2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[Sec214]

What to share….

Guys are not enjoying coming to the rink and the cracks are starting to show.

Leadership is suspect - Yes our captain is a legacy guy, community guy and love him for it but he doesn’t drag you into the fight or inspire confidence. young guys aren’t buying in because “veterans” aren’t being held accountable but the young guys are punished swiftly, demotions, lack of opportunity or a leash of 120 seconds of ice time.

The other teams are throwing chum at the flames to see if CC will come play… just rock the boat already.

More to come…

[Rhett44]

Originally Posted by Sec214

What to share….

Guys are not enjoying coming to the rink and the cracks are starting to show.

Leadership is suspect - Yes our captain is a legacy guy, community guy and love him for it but he doesn’t drag you into the fight or inspire confidence. young guys aren’t buying in because “veterans” aren’t being held accountable but the young guys are punished swiftly, demotions, lack of opportunity or a leash of 120 seconds of ice time.

The other teams are throwing chum at the flames to see if CC will come play… just rock the boat already.

More to come…

But some people were telling us we have a good culture. It sounds like they were wrong about that too.

Isn't a lot of this what myself and some other posters were speculating could be happening before being dismissed by some others on this site. Glad to see an insider confirm some of these things.

I mean it's just common sense too. Rhett Warrener was speculating the exact same thing about the double standards for the vets the other day. Someone who knows how a player would be thinking in that situation.

[Roof-Daddy]

Trade Rasmus

Trade Nazim

Trade Blake

The other NHL GM's cannot make solid offers soon enough for this guy

[Sandman]

Originally Posted by Sec214

What to share….

Guys are not enjoying coming to the rink and the cracks are starting to show.

Leadership is suspect - Yes our captain is a legacy guy, community guy and love him for it but he doesn’t drag you into the fight or inspire confidence. young guys aren’t buying in because “veterans” aren’t being held accountable but the young guys are punished swiftly, demotions, lack of opportunity or a leash of 120 seconds of ice time.

The other teams are throwing chum at the flames to see if CC will come play… just rock the boat already.

More to come…

After the game tonight, Weegar made the comment that only half the team showed up tonight wanting to play, only further validating your comments.

[stemit14]

Originally Posted by Sandman

After the game tonight, Weegar made the comment that only half the team showed up tonight wanting to play, only further validating your comments.

Tough because Weegar is probably one of the most mistake-prone players on the team. Definitely a hard worker and a good leader who sticks up for his teammates but also consistently makes the mistakes that get young players benched. Not sure if there is a solution or that I want him traded but it’s tough for young guys to follow when the vets are making so many poor plays.

[Sec214]

Originally Posted by Sandman

After the game tonight, Weegar made the comment that only half the team showed up tonight wanting to play, only further validating your comments.

Hmm I wonder who makes that acceptable.

Go find the common denominators. It’s not the coaches or management.

[flamesgod]

Weegar should be captain, and Backlund should have never been extended imo.

[Rhett44]

Originally Posted by flamesgod

Weegar should be captain, and Backlund should have never been extended imo.

Isn't Weegar an assistant captain. He's been worse than Backlund this year on the ice.

Does it really matter who is captain? The players in the room know who to follow. McDavid is the captain of the Oilers and he seems like a whiny brat off the ice, but they have other assistants around him who seem like better leaders.

Would Weegar really be a better captain?

[cam_calderon]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

Isn't Weegar an assistant captain. He's been worse than Backlund this year on the ice.

Does it really matter who is captain? The players in the room know who to follow. McDavid is the captain of the Oilers and he seems like a whiny brat off the ice, but they have other assistants around him who seem like better leaders.

Would Weegar really be a better captain?

Yes he would be, but I also agree that having a C sewn onto your jersey doesn't necessarily make you a leader. Is Auston Matthews a leader lol?

Weegar always brings effort but I don't see what his comments are going to achieve. He was a -3 on the night in a 4-0 loss.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Sec214

What to share….

Guys are not enjoying coming to the rink and the cracks are starting to show.

Leadership is suspect - Yes our captain is a legacy guy, community guy and love him for it but he doesn’t drag you into the fight or inspire confidence. young guys aren’t buying in because “veterans” aren’t being held accountable but the young guys are punished swiftly, demotions, lack of opportunity or a leash of 120 seconds of ice time.

The other teams are throwing chum at the flames to see if CC will come play… just rock the boat already.

More to come…

Probably time to make a trade. How much higher are our lottery chances if we finish last by 20 points rather than 1 point.

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Probably time to make a trade. How much higher are our lottery chances if we finish last by 20 points rather than 1 point.

They haven’t clinched the top lottery spot

[CFO]

The flames PP is poor. Flames still don't have a D to lead it. Pareyhk isn't ready. Anderson takes too long. He needs to be off it. Weegar isn't a pp qb either.

I haven't seen the coaching really adapt to players they have either.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Probably time to make a trade. How much higher are our lottery chances if we finish last by 20 points rather than 1 point.

Think you’re missing the point in Secs post. Teams aren’t offering flames any value for trades. I don’t expect that to change until 2026 IMO.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by Sec214

What to share….

Guys are not enjoying coming to the rink and the cracks are starting to show.

Leadership is suspect - Yes our captain is a legacy guy, community guy and love him for it but he doesn’t drag you into the fight or inspire confidence. young guys aren’t buying in because “veterans” aren’t being held accountable but the young guys are punished swiftly, demotions, lack of opportunity or a leash of 120 seconds of ice time.

The other teams are throwing chum at the flames to see if CC will come play… just rock the boat already.

More to come…

This is very interesting.

Backlund. Another mistake by CC?

Extending a coach just before he loses the room. That seems like a mistake now, too.

I hope CC is learning fast. His strongest skill seems to be sell-off trades. The other parts need work.

We need better pro scouting. Time to get serious about fixing that. Are we some kind of country club?

He needs to stop rewarding non-core people with contract extensions unless absolutely necessary (not a year in advance). If waiting means they earn a bigger payday, good for them. We have the cap space, or trade them as rentals.

CC is not ruthless enough - or doesn't appear to be based on what he says publicly and what we hear about him from insiders. For example. he seems to want guidance from the players whether he can trade them or not.

All this nice guy business is going to cost him his future as an NHL GM if he keeps going like this.

The quicker he makes the moves the sooner this will be over. Start the auctions. We are still talking years before we get to 21/22 levels, but it will be easier to take once we see progress.

[GioforPM]

Of course players are not enjoying coming to the rink. Losing sucks for a pro NHler. Armchair GMs can sit back all they want and say that players should see the bigger picture, but day to day, a bad season is just a grind for these guys. I doubt Backlund or Huska can do anything about that.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

Think you’re missing the point in Secs post. Teams aren’t offering flames any value for trades. I don’t expect that to change until 2026 IMO.

Why not use the cap space and shake things up by acquiring some expiring contracts?

Turn the tables and try to get some distressed inventory along with picks/prospect from other teams.

No one is buying AND no one is selling? That seems unlikely.

If that's true, take a heavier hand with the roster Huska can ice. Send veteran guys without move protection to the Wranglers. Tell Huska to sit guys.

From the outside, it looks like Flames are doing nothing. The players look like they are waiting for something to happen.

Weegs is in front of the camera every night taking bullets. Give him the C. #### how Backs feels about it.

[ComixZone]

Yeah that just doesn’t surprise me.

The young players have been held to a different standard, and I’d say outright mistreated so far. Now Zayne is hurt.

Masterclass is how to #%^* everything up all at once.

[CliffFletcher]

It’s pretty rare to see significant trades before Christmas. Though the parity out east might spur some teams to make an early move.

[Monahammer]

Who cares what the current group of "pro nhlers" thinks? Tbh. They are working for the team and its not going well. Sorry but its on them too. Showing up with a ####ty attitude because they suck just makes them suck more. All the more reason to clear them out.

We only need to care about what 3-5 of the current roster players think (Wolf, Parekh, Kuznetsov, coronato, maybe Honzek.) Management should start meeting with them as a group and "core" and having them take active roles in seeing/understanding how the club will build around them. Foster the next group of club leaders and start now. The other guys dont matter to the club after the next 2-3 years at most, so why should we really care what they're feeling.

[SuperMatt18]

It's not just the young players to be honest, Huska's utilization of the forward group has been questionable all year

Zary, Coronato, Sharangovich, Frost, Klapka have all bounced all over the lineup or been used in roles that don't suit them and you can tell all of them have had their confidence hurt.

Lomberg is probably the only forward that knows what his role is every night, and where he's playing in the lineup that game.

And TBH it's not all Huska's fault either. The team just has too many middle six wingers, it was clear they needed to trade one going back to the offseason and the org didn't make space.

That failure to clean up the forward group has just been magnified by Huska's reluctance to use a more balanced 4th line and playing Kirkland and Lomberg too much.