2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Royle9

The NTC is almost irrelevant in this case.
That because his value is only highest with an extension.

With that said his value would have been highest 2 seasons ago, but Flames were busy trying to compete and it wasn’t even a thought back then I’m certain.

I think the valid criticism is why keep him last season. Conroy rolled into the season with 20 million in cap space and didn’t ice a competitive team.
Back to the Hanifin return as the baseline which was probably always going to be the case once they kept him at the deadline.

[Flames_F.T.W]

Maybe one day we'll strike while the iron is hot ��

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Royle9

The NTC is almost irrelevant in this case.
That because his value is only highest with an extension.

With that said his value would have been highest 2 seasons ago, but Flames were busy trying to compete and it wasn’t even a thought back then I’m certain.

And that’s the mistake. For a small market team entering re-tool/rebuild need to maximize assets. Some of us stated at trade deadline that a sign and trade in final year was going to be very hard to pull off. If hanifin situation didn’t teach CC that this certainly should. I get culture, but flames have to be in front of the curve when it comes to things like this. Hopefully this all works out but my guess is he is traded for hanifin return

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Royle9

The NTC is almost irrelevant in this case.
That because his value is only highest with an extension.

With that said his value would have been highest 2 seasons ago, but Flames were busy trying to compete and it wasn’t even a thought back then I’m certain.

His value is only highest with an extension, if he's willing to extend with a team that wants him. Otherwise his value could be higher by taking him to market purely as a 1 year rental with retention.

I know I'm stating the obvious but that's the reality that the Flames have to be balancing. If he's not going to extend with enough teams, then they need to auction him off as a rental.

[Niemo]

We can't blame Ras as it is potentially the next 9 years of his life.

I am more disappointed by the management group in not foreseeing this situation potentially happening. How does a management team that gloats about their tight and super positive and open relationship with a player not know that contract numbers would be far apart and that his trade value will be controlled by him if dragged into the last year?

Also, I understand that there is a perceived value around the league for guys taking note that the Calgary Flames are a world class organization and we treat players right. I am not aware of this helping us yet. It seems to have let players dictate terms and the Flames getting lower value in return.

The most we get out of it so far is the player says "Absolutely nothing bad to say about the Calgary Flames or the City. Fans are amazing, City is great place to live, and Management and Ownership are world class. It was just time to move on after serious consideration with the family."

Not sure how to even respond to this without trying to be politically correct. Maybe "Thanks Bro.....".
Seems like a 'it's not you, it's me' break up where your ex tells her friends that you were such a nice and good guy, it just didn't work out for some reason.

[YyjFlames]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

https://twitter.com/user/status/1939674753390071908

So it’s the Hanifin situation all over again. Granting the player space because they think they can maximize return by getting it to go with an extension, when all that really does is turn the table and effectively give the player a full-NTC which doesn’t actually improve trade value.

Just trade him as a player with 50% retained on a 1-year contract and be done with it.

Gotta ask, is this guy anyone or did anyone hear a clip of this? Dreger has a Twitter account and hasn’t posted anything on the topic.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

You never fail to impress, Pepsi.

My bad I didn’t expect you were going to go with “cost of living” as a top concern for a multi-millionaire or population, for that matter. It’s cool if you’re a yokel and hate population dense areas like New York, LA, SF, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Vancouver, etc. but they’re some of the most popular places in the world, especially for people with 7-8 figure salaries.

[TheIronMaiden]

If this is the case, I hope Andersson makes himself undeniable, and comes out playing as hard as he can to drive his value up, and that he doesn't do what Hanifin did and play like a wet napkin trusting someone would over value him on past performances.

If Andersson, plays like ####, might as well just ditch him as a rental ASAP. It hurts the team in everyway.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

His value is only highest with an extension, if he's willing to extend with a team that wants him. Otherwise his value could be higher by taking him to market purely as a 1 year rental with retention.

I know I'm stating the obvious but that's the reality that the Flames have to be balancing. If he's not going to extend with enough teams, then they need to auction him off as a rental.

And the bid up rental probably starts to get closer to, but not at, the extension level.

This isn't worth whining about.

[keenan87]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

And that’s the mistake. For a small market team entering re-tool/rebuild need to maximize assets. Some of us stated at trade deadline that a sign and trade in final year was going to be very hard to pull off. If hanifin situation didn’t teach CC that this certainly should. I get culture, but flames have to be in front of the curve when it comes to things like this. Hopefully this all works out but my guess is he is traded for hanifin return

Absolutely - I think it is important to be 2 years ahead if you are a small market like Calgary.

It is easy when you are Vegas, Toronto, New York. However, I hope the Flames have learned a lesson to be further ahead then trying to deal guys on their last year if possible.

For instance, the Flames should already be considering trading Blake Coleman in my opinion.

[JTech780]

Any chance that Calgary is leaking this to Dreger to put public pressure on Andersson? It takes some of the heat off management, and puts it on Andersson.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by keenan87

Absolutely - I think it is important to be 2 years ahead if you are a small market like Calgary.

It is easy when you are Vegas, Toronto, New York. However, I hope the Flames have learned a lesson to be further ahead then trying to deal guys on their last year if possible.

For instance, the Flames should already be considering trading Blake Coleman in my opinion.

I think it's situational.
In my mind, and lord knows I could be wrong, a guy like Coleman has maximum value as a deadline rental. Same with Backlund.

And to a lesser extent a guy like Lomberg.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Are there even typically more than 2-3 teams in the mix to land one of the top free agents in a given year? I don’t expect Andersson wanting to extend with more than 2 or 3 teams, the same as I wouldn’t expect a UFA to.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Right but that's the default, and the default hasn't eroded at all.

You trade a player with a year left, retain salary and move on. By trying to do a deal to a team that he will sign with might get you more, and if not you still have the default.

Not speaking to you on this part ... but I think some fans have a tough time managing their desire for newsy trades, and lash out at things with almost zero knowledge of what's going on.

Gets old.

It isn’t just people who are reflexively critical of the Flames that are disappointed about the reports over the last couple days. According to insiders, Andersson has shot down multiple offers that Conroy was presumably wiling to make. And the only deal that Andersson did approve wasn’t good enough for Conroy.

Yes, nothing has changed as far as Andersson having control over where he signs an extension. What has changed from the outside is it’s looking like the number of destinations he’s will to extend in is very small. This will obviously hurt his value. And with each potential deal shot down, it’s increasingly like he’ll start the season in Calgary, which carries a lot of risk with it.

Getting a Hanifin-level return for Andersson would be disappointing to fans. No, we don’t have any control over it. But speculating about stuff we have no control over isn’t lashing out - it’s the main activity on forums like this.

[SuperMatt18]

The fact it wasn't even a thought is the issue though.

There was discussion that the Flames should have been thinking about trading Markstrom, Hanifin, Andersson, Tanev, etc at the 2023 trade deadline when teams were overpaying and they were out of it, but their were rumors at the time the Flames were a little late to the party.

Then they made a bunch of those trades in season in 2024 and got great returns on Lindholm, and pretty average returns on Hanifin, Tanev, and Zadorov. So I can understand not shopping Andersson during the 23-24 season as you have enough pieces on the market.

Then in the 2024 offseason they did the right thing by being proactive with Markstrom and Mangiapane deals, but feels like they left value on the table with Andersson by not shopping him at the 2024 draft / free agency period.

And I do get not wanting to go scorched earth rebuild, and not wanting to trade everyone early, and in the case of somebody like Hanifin I actually understood trying to re-sign him and keep him until the last minute since he was young enough that an 8 year deal made sense.

But the Andersson scenario seemed pretty clear to me. You already had RH shot Weegar locked up long term. You had Brzustewicz in a trade, and then Parekh drafted 9th OV. And it seemed pretty clear the Flames wouldn't want to give Andersson $9M x 8 years on a contract that started at 30 years old.

Hopefully they can still get a team to overpay but feels like it's going to be tough if he's only going to be willing to re-sign in a couple of places.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Bingo

And the bid up rental probably starts to get closer to, but not at, the extension level.

This isn't worth whining about.

Yeah, without looking into it I can’t imagine there’s much of a chasm between the value of a guy extended and the value of a “rental” they’re going to get an entire season out of. Especially because I’m sure if it’s a good fit the extension is a lot more likely to come anyway.

This isn’t a guy with a few weeks left coming in for a playoff run.

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Right but that's the default, and the default hasn't eroded at all.

You trade a player with a year left, retain salary and move on. By trying to do a deal to a team that he will sign with might get you more, and if not you still have the default.

Not speaking to you on this part ... but I think some fans have a tough time managing their desire for newsy trades, and lash out at things with almost zero knowledge of what's going on.

Gets old.

Right, but according to Friedman, the default will just mean the Flames getting less because teams are only willing to pay the Flames’ price if they have an Andersson extension. Which is what it is, I guess. But I think it’s understandable that people would be upset by the Flames being forced to take less than their price.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

My bad I didn’t expect you were going to go with “cost of living” as a top concern for a multi-millionaire or population, for that matter. It’s cool if you’re a yokel and hate population dense areas like New York, LA, SF, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Vancouver, etc. but they’re some of the most popular places in the world, especially for people with 7-8 figure salaries.

Unreal how a poster indicating he would rather not live in California has lead to posts like this. Absolutely unbelievable.

[sa226]

I dont understand all this hang up on the extension. The best trade Conroy has made thus far was for a pure rental in Lindholm.

You can extract significant value for pure rentals.

Of course teams may not want him at all if he doesn't want to extend, but what contender wouldn't want to add a player like Rasmus at 50% retained.

To me this comes down to risk of injury during the year. Which is a huge risk for your biggest trade chip.

If I were to guess, I bet the situation is something like, Calgary want the situation resolved ASAP. But Raz's camp doesn't want to commit to any team save for maybe a couple. He wants to be traded to a contender or cup favorite, bet on himself and put up a huge year, then cash in as a UFA next summer.

If Conroy finds himself handcuffed, I wonder if a pivot to the rental market is the best move.

What teams are on the cusp and need some D depth?.....don't say Edmonton.

Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by keenan87

It always seems like most teams can get value for their players but there are always a hurdle for the Flames. Is this just plain bad luck or the Flames are just not great at managing assets. For instance, what would Andersson's value be if he was traded last off-season for 50% retained. A team would have gotten him for 2 years.

For me it's a combination. A bit of luck involved, but the flames always wait too long and trade players post peak value. Last summer with 2 years on his deal an extension isn't even a part of the trade discussion and you bring in a core building block for rasmus. But the flames always chasing the 16th playoff spot seem to hold vets who can still contribute until the last possible moment out of fear the team will be so much worse without them. Like coleman this year. everyone can see now is the time to move him except the flames. We also seem to handout a ton of ntcs and nmcs that further restrid flexibility - kadri should 100% be moved this summer at peak value but the club doesn't have the ability to do it because of the clause.

Last I just don't think they are moving exceptional players lately. The club is bad for a reason. Rasmus is an above average close to 30 dman. You can't expect a crazy return.

Next summer watch they will attempt to move kadri after a much worse season too instead of really pushing it this year to find a fit where we will waive after his massive season and the flames will be out a potential 1st rounder or something. Asset mgmt has been pretty bad for this franchise... deals like glencross or mangiapane stick out because they are so few and far between. At least conroy seems more focused on it than any of our past gms