2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[Teroy]

Originally Posted by JTech780

In their last 20 games:

Sharangovich: 4G-1A-5P -8 16:51TOI (14:16EV, 1:26PP, 1:09PK)
Zary: 3G-2A-5P -8 14:59TOI (13:24EV, 1:33PP, 0:01PK)

I wouldn't consider Zary a young player anymore, and he is getting the same opportunities as Sharangovich minus the PK time. Zary just isn't that good of a player.

Totally disagree!

[stemit14]

Zary is such a tough call. I like his game when he is confident and I would have liked to see him tried more at center over the last two seasons. I think with his linemates over the years, his utilization and the coaching style… it’s still difficult to determine his ceiling. I do think he is a player who, with the right linemates and utilization, could be a top six forward.

There are a few young players that I think won’t be able to be properly assessed as to their potential until they play under a different system. I think Huska is a good coach overall but his system does seem to limit the flow of the game and limit aggressive, fast attacks up the ice. While I think he has no problem with defencemen joining rushes and creating offence… I also think his defensive system in the flames’ end tends to lead to long shifts where players are in their own end. When this happens, it’s difficult for defencemen to join the rush and create offence as the late player joining the rush because they are tired and need to change. This can also be true of forwards as well so I don’t think the flames generate as much off the rush… which could play into Zary maybe not reaching his potential as a player who creates chance off the rush. I think this is also true for Huberdeau in some ways - pretty sure there a great breakdown last year of Huberdeau’s best production coming from a system in which defenseman consistently join the rush and he has not played a system that consistently does that since he left Florida.

I’m not saying the coach needs to change right now but I do agree that players like Zary, Parekh and (hopefully) McKenna may need a different system to reach their full offensive potential. Whether or not that system will lead to being a contending team is debatable. We’ve seen teams that have free-flowing styles that let their skilled players put up lots of points but at the cost of defensive play.

[Psytic]

Originally Posted by Ba'alzamon

^ So basically AI told you what you wanted to hear, without a great deal of attention to accuracy.

A ZSR of 50% does not constitute "getting buried" lol. Backlund's is 31% and Coleman's is 35.5%. That is getting buried.

Zary is not, and never has been, "the Flames' most used defensive-utility winger". That is Coleman.



That sentence is hilarious. You should see the problems with it on your own.



Transition is literally the ability to move the puck into the offensive zone (or out of the defensive zone). By definition, you cannot use transition ability in the offensive zone. This sentence is nonsense. (basically, if Zary is primarily a transition forward than using him in a way where he spends most of his time transitioning the puck through the neutral zone would constitute using him correctly, wouldn't it?)

Also, citation needed on that 92nd percentile remark.

I don't recall saying I have a position one way or the other. I asked it to compare Zary to Mctavish using NHL Edge and Natural stat Stick (24 different inputs) . Here is what it says to your points:


The reason the "bust" talk feels premature is that his micro-stats show he is working hard in the wrong areas of the ice. Citation's Per NHL Edge data for March 2026:

1. The Neutral Zone Trap: Zary is in the 92nd percentile for time spent in the Neutral Zone (18.7%). The rebuttal there is that while transition is moving the puck through the NZ, he is currently spending significantly more time there than in the Offensive Zone, where he is in the bottom 50th percentile (40.8%). He is effectively the team's designated carrier, but the plays are dying before they reach high-danger areas.
2. The Deployment Gap: Look at a guy like Mason McTavish for contrast. He has 64th percentile O-Zone time and 84th percentile NZ time. He gets to stay in the zone because his system sustains pressure. Zary is in the 74th percentile for skating distance (155.9 miles) because he’s constantly having to reload and carry the puck back through the middle because the O-zone possession isn't sticking.
3. The Finish Problem: The "nonsense" comment on transition misses the point of the bottleneck. Transition gets you to the dance; the system has to let you dance. The Flames currently rank 32nd in the NHL in goals per game (2.44) and 32nd in high-danger conversion (13.8%). Zary is successfully transitioning the puck (hence the 92nd percentile volume), but he’s entering an offensive system that is statistically the worst in the league at finishing.

The Bennett comparison stands because it's a player with high-end transition metrics and elite skating volume spinning his wheels in a system that can't score. If he is a bust, it is because he can't finish. If he is a breakout candidate, it is because he is an elite puck mover on a team with no finish. So one or the other, hard to say.


That's what it thinks. I have to meet some colleagues for dinner so I wont be able to provide more of its analysis but its interesting if accurate.

[FlamesAddiction]

Maybe a stupid question, but do Beniers and Johnson both play center at the NHL level? During their draft year, I watched highlights of them at university and a lot of them had them playing together, and playing very well at that. It could be a sample size issue of course because I didn't watch full games. It got me thinking that Seattle might want to make a pitch for Johnson, that is if one of them plays on the wing.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Remember Whitecloud said the Flames play essentially the same system as Vegas
It’s not a system issue

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Maybe a stupid question, but do Beniers and Johnson both play center at the NHL level? During their draft year, I watched highlights of them at university and a lot of them had them playing together, and playing very well at that. It could be a sample size issue of course because I didn't watch full games. It go me thinking that Seattle might want to make a pitch for Johnson though, that is if one of them plays on the wing.

Matty Beniers played only center this year, which is consistent with the rest of his career.

Kent Johnson spent the entire season on the wing. Playing RW for ~75% of the time. I'm pretty sure he played around half of his first full season in the NHL at center, and that was that.