I haven't landed on a narrative. More than once I have shared what I think the Flames should do which is not a narrative. Nor is it "predicting" but it is interesting to hear reports on their current thinking.
Are you suggesting Steinberg is way off base in his reporting? And more importantly, what do you think they should so?
And yeah PepsiFree, no one likes personal shots.
Your narrative around how things have unfolded to date, obviously (“history”), and your “guess” which I suppose is semantically different than a prediction, you’re right.
I don’t put much weight on what Steinberg is hearing either way. I don’t think he’s really broken anything or provided greater “inside” insight that the average. I like his opinions and his speculation, but I also think anything he’s hearing is stuff the team is just fine being out in the public, for whatever reason.
I think they should trade Kadri, but I’m not particularly fussed either way about it. Pulling the trigger at the right time for the team is more important than just maximizing individual value. And I think he’ll have plenty of value next year as well.
If nobody likes personal shots, perhaps it’s time to take your own revelation and end your year+ obsession with adding them into 90+% of your replies to me. It’s become a bit predictable, and a bit sad. Time for a new hobby!
The Following User Says Thank You to PepsiFree For This Useful Post:
Well the full context is people are fine with making ####ty trades now to make the team worse today in the hopes of making it meaningfully better while reserving the right at all times and in perpetuity to complain about the returns on said trades in the future.
The last part is key. Trade Kadri for a 6th rounder today to make us lose but reserve the right to complain about the return in the future. Take whatever is on the table for Kadri immediately but reserve the right to complain about the return for Kadri in the future.
I don’t think anyone needs these trades to happen today but it would be something for the Flames to try and get out ahead of it. Maybe all these media messages are smoke screens and false info but there has always been a reluctance to lean into being bad. Feaster couldn’t even say rebuild and Conroy can’t really either. Treliving went immediately into win now after the team made the playoffs trading picks and signing UFA’s to long term deals immediately.
This team has got off to poor starts in the past and we saw for several years this team chase playoffs with aging star players until they were forced to sell off and have a couple of down years which they rushed and only really won 2 rounds of playoffs, a couple division titles and only made playoffs in consecutive years one time since 08-09.
I really hope in a months time we are still at the bottom and still talking about veterans moving.
I wouldn't rush it, I would be looking to do it pretty quickly though.
Once you trade Kadri, they will definitely start losing more which also has to be taken into consideration. You are helping your own pick in this years draft the earlier you trade him. But also, if there isn't a good offer right now you obviously wait for something better.
The best offer almost certainly isn't now...and its certainly not now if you say "give me your best offer we want to trade him ASAP"
I wouldn't rush it, I would be looking to do it pretty quickly though.
Once you trade Kadri, they will definitely start losing more which also has to be taken into consideration. You are helping your own pick in this years draft the earlier you trade him. But also, if there isn't a good offer right now you obviously wait for something better.
So what happens if the players or player coming back makes us slightly better then if we kept Kadri? It would be kinda ironic, people get their wish and he is traded then we get a little better to push us to the mushy middle. Right now we know they are bad. ( now obviously I am not saying don’t trade him if a good deal is offered)
So, I think we should trade Kadri before christmas for the highest possible package. Rasmus should have already been traded for whatever we can get (loved that Athletic package to vegas that was posted yesterday for e.g.) but as the old saying goes, the best time was yesterday the second best is today.
You trade these two first and you trade them soon, and we will have a hot ticket for McKenna or another top 5 draft pick next season. That is what we need most, in my opinion, to build a true contender so that all of our friends and colleagues here over the age of 50 have a chance to see a long playoff run again in their lives.
I truly do not see that playoff outcome happening with current tactics and strategy!
I would avoid helping Vegas at all costs. Even if it is unlikely for them to collapse this season, the lower they are in the standings the better our draft pick is. I do not think Vegas has the assets to acquire Andersson and compensate us for a 1st round pick sliding 5 or more spots in the draft. Vegas is tied for 11th overall right now, meaning that their draft pick is around 19-22. Regardless of how much you value Andersson, moving that draft pick from ~20 to ~30 should have a pretty heavy cost is worth moving out Andersson AND downgrading a 1st round pick.
Keeping an eye on Kuznetsov, I wonder if he starts giving off a vibe that he could be a better #2LD than either Hanley or Bean. If he can manage that then the Flames would essentially be out of the market for other team's LD prospects unless they are offered someone crazy good.
I doubt we would entertain an offer from the Stars that is based around Bertucci as he is likely a sidegrade or downgrade on Kuznetsov. This is good because it pushes teams like the Stars to offer better players if they want to get Andersson to upgrade their D group (also so they can prevent VGK from getting him).
Looking at Andersson's start of the season he has 2 goals, 5 points, +2, and playing 23:46 per game on average. Those stats are not super exciting but considering what the Flames are doing as a whole, it puts some context around his stats and they are not terrible compared to the last place and one of the lowest scoring team in the league.
I am optimistic that teams will see value in Andersson but it will be hard to find a good match when our focus is to land good C prospects.
trades for Lindholm and Hanafin both 5 overall draft picks
star in Gaudreau and a Norris level defenseman in Giordano
Flames as an organization have shown that they will and can go through rebuilds.
You can argue and be correct that they made mistakes in that rebuild.
That the rushed things and squandered picks and cap space.
But you cannot rationally argue that they did not go through a rebuild that fans are asking for now.
If they have done it before why would they not be capable of doing so again?
__________________ 'Skank' Marden: I play hockey and I fornicate, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather. - Mystery Alaska
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to shutout For This Useful Post:
The problem the organization is going to have with moving players like Kadri and Coleman is because of the off ice and dressing room leadership that they provide.
I know that there are lots of people that underestimate or do not care about the impact that veterans have on young player development. Talking key veterans that share, guide, coach, mentor young players coming into the league, not veterans that are holding on for their last paychecks and don't want to improve culture and commitment.
I would move both of them because of their age, but I understand why there would be hesitation. Growth in the league is not linear. Even guys like Zary and Coronato need to have somebody there to give them guidance.
When it comes to dressing room dynamics and creating, setting, and maintaining culture you need to have at least a 25-30% percent of your dressing room with those types of personalities.
Coleman from a position point of view is easier to move out because there are a handfull of prospects we have ready to give auditions to.
Kadri is a second line NHL centreman, but is by far and away the top centreman available for the Flames. There is a huge drop by removing him and relying on Frost and Zary to carry the load for the middle of the ice.
As much a people want to lose deliberately, there are very few professionals that want to embrace it. Its bad for growth, bad for development, and bad for culture. You may not make moves that are designed to help you win, but they wont make moves that are designed to make you lose.
How do you go to the young guys and tell them that you want them to care about their performance when you show them as an organization that you don't care about developing them properly.
__________________ 'Skank' Marden: I play hockey and I fornicate, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather. - Mystery Alaska
In a rebuild you don't acquire Weegar, Huberdeau etc
Bennett was a miss managed asset.
It wasn't a rebuild when they built around Gaudrea, Monahan, Bennett, Takachuk, Lindholm, and Hanafin?
Weegar and Huberdeau were at the end of that rebuild cycle.
How they managed or mismanaged assets related to that rebuild does not take away from the fact that they went through a rebuild.
__________________ 'Skank' Marden: I play hockey and I fornicate, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather. - Mystery Alaska
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to shutout For This Useful Post:
The Flames for sure were open to a rebuild around 2013 after trading Iggy and Bouwmeester. I think the argument could be they didn't go deep enough then either, and then rushed coming out of that rebuild a bit after 14-15 playoffs.
They were actually fortunate they had the terrible 15-16 season which ended up with Tkachuk because that was not the plan to be bad that season and the rebuild would have been much worse had they not had that poor season after acquiring Hamilton and making other moves to be more competitive.
Flames are kind of in a similar spot now. Good news is Conroy didn't overreact to the 24-25 season results and make any win now moves in the offseason. But still do think this slow start opens a door for them to lean into a rebuild harder than they ever have before.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 11-07-2025 at 02:20 PM.
trades for Lindholm and Hanafin both 5 overall draft picks
star in Gaudreau and a Norris level defenseman in Giordano
Flames as an organization have shown that they will and can go through rebuilds.
You can argue and be correct that they made mistakes in that rebuild.
That the rushed things and squandered picks and cap space.
But you cannot rationally argue that they did not go through a rebuild that fans are asking for now.
If they have done it before why would they not be capable of doing so again?
The post Iginla rebuild is often and easily criticized as being far too rushed. That was a team that would trade seasons where they overachieved and underachieved. They traded 1st and 2nd round picks and signed free agents to long term deals before they were done picking in the top 10. The Frolik and Neal signings made it impossible to give Tkachuk a long term deal out of free agency.
The last rebuild was forced on them because Iginla needed to move on and Kipper retired. Feaster couldn’t say the word rebuild. While some of that was tongue in cheek it wasn’t long before the team was pushing for playoffs as the mandate. Hitting big on Gaudreau was like getting another top 5 pick and also hitting on Fox was a huge reason they were able to get 2 more top 5 picks that in my opinion corrected that rebuild.
This just further prooves that the world "rebuild" is subjective to the user that's referencing it.
What truly is a rebuild? I would argue that you could find a dozen+ different interpretations/understandings of the true word just by polling the users on this very forum, and I know its been discussed in the past before and everyone had varying degree's of what rebuild is to them.
Some argue a rebuild starts when you lose 1 or more of your core (post Iginla)
Some argue a rebuild starts when we traded away 1 or 2 veteran players (Losing Johnny/Tkachuk)
Some argue a rebuild started when we drafted 4th or 6th (Tkachuk/Sean)
Some argue a rebuild started when we built around Johnny and Sean as the core
Some argue we've never seen a rebuild because we haven't truly tore the team down to the absolute studs
Some argue we've never seen a rebuild because we haven't actually acknowledged it as a Franchise either in writing or in conversation
I think its a mix of a little bit of everything.
I personally feel like this team hasn't truly had a proper rebuild in 35 years, because to me a true rebuild is tearing it down to the studs, bottoming out for more than 1 year and drafting high (top 5-10) multiple times over the course of a few years. I personally think a re-build takes at least 3-5 years before you can call it a true rebuild pending your rebuilding through the draft/youth movement because its almost nearly impossible to re-build through acquisitions/trades.
I think the Flames have re-tooled, re-shuffled the core, but never actually bottomed out long enough to get a top 3 pick, and I think the history proves that to be true.
I think they've rushed a lot of these "re-tools" in order to try and salvage playoff revenue (and much has been hinted as this being the word of ownership)
I think we botched some of our rebuild years by trading away 1st's and 2nd's trying to chase success and windows when we went after both Hamilton and Hamonic.
It's a spicy subject though, and people will argue both sides to death so I try to avoid it these days.
Last edited by Royle9; 11-07-2025 at 02:24 PM.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Royle9 For This Useful Post:
This just further prooves that the world "rebuild" is subjective to the user that's referencing it to fit their agenda.
What truly is a rebuild? I would argue that you could find a dozen+ different interpretations/understandings of the true word just by polling the users on this very forum, and I know its been discussed in the past before and everyone had varying degree's of what rebuild is to them.
Some argue a rebuild starts when you lose 1 or more of your core (post Iginla)
Some argue a rebuild starts when we traded away 1 or 2 veteran players (Losing Johnny/Tkachuk)
Some argue a rebuild started when we drafted 4th or 6th (Tkachuk/Sean)
Some argue a rebuild started when we built around Johnny and Sean as the core
Some argue we've never seen a rebuild because we haven't truly tore the team down to the absolute studs
Some argue we've never seen a rebuild because we haven't actually acknowledged it as a Franchise either in writing or in conversation
I think its a mix of a little bit of everything.
I personally feel like this team hasn't truly had a proper rebuild in 35 years, because to me a true rebuild is tearing it down to the studs, bottoming out for more than 1 year and drafting high (top 5-10) multiple times over the course of a few years. I personally think a re-build takes at least 3-5 years before you can call it a true rebuild pending your rebuilding through the draft/youth movement because its almost nearly impossible to re-build through acquisitions/trades.
I think the Flames have re-tooled, re-shuffled the core, but never actually bottomed out long enough to get a top 3 pick, and I think the history proves that to be true.
I think they've rushed a lot of these "re-tools" in order to try and salvage playoff revenue (and much has been hinted as this being the word of ownership)
It's a spicy subject though, and people will argue both sides to death so I try to avoid it these days.
It will be interesting to see though.
I do think the intent in 13-14, 14-15, and 23-24, 24-25 has been similar.
The goal in those seasons was to give the team a chance to bottom out and get a high pick.
In 14-15 that season and winning a playoff round really changed the focus and I've heard Edwards really pushed on the team to make additions at that point. Hence trading for Hamilton, signing Frolik and Brouwer, eventually trading for Hamonic and some of the other short term moves the team made the next 2-3 offseasons that caused the rebuild to be rushed.
As I said the good news is Conroy to this point didn't do that after 24-25. They didn't trade any futures, didn't sign any major free-agents, it really seems like the plan to build through the draft hasn't changed.
But I think now the reality is there is an opportunity this season to actually push the lever a little harder to the re-build side of things to try to gain that high pick and add more young assets for some of the veterans. And that will be the tough decision for this team because it likely means the on ice results for this season and next season are worse than ownership would have preferred coming into this season.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 11-07-2025 at 02:30 PM.
That's a lot of arguing to have caught up with since yesterday!
Two things stick out to me:
1) I haven't heard of Kadri shutting down any rumours whatsoever. He has been given a lot of media time, and hasn't spoken about these rumours one way or another. In fact, nobody from the Flames have.
2) It is November 7th. While I do agree that there are a few teams that are in the market for a 2nd line center - desperately - I do think that after US Thanksgiving and onwards, that market is only going to grow. There will be more injuries that will probably happen, and this is also an Olympic year too, and that will open the door for further injuries.
This is not a retool. This is a rebuild. This is not just a rebuild, but a rebuild that is essentially a burn it to the ground rebuild. There aren't many organizations that have rebuilt in the last decade that sold off more players for futures, circumstances be damned.
The only 'miss' so far during this rebuild was not trading Rasmus sooner, as I felt his team-friendly deal was in itself an asset, especially with the flat cap those few years. However, I am sure the return for him will still be strong.
Let's just have a bit more patience. There simply isn't a whole lot of moves made in November - especially early on.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Calgary4LIfe For This Useful Post:
It wasn't a rebuild when they built around Gaudrea, Monahan, Bennett, Takachuk, Lindholm, and Hanafin?
Weegar and Huberdeau were at the end of that rebuild cycle.
How they managed or mismanaged assets related to that rebuild does not take away from the fact that they went through a rebuild.
No in those moves they acquired
Kadri (signing with cap space), Weegar, Huberdeau,
If the Flames deal Anderson and Kadri prior to the deadline this year, regardless of why they do it, hopefully the base will give the team credit for a rebuild. It may not have been their intention, but such actions would show a significant commitment to the future, assuming they don’t go all Tkachuk/Phaneuf 2.0 and obtain current cogs in return.
If the Flames fail to make the playoffs and only Anderson is elsewhere as of the deadline, then what they are doing could still easily be labeled as a reflexive reaction.
Your narrative around how things have unfolded to date, obviously (“history”), and your “guess” which I suppose is semantically different than a prediction, you’re right.
I don’t put much weight on what Steinberg is hearing either way. I don’t think he’s really broken anything or provided greater “inside” insight that the average. I like his opinions and his speculation, but I also think anything he’s hearing is stuff the team is just fine being out in the public, for whatever reason.
I think they should trade Kadri, but I’m not particularly fussed either way about it. Pulling the trigger at the right time for the team is more important than just maximizing individual value. And I think he’ll have plenty of value next year as well.
If nobody likes personal shots, perhaps it’s time to take your own revelation and end your year+ obsession with adding them into 90+% of your replies to me. It’s become a bit predictable, and a bit sad. Time for a new hobby!
Well to be clear, you decided to inject yourself into a conversation by quoting me and adding your usual PepsiFree arrogance. Try being less pompous, until then I can't imagine not saying anything about it if it's directed towards me.
I personally believe Steinberg does have his finger on the pulse of this situation. Maybe you don't listen to him, that's fine. He's not breaking news, that's not what he does. And really it's not about trying to guess what the Flames will do, but some people wanting to discuss what they would like to see them do. IMO that's a more interesting topic. If you're not "fussed" about that, great.
trades for Lindholm and Hanafin both 5 overall draft picks
star in Gaudreau and a Norris level defenseman in Giordano
Flames as an organization have shown that they will and can go through rebuilds.
You can argue and be correct that they made mistakes in that rebuild.
That the rushed things and squandered picks and cap space.
But you cannot rationally argue that they did not go through a rebuild that fans are asking for now.
If they have done it before why would they not be capable of doing so again?
It was a very successful rebuild and gave us great hockey.
GMBT did great work and then shot himself in the foot with some terrible FA signings.
I will agree that the best the flames have been was post drafting Monahan-Bennett-Tkachuk (and obviously Gaudreau). I dont think that was actually a rebuild, but that alone should be the proof to everyone involved that we need high draft picks. The best way to guarantee high draft picks is to purposely be bad. The easiest way to do that is, especially when you start quite slow, to trade your most productive players or defensively powerful players for the highest possible returns.
