2024/2025 Season trade rumours and speculation thread

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Increasing the odds of drafting a generational player is a plan. It’s a plan that doesn’t guarantee success. And it may not be plan that sits well with you. But it’s a plan.

Yzerman had a plan with the Wings. The lottery balls didn’t bounce his way, so now he has to change up his strategy. Doesn’t mean his original plan was bad.

Luck plays a big part in professional sports outcomes. Nudging those odds a little in your favour is pretty much all team management can do.

OK sure. It may be a plan but not a very good one.
If part of the plan is to increase the odds of higher picks I get it.
I just don't think the oilers are an example that can be replicated or held as any example because players like McDavid come along once every 20 years, if not even less frequent.

So a continuum with luck on one side and strategy on the other - they are way over on the luck side. Successful teams like Florida would be more on the strategy side. Avs somewhere in the middle.

[Royle9]

How many teams have all the skill in the world but no goalie to take them across the line? It’s a HUGE importance, I can’t believe we’re already thinking of ways to get rid of ours for the small chance at a lottery ball… jeez.

[Vinny01]

I don’t think it makes sense for the Flames to make any major acquisitions until they are ready to move to the new rink. This summer if the chance to get Rossi, McTavish, Byram or another young budding star is available then Conroy should try to do it but the 26 1st should not be on the table. I do not think they should chase any other big name UFA’s like Marner, Bennett, Ekblad, Ehlers, Boeser and I fully think they should trade Andersson and not hang up the phone if someone calls about Coleman.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Late to the party, but I disagree that you have to trade Wolf in order to tank, or even that he has to have a bad year. Wolf is good right now, and I think he will be even better as he gains experience, but I do disagree that he would be able to keep the team from bottoming out. He is not Hasek in his prime.



As for the Oilers - they never once planned on tanking. They avoided it. Remember the Hall year where they were "Oil Change" or whatever that stupid show was? Katz was telling Tambellini (and his #### eating grin) "This is the only time we finish here." They just sucked so bad at building a team - and still do. The plan was to be good, but instead, they were so bad they kept accumulating picks, and fell ass-backwards into McDavid.


I still don't see them as a good team. They are just (unfortunately) playing well right now, but McDavid and Draisaitl are the engines for that team.


As for McKenna - it is arguable if he is generational or not. That term gets overused quite a lot. I do think he is a legitimate 'franchise altering' pick. Lafreniere is not, Power is not, RNH is not. I think he is going to be flirting with the Art Ross throughout his career in the NHL, and will be the engine for whatever team ends up drafting him. Whether that's generational, or a step below generational, that's up to your own definitions. Generational means 20-30 years by definition, and I would think there have been many more than 1 or 2 players that meet the general definition of the term 'generational'. I won't quibble with anyone's own definition, but I do think that McKenna will be franchise-altering, as will Dupont the following year.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Also jiri you're engaging in a classic catch 22. Someone who had frequently argued that oilers ownership and management is historically stupid and actively makes the wrong choices cant reasonably argue that their sustained success is now all due to luck. 2 cup finals in a row isn't luck. 5 lottery wins wasnt just luck, it was an intentional strategy to lose and optimize lottery luck. They gamed the system.

McDavid would already have a cup by now if it wasn’t for Oilers management getting in his way. Even this offseason was pretty bad and him and Draisaitl are dragging that team to the finals again. Oilers would look way better with Broberg, McLeod, and Holloway than the vets they prioritized over them. You also have totally forgotten that it was bad management and not purposeful design that got them McDavid.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Royle9

How many teams have all the skill in the world but no goalie to take them across the line? It’s a HUGE importance, I can’t believe we’re already thinking of ways to get rid of ours for the small chance at a lottery ball… jeez.

The only player I’d trade Wolf for is an age appropriate #1C and that won’t be available

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

It might have been just luck if they did it once, but instead they did it for like 10 straight years. Obviously it was flawed, but it resulted in them getting the two best offensive players in the league, who are capable of dragging an absolute dog #### roster to the cup finals, even when managed by drunk buffoon who actively make the roster worse around them.

It wasn't just luck, they purposely sucked for a long time and they were rewarded. I reject that this was just an aw shucks bumble.

I never said I would rather cheer for the oilers, but i find it harder and harder to reasonably counter or even jaw at the oilers fans I'm around these days. I can't rely on scum of the earth stuff only. Regular season is worthless. Their losing decade is further away. I hope they don't win the cup this year but either way its been basically impossible to talk down on them without seeming like a hopelessly moronic Homer.

Under the current draft rules they wouldn't have even got McDavid...they had no plan to suck. They signed UFAs every offseason trying to compete they were just terribly managed.

[Monahammer]

My real point is we can't really say the oilers are shameful for tanking and being the shame of the league while simultaneously saying it was nothing but luck that got them mcdavid and draisaitl. No, they were shameful but ultimately it seems to have paid off to some degree, making our dogging insistence at remaining "competitive" year in and year out look like a feckless lack of faith in the fan base to endure a proper rebuild.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

The only time that Edmonton sort of tried to tank they got Nail Yakupov

Yup, and if he was even a decent top 6 forward, they would have a complete middling to bottom team with Yak, RNH or Hall to show for their strategic rebuild.
Not bad enough to get another 1st overall, and not good enough to ever do anything.

Their rebuild failed so badly, they somehow won a generational lottery ticket and got McDavid.

A suggested Edmonton style rebuild is to suck, draft 1st overall a few times,
make such poor choices, you still suck 10 years later, win the draft lottery, finally get it right.
What a laughable suggestion as a strategy that's even possible to re create.

Not to mention the draft lottery rules were changed to ensure this lighting doesn't strike again like it did for them.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

My real point is we can't really say the oilers are shameful for tanking and being the shame of the league while simultaneously saying it was nothing but luck that got them mcdavid and draisaitl. No, they were shameful but ultimately it seems to have paid off to some degree, making our dogging insistence at remaining "competitive" year in and year out look like a feckless lack of faith in the fan base to endure a proper rebuild.

They didn’t purposefully tank. That’s the point.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Successful teams like Florida would be more on the strategy side. Avs somewhere in the middle.

I agree that Florida and Colorado are good examples. They exemplify the dual approach of both building with top draft picks then supplementing that with big game hunting types of moves when they were ready to take the next step. They also have a big advantage in being locations that are at the higher end of desirable. They have to worry less about whether they are on a player's NTC list or overpaying for even average UFAs. For a team like the Flames, building through the draft is probably more critical. Both those teams are also good examples of building their foundations before pushing their chips in with a goalie (Florida had Barkov, Huberdeau, and Ekblad before adding Bobrovsky, Colorado had MacKinnon, Makar, and Rantanen before adding Kuemper who won them the Cup).

Both those teams are also good examples of how those top lottery picks give you way more returns than drafting outside of the top 5 or worse. Colorado drafted MacKinnon 1st and Florida drafted Barkov 2nd in 2013. I won't get into the semantics of what "generational" should mean, but I think it is fair to say that both players are rare treasures that are the types that drag teams to success. The Flames drafted Monahan at 6th which was a great pick at that point, but it underlines the tier difference between 1st and 2nd OA compared to being outside of top 5, and of course it only gets more obvious the further you move down the 1st round. People can argue that bottoming out and drafting high isn't a plan, but I think it is more of a plan than constantly being in the mush middle and saying that you just need to hit on the picks you do have. Every team is already doing that. It's not like teams drafting high aren't also trying to hit on their other picks. That to me just comes down to dumb luck more than giving yourself lottery advantages does.

Switching lanes now, I was the one that brought up the idea of trading Wolf to both get a different high end asset as well as better draft odds for a few seasons, but that wasn't the only or even main point that I was trying to get at. The main point is that there are three different options. One option being to get better by big game hunting right now. We have a franchise goalie, so bottoming out is not likely but given that we also don't have rare elite talent* right now, getting over the hump isn't likely either. I am not saying that doing the big game hunting needs to be done in one offseason, but it should start now. Just like utilizing the draft, it is something that happens over years. Another option is the one mentioned about juggling assets to give us better draft odds. And of course, the third option is to do nothing and just hope to find rare players deeper into the draft.

The third option is the least desirable for me, and the other two are about equal. The big game hunting approach is just more difficult IMO because of the whole smaller market Canadian team thing unfortunately.

* Parekh could be that kind of player, but we are likely several years from finding out. I don't think we should just sit back and wait for that.

[traptor]

There's 0 chance of Wolf getting traded. No point of even talking about it really.

This team can easily be bottom 10 with Wolf having an decent year still.

Sorokin, Dostal, Daccord, Swayman, Soros and Knight all finished the year on bottom 10 teams.
I don't think it's crazy that the Flames have lottery odds at the end of next year.


I don't look at this roster top-to-bottom and see a guaranteed top 22 team, especially if they remove Rasmus without adding.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

My real point is we can't really say the oilers are shameful for tanking and being the shame of the league while simultaneously saying it was nothing but luck that got them mcdavid and draisaitl. No, they were shameful but ultimately it seems to have paid off to some degree, making our dogging insistence at remaining "competitive" year in and year out look like a feckless lack of faith in the fan base to endure a proper rebuild.

Well I never said they were shameful
I think they are largely incompetent and got lucky.

[Jiggy]

If the Edmonton model doesn't work we can try the Pittsburgh model a few years later. Easy peasy.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by traptor

There's 0 chance of Wolf getting traded. No point of even talking about it really.

This team can easily be bottom 10 with Wolf having an decent year still.

Sorokin, Dostal, Daccord, Swayman, Soros and Knight all finished the year on bottom 10 teams.
I don't think it's crazy that the Flames have lottery odds at the end of next year.


I don't look at this roster top-to-bottom and see a guaranteed top 22 team, especially if they remove Rasmus without adding.

All we know for sure is what happened this past season and recent past events are usually the best predicter of future events. I don't think any of those goalies ever led a team that practically everyone thought was going to be a lottery team to a 96 point season. I am pretty comfortable saying that those other goalies couldn't do that, at least at this point in their careers. I also don't think losing Rasmus would move the needle that much. Like I don't think he is what kept the Flames from being a lottery team this season.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Royle9

How many teams have all the skill in the world but no goalie to take them across the line? It’s a HUGE importance, I can’t believe we’re already thinking of ways to get rid of ours for the small chance at a lottery ball… jeez.

The only plan that makes sense is to suck for the next 10 years and hope the lottery balls fall in our favour. Despite this plan rarely working it is really the only plan that we have. An alternative around selling assets for picks and prospects and building around existing young assets is far too short sighted. We need to be terrible for 8-10 years and then see the fruits of that labour.

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Well i said an embarrassment. I believe they are embarrassment to us fans, as a franchise who is seemingly totally opposed to employing a winning strategy. I'm not sure why you required such clarity, but you always seem to struggle with anything remotely abstract, which I'm not even sure that was.

Sure, man. You just keep right on going with your embarrassment. Sounds fun.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Does wolf have any elective surgery’s he can do to get himself in tip top shape???

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by Royle9

How many teams have all the skill in the world but no goalie to take them across the line? It’s a HUGE importance, I can’t believe we’re already thinking of ways to get rid of ours for the small chance at a lottery ball… jeez.

All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again.

Folks wanted to trade Iggy.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

The only plan that makes sense is to suck for the next 10 years and hope the lottery balls fall in our favour. Despite this plan rarely working it is really the only plan that we have. An alternative around selling assets for picks and prospects and building around existing young assets is far too short sighted. We need to be terrible for 8-10 years and then see the fruits of that labour.

Correct! And if we are really really serious Flames should suck for 100 years in order to win 10 consecutive Cups.

I like your line of thinking.

Do we dare to suck for 1,000? What fruits might that bring?