Making the playoffs or keeping our top-10 first round pick 2025?

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Groot

Would there be any RFA players this offseason that the Flames could target? After last year with St Louis, seeing more offer sheets wouldn't surprise me. Is there anything the Flames can possibly do there? Throw a $9 million x 3 year contract at a top C RFA and give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 2026. Names that standout are Wyatt Johnson, Mason MacTavish, JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi.

That would be the biggest mistake in franchise history.

That’s the problem with a fluke season like this. People start to believe it’s time to start making moves. Our 2026 1st should not on the table unless it’s a franchise player.

Treliving did this after the 14/15 season. It was masked by comeback wins but a team that really wasn’t playing all that well and a fire drill in its own end.

It’s most likely we lose our pick this year but just accept it and move and keep rebuilding. We likely don’t make the playoffs anyways.

[Bonded]

Maybe the Flames will get a little lottery luck and move into the top ten if they finish outside the playoffs.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Groot

Would there be any RFA players this offseason that the Flames could target? After last year with St Louis, seeing more offer sheets wouldn't surprise me. Is there anything the Flames can possibly do there? Throw a $9 million x 3 year contract at a top C RFA and give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 2026. Names that standout are Wyatt Johnson, Mason MacTavish, JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi.

Just say no to drugs.

[Groot]

I literally just asked a question to discuss something other than winning a Cup with or without a top 5 pick which has been beaten to death on this forum. I never said they should, but it is another potential path to possibly grab a 1st line C if the Flames are set for the mushy middle again cause they're not bad enough for bottom 5.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Groot

Would there be any RFA players this offseason that the Flames could target? After last year with St Louis, seeing more offer sheets wouldn't surprise me. Is there anything the Flames can possibly do there? Throw a $9 million x 3 year contract at a top C RFA and give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 2026. Names that standout are Wyatt Johnson, Mason MacTavish, JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi.

No way would I spend our '26 1st on an offer sheet.

However, I was a big proponent of offer-sheeting Holloway and Broberg - our under 25 on-team roster would be: Wolf, Zary, Coronato, Holloway, Pelletier, Bahl and Broberg. And what did it cost STL? a 2nd and a couple 3rds?

There are occasionally, options with that route

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Groot

I literally just asked a question to discuss something other than winning a Cup with or without a top 5 pick which has been beaten to death on this forum. I never said they should, but it is another potential path to possibly grab a 1st line C if the Flames are set for the mushy middle again cause they're not bad enough for bottom 5.

I don’t think that’s the case. I think people underestimate the time it takes for a bad team to get better picking 1st doesn’t mean you turn it around next season. We are seeing it with San Jose. They have the young forwards they have the goalie. They probably take a bigger leap next season.

Chicago I am not sure about.

For us 5 of our top 7 point getters are 30 and over. And it’s not like they are having career years either and they may he a step slower next season.

Outside of Zary and Coronato I don’t see any impact young forwards who would come in and carry us.

Goaltending is also always tricky. Every team goes through it up and down year to year. Wolf is great but if he’s just good next year we are likely in the bottom 5.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

The point is that this is almost like saying "which teams won without a Canadian on the roster".

The top-5 pick argument is not meant to say that top-5 picks solve all your problems. Because it won’t.

BUT.

If you have a top-5 pick, you have:

-a 2nd that’s functionally a late 1st
-a 3rd that’s functionally a late 2nd.

Not necessarily where you find superstars, but certainly where you can find viable NHL talent.

You also likely have a pile of other assets that you collected at the previous deadline. Likely at least one more pick in each of the first three rounds, plus some other prospects who are knocking on the door.

And that’s just from one year.

It’s very uncommon to fall to a bottom-5 team and then back to drafting in the teens in perpetuity. As we’re seeing, it’s hard to be THAT bad.

Having two or three years where you add 2-4 Grushnikov/Brzustewicz types, 2-4 extra top-60 picks, plus 2-3 top-5/10 picks, and somewhere in there you are going to be able to draft, develop, or trade for, all the pieces you need.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Groot

Would there be any RFA players this offseason that the Flames could target? After last year with St Louis, seeing more offer sheets wouldn't surprise me. Is there anything the Flames can possibly do there? Throw a $9 million x 3 year contract at a top C RFA and give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 2026. Names that standout are Wyatt Johnson, Mason MacTavish, JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi.

As others have mentioned, I wouldn't risk a 1st, so here are the Flames options assuming a ~6% increase in the average player salary:
< $1.6M - No compensation
$1.6M - $2.4M - 3rd
$2.4M - $4.9M - 2nd

Potential targets:
---PHI: 3 interesting RFAs - Frost being the best fit IMO
Morgan Frost, C, 26, 41P pace, for a 2nd
Tyson Forester, RW, 23, 37P pace, for a 2nd
Cam York LD, 24, 25P pace, for a 2nd - this one I'm pretty sure PHI matches at $4.9M

---NSH: A mess of a team that seems intent on shipping out young guys
Luke Evangelista, RW, 23, 34P pace, for a 2nd

--SEA: Kakko might not work out, which would make negotiations difficult
Kaapo Kakko, RW, 24, 21P pace, for a 2nd, or a 3rd if he has a lacklustre 2nd half

--OTT: Has a couple of interesting Cs that could use the opportunity and might come cheap
Ridly Greig, C/RW, 22, 25P pace, for a 3rd
Noah Gregor, C/LW, 26, 15P pace, no compensation

--DAL: Bourque is yet to translate his scoring touch from the AHL to the NHL
Mavrik Bourque, RW/C, 23, 19P pace, for a 2nd or a 3rd but I think that it will be an easy match at $2.4M
Thomas Harley, LD, 23, 38P pace, DAL would be crazy to not match at $4.9M IMO

--VGK: Holtz is a former 7th overall pick
Alexander Holtz, RW, 23, 21P pace, for a 3rd

--NYR: I don't know what's going on with this organization and who's on his way out
K'Andre Miller, LD, 25, 27P pace, for a 2nd, probably an instant match though

That said, most of those could probably be accomplished via the trade route. With the increasing cap, there aren't enough teams in cap trouble, and not much to exploit if I'm being honest.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Groot

I literally just asked a question to discuss something other than winning a Cup with or without a top 5 pick which has been beaten to death on this forum. I never said they should, but it is another potential path to possibly grab a 1st line C if the Flames are set for the mushy middle again cause they're not bad enough for bottom 5.

Don't take it to heart, if you are not talking about the team trying to tank every game and being bad, the strip it down rebuild crowd gets nasty.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Groot

Would there be any RFA players this offseason that the Flames could target? After last year with St Louis, seeing more offer sheets wouldn't surprise me. Is there anything the Flames can possibly do there? Throw a $9 million x 3 year contract at a top C RFA and give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 2026. Names that standout are Wyatt Johnson, Mason MacTavish, JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi.

This is something they should do after they’ve drafted their franchise players, not before.

St Louis is at a completely different point of their cycle - they have a bunch of good players in their mid-late 20s.

Calgary’s best players, minus Wolf, aren’t on the roster at best, and at worst haven’t been drafted yet.

[Goriders]

Other thing the organization has to consider is bums in seats.

Sure San Jose is doing a “proper” rebuild and they managed to pickup Celebrini. But the other things I saw last night is San Jose is a horrible hockey team and their rink was half empty.

I went to a Flames game in Anaheim last year and saw the same thing. The Ducks were a borderline NHL team. Rink was almost empty.

Year before game in pheonix. 5000 seat arena. Not sold out.

Great you have a few good 19 year olds. But probably doesn’t mean much when your team relocates after declaring bankruptcy

[Paulie Walnuts]

Explain Winnipeg

[dammage79]

Kurashev, Rossi and McTavish are the most notable flames RFA targets. Maybe JJ Peterka?

[Tacoman]

Don’t know if the Flames can keep this pace up but interesting to note that based on winning %, we would currently only drop five spots by losing our pick and taking Florida’s. Having the 22nd pick (Florida’s current spot) plus another one in the late 20’s isn’t a bad place to be. Still would have loved a top five but the swapping aspect may not be the huge L that we might have thought.

[Aarongavey]

If I was Conroy I would be trying to sign the young RFAs to long term contracts. I would be doing this because he probably needs to spend about 20 million to reach the cap floor and even if the contracts end up being an overpay the rising cap will probably make the overpay somewhat meaningless in the future. I would be trying to sign the following types of contracts

Zary - 8 years 7.1 million a year (basically the Cozens contract)
Coronato - 8 years 6.5 million
Pelletier - 5 years 3.5 million

If the guys hit they will be value contracts when the Flames are ready to possibly sign UFAs and if they don’t they are likely still decent contracts in a 110 million dollar cap world.

I would then look and see if there was a UFA center that could be signed for 3 years or less. And a dman assuming they trade Rasmus.

[Sylvanfan]

I don't see a Holloway/Broberg situation this summer. The named mentioned are on teams who will have cap space. That situation comes around once a decade...and since it just happened teams will be hypersensitive to trying to prevent it.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

I don’t think more than one person has said they should load up on UFAs and even that person did not say that, that is just something that you made up in your own head.

As to getting elite talent you can pull a Carolina and load up on picks. They have one guy on their roster who was a top 5 pick and he is probably their 4th best forward, surpassed by guys who were not top 5 picks. Carolina is set up pretty well for many years to come. Or you can pull a Boston who was an elite team for more than a decade and got almost no juice from their top 5 pick. Vegas is another example of a team that used a boatload of picks to become an elite team without a top 5 pick. The Jets are another team that took a similar approach.

Pretty sure most fans can stomach a rebuild, I for one have been calling for the Flames to load up on picks since about 2018. But I ain’t going to lose much sleep if they don’t get a top 5 pick because you don’t need one to build a Stanley Cup contender.

The Flames biggest problem is that they don’t have any centers in the system, not that they do not have a top 5 pick.
Hope this helps.

Carolina won a cup in 2006 with #2 overall pick and #1C Eric Staal.

Boston won with Seguin but like I said he wasn’t a key cog. They have made it back twice and lost.

Vegas is an expansion team so how are they comparable to the other. They came into the league with best expansion draft ever and also shook down a bunch of GMs. Wonder why Seattle hasn’t replicated the same success ? They went out and got the superstar C in Chandler Stephenson.

We don’t have any centres and we don’t have the key ingredient either t an elite #1C but I guess we can just trade for one since it’s simple.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Explain Winnipeg

You mean the team that operates the way I wish this one did?

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

You mean the team that operates the way I wish this one did?

No rhe attendance.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

If I was Conroy I would be trying to sign the young RFAs to long term contracts. I would be doing this because he probably needs to spend about 20 million to reach the cap floor and even if the contracts end up being an overpay the rising cap will probably make the overpay somewhat meaningless in the future. I would be trying to sign the following types of contracts

Zary - 8 years 7.1 million a year (basically the Cozens contract)
Coronato - 8 years 6.5 million
Pelletier - 5 years 3.5 million

If the guys hit they will be value contracts when the Flames are ready to possibly sign UFAs and if they don’t they are likely still decent contracts in a 110 million dollar cap world.

I would then look and see if there was a UFA center that could be signed for 3 years or less. And a dman assuming they trade Rasmus.

I don't disagree with the over strategy but what has Pelletier done to show he's a $3.5M player? Do you see that much improvement coming such that will be a good contract?