2025/2026 Season Trade Rumours and Speculation Thread

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Matty81

None of it is really surprising. You keep an aging veteran team together and hand out a bunch of long rich deals to players who are not stars and when the bottom falls out you have angry older players who aren't content to be on bad teams in their last productive years and a bunch of players you can't move out of the lineup or to the A.

I'm just glad their play is finally forcing a re evaluation of the strategy, it's a huge win for all of us long term even if it's gonna be a tire fire for a couple years. I think in 5 years we are going to have an exciting young core to watch for a decade or so if all goes well and button and crews get some hits

What are the long term rich deals? Wolf? Coronato?

[CFO]

At some point you need to move on versus trying to maximize and time trade value.

Would like to see a line of Huberdeau - frost - coronato. Let them run.

Kadri gone. Anderson gone. Coleman gone

Farabeee steps up into #3 LW spot. That is his Cole. Hard to play against and pk.

Bring up kerins for #2 spot. Let him run. Give him 25 games. Whether works or not.

Bring up Morton as bottom six center. Groom him for #3 spot.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Royle9

It’s tough to say because there’s all different styles of leaders and what works for one team doesn’t necessarily work for the next. In my experience and based on what I’ve heard and seen, CGY benefits more from the type that drags you into the fight (Which is why Sutter didn’t name one, nobody earned it in his mind)

Backlund certainly from a care factor and dedication to fitness and the team itself earned it on that merit, but he’s certainly not going to drag the guys into the fight every night and punish you with physicality or skill.

Iginla could do both, he demanded respect on and off the ice.
Gio was loud, played hard during his prime here and had the fitness and pulse of the room right up until he didn’t in the last few years.

Iginla was certainly considered to be a good leader, but it's also the case that the room was extremely divided at times while he was captain.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by CFO

At some point you need to move on versus trying to maximize and time trade value.

Would like to see a line of Huberdeau - frost - coronato. Let them run.

Kadri gone. Anderson gone. Coleman gone

Farabeee steps up into #3 LW spot. That is his Cole. Hard to play against and pk.

Bring up kerins for #2 spot. Let him run. Give him 25 games. Whether works or not.

Bring up Morton as bottom six center. Groom him for #3 spot.

If you are bringing up guys from the Wranglers to see if they can play in the NHL and be part of the long term solution there are probably better forwards than Morton who turns 27 just after the end of this season.

Would rather see Stromgrem for sure. Not a lot of other options which is kinda the reason the Flames will be bad for probably another 2 seasons after this.

[Royle9]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Iginla was certainly considered to be a good leader, but it's also the case that the room was extremely divided at times while he was captain.

If I’m not mistaken that came to be when the Dion vs Conroy rumours came to light and ultimately led to him being shipped off for peanuts to Toronto no?
I won’t get into the finer details.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Royle9

If I’m not mistaken that came to be when the Dion vs Conroy rumours came to light and ultimately led to him being shipped off for peanuts to Toronto no?
I won’t get into the finer details.

I think there was a later divide between Iggy and Regehr
Regehr wanted the team to commit to d and Iggy wanted to free lance to generate offense

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Royle9

If I’m not mistaken that came to be when the Dion vs Conroy rumours came to light and ultimately led to him being shipped off for peanuts to Toronto no?
I won’t get into the finer details.

Reg was in the locker room disputes too. Maybe even moreso because he had to deal with Phaneuf on the ice. There were big differences in the players' ideas of what should be happening on the ice, and egos were involved. It wasn't just about music.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think there was a later divide between Iggy and Regehr
Regehr wanted the team to commit to d and Iggy wanted to free lance to generate offense

He was also a power forward who was openly negative about dump and chase… which was like our franchises whole model. It wasn’t surprising that the room wasn’t cohesive.

[GioforPM]

Players have opinons in the room. Full story at 11.

I actually think captaincy is often overrated. I couldn't name half the captains in the league. A lot of the time it's given to the best player by default, sometimes the oldest player. There's debateable choices on almost every team. Barkov is captain of Fla. By comments here I'm sure lots of people would want Tkachuk. Is JT Miller really a captain? Is Jordane Eberle?

I also think happiness/unhappiness in the room is often overblown. Emotions aren't constant.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

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

Culture is not about the guys in the room liking each other or having fun.

It's about the older players teaching the younger ones points of the game that you can't learn from coaches running drills or drawing X's and O's on a board.

Every single rookie who has been put on Backlund's wing over the years has improved his game dramatically – learned to check effectively without the puck and drive possession with it. They learned by doing, from someone who did it better than most players in the league and knew how to teach it to others. That's culture.

But of course you would rather ridicule the whole idea because it doesn't magically work all by itself on a team without talent.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

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

Because you'd have to send out assets to acquire them, and all you'd be doing is trying to salvage a lost season. Nobody is trying to dump contracts at this stage of the season. For the first time since Covid, most teams have cap space.

[saillias]

I welcome Weegar's comments. He has a way of inspring this org to action like getting the new arena deal.

Is Weegar actually right - not really he is unfortunately the worst skater on the Flames most nights this year. And the other guys routinely eating it night after night are Backlund Ras, Hanley and Coleman. I don't think that's who he was talking about. But it doesn't matter, something that breaks the Flames org out of holding the current status quo is necessary.

[ST20]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

So does losing 75% of your games.

So do personal problems or the weather outside. Doesn’t change the fact that your captain and coach should have a major impact on what it’s like going to work on a day to day basis.

[ST20]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Culture is not about the guys in the room liking each other or having fun.

It's about the older players teaching the younger ones points of the game that you can't learn from coaches running drills or drawing X's and O's on

Not to pick on you but I think we need a thread for everyone to define what they think culture means. It’s all over the place.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by ST20

Not to pick on you but I think we need a thread for everyone to define what they think culture means. It’s all over the place.

And a number of posters are convinced that there is no such thing – or that it's merely another word for ‘winning’.

[ComixZone]

Talking about culture or leadership is such a secondary topic at this point in my eyes.

This league is driven by high-end skill, and outside of Wolf (and maybe Parekh), this team has absolutely no high-end skill.

SuperMatt18 said it right last night. To build a team/organization worth maintaining, you need to win. To win, you need high-end skill.

Good news? Flames seem committed to drafting, and they'll be drafting some high-end skill at the top of the draft this coming Summer.

Between now and then? Pretty much everything is irrelevant. Shuffle the deck chairs, randomize the roster - just keep losing, nothing else truly matters because there are so few core pieces here right now anyways - and the only true identified core piece is Wolf, and he plays an isolated position that has little impact on what happens outside of his blue paint.

Something that could be a worrying sign is in how this team is treating young players vs. veterans. They're very clearly being held to a different standard, and that's no environment to grow/cultivate good young players. The team clearly went into this season to hit 97 points, and they've been willing to sacrifice overall roster progression/development at the NHL level in chase of that goal.

[dammage79]

Well, embrace the suck. As much as winning can create culture in a locker room, losing can easily undo it all in a quarter of the time it took to build.

This is where the leadership core is tested, during the bad times. And if there's a divide in the lockeroom as it stands not even a quarter way through the season, well there's going to be a boiling point.

It's going to be up to Conroy to either come out and say "the answers are in the room" or try to shake up the roster and maybe light a fire under the players who aren't buying in by threatening their jobs/roster spots.

A part of growth IMO isn't just tanking but keeping the players you do have accountable for their efforts. Along with the coaches.

So far the players I have on my list that have been above grade :
Wolf
Huberdeau
Farabee
Honzek
Klapka

Not a single D man for various reason are playing at an acceptable level. And I think the onus is on the coaches and management than the players for that. The roster composition on D and their deployment are worse than the player effort.

[memphusk]

Agreed. This has become a young man's game and they need to work on the youth movement.

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

What are the long term rich deals? Wolf? Coronato?

Pretty easy to look up but sharagovich, farabee, huberdeau and coronato, maybe even backlund, though less so there are all contracts up front that i think the flames would struggle to move right now where they are married to the player for 3 years plus. You can pretty much pencil those guys into the lineup for the next 3 seasons no matter how they perform as they all seem to be negative value contracts or close to it

[Red Potato Standing By]

Originally Posted by Matty81

Pretty easy to look up but sharagovich, farabee, huberdeau and coronato, maybe even backlund, though less so there are all contracts up front that i think the flames would struggle to move right now where they are married to the player for 3 years plus. You can pretty much pencil those guys into the lineup for the next 3 seasons no matter how they perform

Have to meet a cap floor anyways.