplayed, he was huge in their success).

What Tampa and Florida did so well was draft their foundational players, do well throughout the rest of the draft, and made aggressive GOOD trades. Paying a premium for a salary retained Blake Coleman as an example for Tampa, and acquiring Reinhart and Bennett in Florida's build. On the flip side of this, Edmonton has done a bunch of dumbass stuff like pay bad free agents (Campbell), make brutally bad trades (Athanasiou), and manage their internal cap structure very poorly (hello Nurse). Buffalo and Edmonton both share a strong lack of ability on the draft floor as well (prior to Kevyn Adams at least, verdict is out on him so far). They can't draft worth a damn outside of picking in the top-5, and this isn't a problem the Flames have. The biggest problem with the Flames is lack of opportunity to draft in the top-5.

I'm confident in Conroy and the Flames scouting staff IF they have the opportunity to make those top 5 picks. If they get the opportunity to draft twice in the Top-5, especially in the next few years, I believe Conroy can build a Championship team because the Flames do a lot of the other stuff well already. They just need the opportunity.

Tre cornered himself with a lot of stupid UFA signings and terrible coaching choices.

Just don't do those two things (the first is a hell of a lot easier than the second, to be fair) and Calgary should be okay.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

The team policy should be not to give anyone over 27 a new contract unless we're competing.

Giving Rasmus a contract today instead of trading him at peak value would be a back breaking move for our hopes of competing over the next 5 years. And what's the point?

We need the picks/prospects that trading him can net the team. We also need to be worse in a shorter time frame.

I just don't think you can manage with such rigidness. The decision to trade or not trade Rasmus needs to be a rationale one based on:
- The player's desire to stay or not
- What type of contract he will accept (term, length and level of protection)
- What you can get for him in return

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

We don't have MacKinnon yet. Need MacKinnon first. Parekh is not a MacKinnon. Could Parekh be a Landeskog? Sure, maybe - but we need a MacKinnon.

We are even further behind then. We need to find MacKinnon and then sign some older free agents.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

We don't have MacKinnon yet. Need MacKinnon first. Parekh is not a MacKinnon. Could Parekh be a Landeskog? Sure, maybe - but we need a MacKinnon.

Wish it were so easy. MacKinnon’s are a once in 5-10 year draft classes, and you’d hope you’re so lucky to have the lottery ball bounce your way.

This doesn’t negate the need to build through the top of the draft, I’m fully on board with this route, but there’s a better than 90% chance the Flames do that and don’t come out with a MacKinnon esque talent

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

I crave the Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida route.

Which is the same as the Buffalo and Edmonton routes, just with less incompetence.

When you look at Tampa and Florida - they didn't really do anything unachievable in Calgary. Florida managed to woo Bobrovsky - that's the biggest thing that Calgary likely couldn't do (and it shouldn't be downplayed, he was huge in their success).

What Tampa and Florida did so well was draft their foundational players, do well throughout the rest of the draft, and made aggressive GOOD trades. Paying a premium for a salary retained Blake Coleman as an example for Tampa, and acquiring Reinhart and Bennett in Florida's build. On the flip side of this, Edmonton has done a bunch of dumbass stuff like pay bad free agents (Campbell), make brutally bad trades (Athanasiou), and manage their internal cap structure very poorly (hello Nurse). Buffalo and Edmonton both share a strong lack of ability on the draft floor as well (prior to Kevyn Adams at least, verdict is out on him so far). They can't draft worth a damn outside of picking in the top-5, and this isn't a problem the Flames have. The biggest problem with the Flames is lack of opportunity to draft in the top-5.

I'm confident in Conroy and the Flames scouting staff IF they have the opportunity to make those top 5 picks. If they get the opportunity to draft twice in the Top-5, especially in the next few years, I believe Conroy can build a Championship team because the Flames do a lot of the other stuff well already. They just need the opportunity.

Tampa and Florida are 2 of the top destinations in the league due to amazing weather, reasonable travel and no state tax. Calgary is a small market cold Canadian city. End of the day if Calgary takes the lose now to win later approach publicly the culture will be ruined and incredibly hard to rebuild. Buffalo made reasonable trades for RoR, Kane, and that did nothing. Look at Ottawa right now. They committed to tanking and rebuilding and cannot turn the corner despite having some foundational pieces in their early-mid 20’s that they drafted in this rebuild.

Ottawa, Columbus, Buffalo are far more similar to Calgary than Tampa or Florida.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Tampa and Florida are 2 of the top destinations in the league due to amazing weather, reasonable travel and no state tax. Calgary is a small market cold Canadian city. End of the day if Calgary takes the lose now to win later approach publicly the culture will be ruined and incredibly hard to rebuild. Buffalo made reasonable trades for RoR, Kane, and that did nothing. Look at Ottawa right now. They committed to tanking and rebuilding and cannot turn the corner despite having some foundational pieces in their early-mid 20’s that they drafted in this rebuild.

Ottawa, Columbus, Buffalo are far more similar to Calgary than Tampa or Florida.

I agree from a market standpoint, but you can’t decouple the inept management that’s plagued each of these teams.

[TheIronMaiden]

The possibility of the Flames slipping into the bottom 10 is still looming.
This morning they are at 15th with 31 points. Pittsburg at 23rd has 28 points.
At this point anything could happen.

[bigrangy]

My thoughts on extending Andersson

If you think he’ll be worth his money through the length of the deal

AND

If he wants to stay

Then extend.

If neither of those, then get moving on a trade ASAP.

Having good players on fair deals never hurt a team.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

We don't have MacKinnon yet. Need MacKinnon first. Parekh is not a MacKinnon. Could Parekh be a Landeskog? Sure, maybe - but we need a MacKinnon.

Have you asked Santa?

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

I crave the Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida route.

Which is the same as the Buffalo and Edmonton routes, just with less incompetence.

When you look at Tampa and Florida - they didn't really do anything unachievable in Calgary. Florida managed to woo Bobrovsky - that's the biggest thing that Calgary likely couldn't do (and it shouldn't be downplayed, he was huge in their success).

What Tampa and Florida did so well was draft their foundational players, do well throughout the rest of the draft, and made aggressive GOOD trades. Paying a premium for a salary retained Blake Coleman as an example for Tampa, and acquiring Reinhart and Bennett in Florida's build. On the flip side of this, Edmonton has done a bunch of dumbass stuff like pay bad free agents (Campbell), make brutally bad trades (Athanasiou), and manage their internal cap structure very poorly (hello Nurse). Buffalo and Edmonton both share a strong lack of ability on the draft floor as well (prior to Kevyn Adams at least, verdict is out on him so far). They can't draft worth a damn outside of picking in the top-5, and this isn't a problem the Flames have. The biggest problem with the Flames is lack of opportunity to draft in the top-5.

I'm confident in Conroy and the Flames scouting staff IF they have the opportunity to make those top 5 picks. If they get the opportunity to draft twice in the Top-5, especially in the next few years, I believe Conroy can build a Championship team because the Flames do a lot of the other stuff well already. They just need the opportunity.

What Tampa did was draft Hedman and Stamkos really high in 08/09, then muddle around in the "mushy middle" for a couple years (in which they managed to make a couple fantastic mid first and 2nd round picks), get a 3OA in 2013 which they blew on Drouin, go back to the middle of the draft and get Point in the 3rd round in 2014 (after taking guys like D'Angelo earlier) and the futz around for 5 more years until they won the cup. They keys to their cup win were, in order, Vasilevskiy, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Stamkos, and the depth. The first three were not acquired with high picks.

I don't think they fit your pattern.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by bigrangy

My thoughts on extending Andersson

If you think he’ll be worth his money through the length of the deal

AND

If he wants to stay

Then extend.

If neither of those, then get moving on a trade ASAP.

Having good players on fair deals never hurt a team.

The thing is that 9.5M for 7 years is fair market value for Andersson.
The Flames if they were lucky could get him for 8 x 8, but it feels totally unlikely.

This next contract will take him to at least 37, which isn't so bad, Doughty. Sprugeon, Letang are all contributors at that age.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Tampa and Florida are 2 of the top destinations in the league due to amazing weather, reasonable travel and no state tax. Calgary is a small market cold Canadian city. End of the day if Calgary takes the lose now to win later approach publicly the culture will be ruined and incredibly hard to rebuild. Buffalo made reasonable trades for RoR, Kane, and that did nothing. Look at Ottawa right now. They committed to tanking and rebuilding and cannot turn the corner despite having some foundational pieces in their early-mid 20’s that they drafted in this rebuild.

Ottawa, Columbus, Buffalo are far more similar to Calgary than Tampa or Florida.

You are correct that not all rebuilds are the same and not all work.

But that shouldn't stop you from trying the only way Calgary will ever get a contending team.

You sign Andersson to a long term contract I admit that Calgary will be a bit better over the next 5 years.

But they likely won't be a playoff team, and it will hurt their chances of getting elite talent to be a contending team.

If Calgary truly can draft better than most teams, let's give them the most and highest draft picks we can and let them prove it.

And that starts will Calgary being bottom 10 this year. Although I've always beleived they could easily achieve that this year.

Wolf coming back to earth has certainly helped that.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Flames have lost 6 of 7 after being on a PDO heater for much of the year.

I don't like taking a cherry picked stretch of games and using it to extrapolate the rest of season, but there's definitely a decent chance this is worse than a mushy middle team. It will be interesting to see how they handle a horrible Preds team on Tuesday.

Kind of...this most recent stretch is actually more of a PDO impact than the start of the year was.

Last 7 games: .944 PDO, 0.286 points percentage

First 21 games: .999 PDO, 0.643 points percentage

They were right on the PDO of 1.00 for the first 21 games, so not really lucky or unlucky to start the season.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

What Tampa did was draft Hedman and Stamkos really high in 08/09, then muddle around in the "mushy middle" for a couple years (in which they managed to make a couple fantastic mid first and 2nd round picks), get a 3OA in 2013 which they blew on Drouin, go back to the middle of the draft and get Point in the 3rd round in 2014 (after taking guys like D'Angelo earlier) and the futz around for 5 more years until they won the cup. They keys to their cup win were, in order, Vasilevskiy, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Stamkos, and the depth. The first three were not acquired with high picks.

I don't think they fit your pattern.

And come to think of it, Florida isn't exactly an example either:

Drafted high in 2010/11 for players no longer with the team. Went to the middle, then back fairly high for Barkov and Ekblad in 13/14. Then back to out of the POs or first round exits (but no high draft picks to show for it) for 8 years. Make a blockbuster trade and get to the 2nd round. Then they were good.

Their championship was based on non drafted players, outside of Barkov. Ekblad was not a key compared to other Dmen. You could argue Tkachuk was there because they traded a high drafted player. But it was actually Huberdeau and Weegar and a 1st that got Tkachuk.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

What Tampa did was draft Hedman and Stamkos really high in 08/09, then muddle around in the "mushy middle" for a couple years (in which they managed to make a couple fantastic mid first and 2nd round picks), get a 3OA in 2013 which they blew on Drouin, go back to the middle of the draft and get Point in the 3rd round in 2014 (after taking guys like D'Angelo earlier) and the futz around for 5 more years until they won the cup. They keys to their cup win were, in order, Vasilevskiy, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Stamkos, and the depth. The first three were not acquired with high picks.

I don't think they fit your pattern.

The revisionist history thing is so silly but I kind of love it. There was a point where Monahan was more productive than Mackinnon and Barkov and people (some people) were at least willing to debate who was the better pick between the three (much like the debate over whether Gaudreau or Tarasenko were better).

Colorado, Tampa, and Florida are all prime examples of teams that almost botched it entirely but got lucky in the draft and managed their way out of a disaster (something Buffalo hasn’t done).

The point of a rebuild is to gather young core pieces. You can’t really control what you get outside of just drafting at each position and collecting picks. But I feel like people are unfairly dismissing Wolf and Parekh in this equation. Maybe Parekh is nothing, but Wolf is a young top 10 goaltender who has made an argument for being considered top 5. Those are the kinds of pieces we’re looking for.

I mean yeah a top centre is pretty important but so is goaltending and defence. We might already have our Hedman, Vasilevsky, Point, and Kucherov. I’m happy to see how it plays out from here.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

What Tampa did was draft Hedman and Stamkos really high in 08/09, then muddle around in the "mushy middle" for a couple years (in which they managed to make a couple fantastic mid first and 2nd round picks), get a 3OA in 2013 which they blew on Drouin, go back to the middle of the draft and get Point in the 3rd round in 2014 (after taking guys like D'Angelo earlier) and the futz around for 5 more years until they won the cup. They keys to their cup win were, in order, Vasilevskiy, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Stamkos, and the depth. The first three were not acquired with high picks.

I don't think they fit your pattern.

100%.

People like to use the fact that Stamkos is a #1OA as proof of TBL being a good example of a tear it down rebuild. Not true at all. Stamkos is the least important of those guys, by a fair margin.

TBL knocked it out of the park with:
19: Vasilevskiy
58: Kucherov
72: Cirelli
77: Killorn
79: Point
208: Palat

They aren't proof of a tear it down rebuild, they are an example of how a couple homeruns at the draft table can change your franchise.

But that ebbs and flows - they haven't drafted anyone who has played 100 games in the NHL since 2017, and 200 games since 2016.

Drafting is hard. Sometimes you hit a home run, sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you get unlucky.

[Jason14h]

If the Flames lose their 1st and pick end of round 1 this year their prospect base won’t even be in the top half of the league overall

That is not a good place to be when rebuilding