2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Don’t forget the Sabres with Eichel, Reinhart, Power, Dahlin

Columbus with Filatov, Johansen, Murray and Dubois.

Then Columbus again with Fantili, Johnson, Jiricek.

Arizona with Keller, Hayton and Strome

New Jersey with Larsson, Zacha, Hirschier, Hughes, Hughes, Nemec.

NYR with Lafrenniere and Kakko

Islanders with Tavares, Niedereitter, strome, Reinhart and Del Colle.

There's also the team everyone wants to copy today...

• 2001 - Stephen Weiss (4th), 2002 - Jay Bouwmeester (3rd), 2003 - Nathan Horton (3rd)
  
• 2010 - Erik Gudbranson (3rd), 2011 - Jonathan Huberdeau (3rd)

If you add in Barkov and Ekblad, that's 7 top-4 picks in a 14 year span: 50%.

Even then, it was still Ekblad's 8th season in the league when they won the President's Trophy and their first playoff round since the mid-90s. His 9th season when they went to the Final, and his 10th season when they finally won the Cup.

[kehatch]

The argument that not all teams that have rebuilt win a cup is silly. The fact is other then Vegas (lottery) and St Louis (fluke) every cup winning team in the modern era has done a traditional rebuild.

[traptor]

Originally Posted by kehatch

The argument that not all teams that have rebuilt win a cup is silly. The fact is other then Vegas (lottery) and St Louis (fluke) every cup winning team in the modern era has done a traditional rebuild.

The Blues did do a rebuild 10 years prior to winning the cup. A long time but that's typically how long it takes for rebuilding teams to out it together it seems.



They had pietrangelo from that rebuild. During 3 years they had 29 picks over 3 drafts in that period, including 6 1sts, which included a 1st oa and a 4th oa.

It was actually a pretty bad rebuild when its al said and done. AlOT of misses but they did end up winning the cup.

[Mr.Coffee]

I actually agree with dino7c, and Rhett44. I actually don’t think what each other are arguing is necessarily contradictory to each other and both can be correct in their arguments here.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by kehatch

The argument that not all teams that have rebuilt win a cup is silly. The fact is other then Vegas (lottery) and St Louis (fluke) every cup winning team in the modern era has done a traditional rebuild.

The fact is, every team in the cap era (except Vegas and Seattle, which haven't been around long enough) has done a traditional rebuild, including the Flames. The Flames just never won a lottery, so they never picked higher than 4th in their rebuild.

Yet most of those rebuilding teams have not won a Cup.

Why don't people understand the concept of correlation? If you have a bin containing 30 black balls and two white balls and draw at random, of course most of the balls you draw will be black. If 30 out of 32 teams have done rebuilds, of course most of the Stanley Cup winners will be teams that have done rebuilds. It says absolutely nothing about causation one way or the other. The black balls didn't choose to be black so they would have a better chance of getting picked!

[Rhett44]

Originally Posted by Flamefan1

Rhett secretly an Oiler in Flames clothing?

Not at all. But let's not pretend tanking does not work, the Oilers are one of the worst managed teams ever. And simply because they tanked and got 2 elite players, they won more playoff rounds this year than we have won in the last 20 years combined.

Sorry, it is what it is. We can be proud of not tanking, but there is a generational type player available next year. And I would like to get as high a lottery ball chance of drafting him as possible. And if we get a few high picks the next few years, it would be be a game changer.

I am team tank 100%.

[dino7c]

The Oilers were trying to compete the year they got McDavid lol. They had McDavid the year they got Drai.

Also under the current rules they wouldnt get him anyway they are the absolute worst example

Also we know you are team tank you dont need to say it 100 times a day...this is what I mean about no point debating...you arent talking about making smart hockey trades you want Mctavish and Lowe to run the team

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

Not at all. But let's not pretend tanking does not work, the Oilers are one of the worst managed teams ever. And simply because they tanked and got 2 elite players, they won more playoff rounds this year than we have won in the last 20 years combined.

Sorry, it is what it is. We can be proud of not tanking, but there is a generational type player available next year. And I would like to get as high a lottery ball chance of drafting him as possible. And if we get a few high picks the next few years, it would be be a game changer.

I am team tank 100%.

The inaccuracy of this statement is astounding. It's 100% wrong.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by dino7c

The Oilers were trying to compete the year they got McDavid lol. They had McDavid the year they got Drai.

Also under the current rules they wouldnt get him anyway they are the absolute worst example

Also we know you are team tank you dont need to say it 100 times a day...this is what I mean about no point debating...you arent talking about making smart hockey trades you want Mctavish and Lowe to run the team

They didnt have Mcdavid the year they got Draisatl, Mcdavid was drafted a year after Draisaitl.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Agreed. And how did they acquire their best players ?

Drafted, traded and signed as a UFA.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Tanking with Wolf is to destroy and/or lose him.

[browntrout]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Tanking with Wolf is to destroy and/or lose him.

IMO, this team "vastly" exceeded expectations last year. The year before that they sold off countless vets, Andersson is probably gone, markstrom was traded. They have one of the lowest payrolls in the league. They probably are a bad season away from having vets request trades, CC has openly admitted that he hopes rookies will make the team.

I don't think the team is intentionally tanking, but they are setting themselves up for some regression this year.

Wolf will be fine, so maybe he has to wait till his 30's before winning a Stanley Cup with the flames

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Drafted, traded and signed as a UFA.

Well in fairness, below is probably Florida’s top 7 guys.

Barkov - drafted
Bob - UFA
Tkachuk - traded
Reinhart - traded
Bennett - traded
Forsling - waiver wire
Verhaeghe - UFA

Florida did get one of their top 7 players from the draft.

[Poe969]

Not every team with elite talent wins the cup.
Every cup winning team has elite talent, except the fluke blues but Pietrangelo was kinda elite.
Elite players don't beg to come to teams like the Flames.
The best way to get elite players is to draft them.
Not many elite players are drafted outside of the top 5-10.
The best way to draft high in the draft is to do poorly.
Doing poorly doesn't guarantee drafting high but it increases the odds of drafting high.

The only way to win is either get lucky and draft elite players and then luck out and be a le to build a team around them that can win OR luck out with a team of good players and beat the odds.

So, to win you need a lot of luck either way.
The question is: which way gives you the best odds of getting lucky?

[GullFoss]

I think people underestimate how long the rebuild might be. Kadri is 34 and Huby is 32 and Backlund is 36 and Weager is 31. Even with those post-apex players - at least one of which is grossly overpaid - the flames are 28th in payroll. And they are looking to trade Rasmus.

All the data suggests the trajectory of the team is downwards, on purpose. It's a long rebuild. You need to replace all five guys with higher end drafted talent over the next four years.

[CFO]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

I think people underestimate how long the rebuild might be. Kadri is 34 and Huby is 32 and Backlund is 36 and Weager is 31. Even with those post-apex players - at least one of which is grossly overpaid - the flames are 28th in payroll. And they are looking to trade Rasmus.

All the data suggests the trajectory of the team is downwards, on purpose. It's a long rebuild. You need to replace all five guys with higher end drafted talent over the next four years.

After the 2026 draft (another couple 1st round picks) the flames will essentially be year 3 into rebuild. Drafting 6 first round players in that span plus a ton of other young assets either drafted or acquired through trades. This team will look night/day different in 2 years from now.

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Well in fairness, below is probably Florida’s top 7 guys.

Barkov - drafted
Bob - UFA
Tkachuk - traded
Reinhart - traded
Bennett - traded
Forsling - waiver wire
Verhaeghe - UFA

Florida did get one of their top 7 players from the draft.

Does Florida win without Barkov though? You can say it's ONLY one player yet it's their best and most important player.

It also took a third overall to land Tkachuk.

Remove Barkov and Tkachuk and I'm pretty confident they don't win the Cup.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

Not at all. But let's not pretend tanking does not work, the Oilers are one of the worst managed teams ever. And simply because they tanked and got 2 elite players, they won more playoff rounds this year than we have won in the last 20 years combined.

Sorry, it is what it is. We can be proud of not tanking, but there is a generational type player available next year. And I would like to get as high a lottery ball chance of drafting him as possible. And if we get a few high picks the next few years, it would be be a game changer.

I am team tank 100%.

Tanking means to strip down your team to intentionally get worse in the standings
When the oilers drafted McDavid and Leon they weren’t doing that.

And you can not say tanking works when there are several examples of teams that did it, and not only didn’t win championships, but didn’t even come close

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Hackey

Does Florida win without Barkov though? You can say it's ONLY one player yet it's their best and most important player.

It also took a third overall to land Tkachuk.

Remove Barkov and Tkachuk and I'm pretty confident they don't win the Cup.

Read post 6225

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by CFO

After the 2026 draft (another couple 1st round picks) the flames will essentially be year 3 into rebuild. Drafting 6 first round players in that span plus a ton of other young assets either drafted or acquired through trades. This team will look night/day different in 2 years from now.

Except so far the picks have been 9th, 18th, 28th, and 32nd. Those aren't really the picks you expect to land franchise players with. Hopefully 9th is. This year hopefully their own pick is high because another two picks in the second half of the first likely isn't producing top line talent.