2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Yet here were few on the board who thought they should move Huberdeau.

And once you kept Huberdeau, the Monny trade to sign Kadri made sense.

The rebuild at that time is simply hindsight by the large majority of posters.

In fact, a whole lot of people said the trade was bad if Treliving failed to sign Huberdeau long term.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

Speaking of lame ducks. McTavish has not re-signed in Anaheim yet....sounds like Verbeek is dead set on a bridge, which is obviously a sticking point for the player.

It would be worth the stab by Conroy to finally grab a young, skilled center even at the 6 x 9M AAV compensation (a 1st 2nd and 3rd rounder) that I don't believe the Ducks may have a hard time matching on principle. The Flames have enough picks to withstand that and will recoup much of that in an Andersson deal at some point.

A small technicality: it would have to be 5 years or less.

The RFA compensation brackets are defined by dividing the total contract amount by the number of years, but that number can't be higher than 5. So $9M x 6, will require the same compensation a $10.8M offer would which is 2 x 1sts + 2nd + 3rd.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Buffalo and Arizona did it for better lottery odds for McDavid in 2015. Wouldn’t be shocked if Nashville and another team does the same for McKenna.

Buffalo's efforts in 2015 were the following to tank

1) Trading a 2015 1st round pick, 25 yr old Tyler Myers, 30 year old Drew Stafford, 2014 2nd round pick Lemieux for 25 year Bogosian, 24 year old Evander Kane and a career AHLer. So they basically traded futures for win now guys in this trade.

2) Traded Chris Stewart for a 2015 2nd round pick

year before that they traded Vanek for a 1st, 2nd and Matt Moulson

traded Miller and Ott for Chris Stewart, Halak, a 2013 2nd (Carrier), a 1st and a 3rd

so their rebuild effort netted a 1st, two seconds and a third over 2 years with the prospects being a wash. The Flames have been much much more focused on accumulating picks and prospects.

They kept 35 year old Brian Gionta, 30 year old Josh Gorges, 30 year old Matt Moulson and 6 other players 28 years of age or older.

Arizona did a bit more than Buffalo trading Yandle and Vermette for pure futures but decided to keep 37 year old Doan, 33 year old Erat, 32 year old Smith, 32 year old David Moss. It was not exactly a fire sale.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by dino7c

If the Flames kept Monahan the most likely, almost for sure scenario would be he would miss most of the season and then sign elsewhere as a UFA.

People are forgetting (as usual) that Montreal re-signed the guy when he was headed to UFA before flipping him. Also, stat padding no defence Montreal that year helped them fleece the Jets for a first

And we’d have a first still… so his contract would have easily been LTIR and then he’d walk and we’d have a first… yup seemed obvious then, and obvious now, that was the move.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

And we’d have a first still… so his contract would have easily been LTIR and then he’d walk and we’d have a first… yup seemed obvious then, and obvious now, that was the move.

LTIR for what? By the time he was hurt it would have been useless. Kadri is a better asset than Victor Eklund. The trade wasnt perfect but it didnt really hurt the Flames like some seem to think. I promise you Montreal would give up Victor Eklund in 2 seconds for Kadri.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

And we’d have a first still… so his contract would have easily been LTIR and then he’d walk and we’d have a first… yup seemed obvious then, and obvious now, that was the move.

He started the year on the active roster. The Flames couldn't just willy nilly add him to LTIR to start the year with no basis.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by dino7c

If the Flames kept Monahan the most likely, almost for sure scenario would be he would miss most of the season and then sign elsewhere as a UFA.

People are forgetting (as usual) that Montreal re-signed the guy when he was headed to UFA before flipping him. Also, stat padding no defence Montreal that year helped them fleece the Jets for a first

Also add in the Jets were rumored to be in on Lindholm, and missed out on him. They had to overpay for Monahan because there was a nonexistent center market past Monahan at the TDL. Vancouver forced Winnipeg to make that deal.

[traptor]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

In fact, a whole lot of people said the trade was bad if Treliving failed to sign Huberdeau long term.

probably the same group of people that are still defending these moves..

[Rhett44]

Originally Posted by dino7c

LTIR for what? By the time he was hurt it would have been useless. Kadri is a better asset than Victor Eklund. The trade wasnt perfect but it didnt really hurt the Flames like some seem to think. I promise you Montreal would give up Victor Eklund in 2 seconds for Kadri.

Eklund is on the Islanders now. But I 100% would give up Kadri for him. No question.

Kadri is about to be 35. Eklund has the potential to be a first line winger.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

And we’d have a first still… so his contract would have easily been LTIR and then he’d walk and we’d have a first… yup seemed obvious then, and obvious now, that was the move.

Really easy to say with hindsight but the Flames were going to compete after that Huberdeau signing. Media had the Flames as legit contenders

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Bonded

Really easy to say with hindsight but the Flames were going to compete after that Huberdeau signing. Media had the Flames as legit contenders

So did most posters, who were in the process of erecting a statute of Treliving.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

So did most posters, who were in the process of erecting a statute of Treliving.

Still an incredible trade.

The contract extension for Huby? Not so much in hindsight. At the time he had Johnny numbers plus the size/strength this team and fanbase tends to covet.

Even with the extension, that trade is at worst a B. It’s on Huby to deliver $10.5m worth of stats (the way he used to before moving here).

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Bonded

Really easy to say with hindsight but the Flames were going to compete after that Huberdeau signing. Media had the Flames as legit contenders

It wasn’t like it was completely out of reality. They replaced Gaudreau with Huberdeau, which wasn’t seen as a huge difference at the time. Losing Tkachuk was a big loss of course.

[Rhett44]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

Still an incredible trade.

The contract extension for Huby? Not so much in hindsight. At the time he had Johnny numbers plus the size/strength this team and fanbase tends to covet.

Even with the extension, that trade is at worst a B. It’s on Huby to deliver $10.5m worth of stats (the way he used to before moving here).

It looked good at the time. Unfortunately, in hindsight, Huberdeau fell apart. We traded a guy who was a big reason his team won 2 cups in exchange for 2 players who never really have won anything at the NHL level.

It is what it is though.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

It looked good at the time. Unfortunately, in hindsight, Huberdeau fell apart. We traded a guy who was a big reason his team won 2 cups in exchange for 2 players who never really have won anything at the NHL level.

It is what it is though.

… a guy who was walking for nothing allowed us to trade him for those players. That’s what happened, not what you said.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

It looked good at the time. Unfortunately, in hindsight, Huberdeau fell apart. We traded a guy who was a big reason his team won 2 cups in exchange for 2 players who never really have won anything at the NHL level.

It is what it is though.

To be more accurate, we traded a guy who made it known he was leaving whether we liked it or not. He gave a short list of teams that he was willing to go to with an extension and we were lucky to get what we did as the rumoured return from the Blues was much worse.

You make it sound like there was an option where we could keep Tkachuk, which is not true. Once Brad gave him that bridge contract the risk of him forcing his way out went up dramatically.

This is likely one of the reasons so many young stars are getting big contracts now instead of bridge deals.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Wolven

To be more accurate, we traded a guy who made it known he was leaving whether we liked it or not. He gave a short list of teams that he was willing to go to with an extension and we were lucky to get what we did as the rumoured return from the Blues was much worse.

You make it sound like there was an option where we could keep Tkachuk, which is not true. Once Brad gave him that bridge contract the risk of him forcing his way out went up dramatically.

This is likely one of the reasons so many young stars are getting big contracts now instead of bridge deals.

Yeah the bridge was a mistake but I dont think that it became impossible to re-sign him once it was signed. Calgary didn't offer to back up the truck for him and didn't capitulate to his room/leadership demands. We wanted to keep our club culture.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by traptor

probably the same group of people that are still defending these moves..

Nope. The same people who are criticizing the contract more likely.

[Sandman]

Huberdeau set the record for assists by a left winger, and put up 115 points the year we traded for him. Who would have thought that he could regress the way he did? It ended up being a complete disaster.

[Monahammer]

The other thing that I think heavily impacted our ability to keep tkachuk and all Americans was the pandemic and lockdowns. Totally out of our control and spooked American players.