2024/2025 Season trade rumours and speculation thread

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Florida had to draft both their #1 Selke winning Centre, and their #1 defenceman. The hardest positions to fill in the sport.

Vegas hit the Eichel trade, which is a once in two decades quality of player that comes up for trade - the last one being Thornton.

Florida also drafted their 1# winger in Huberdeau who they then traded for another 1# winger in Tkachuk. That shouldn't be forgotten because Huberdeau had a ton of value, that you get from drafting high level talent. That value just doesn't appear from nothing. Unfortunately for the Flames he turned into a pumpkin but that's another story.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Ped

Could be, but would it be a smart one? They have over 20 million in cap space and most of their roster is signed.

Highly unlikely we see any successful offer sheets this off-season. The Blues/Oilers situation only came about because the Oilers were capped out. No team in the league this off-season is under that much duress.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Burning Beard

Man some of you are bitter. Is it the smoke? So far Conroy has prioritized drafting often and has traded off a number of players. He has sent out a second round pick for two proven NHLers who still have a chance to pop here getting to start the year here. For all the talk about having to be patient in a rebuild there sure are a lot of impatient posters complaining about Conroy not trading all the vets fast enough.

Conroy has done an excellent job and I'm not criticizing him like others. But this off season is similar to the 2015 off season. Conroy needs to keep it going, but insiders are saying he is not moving anyone other than Rasmus. If that is all we do, I'm fine with it as it could send us far enough down the standings to get a top pick. If we add a young piece for assets, I think it is ok too as IMO players are assets too. But to say there is no risk keeping the vets around for another year and finishing just in or out of the playoffs is just off IMO.

We need to get younger and add more future value this off season, does not need to be full tank but there is a log jam of players that need more ice. Klapka signing adds to it. Keeping Kadri and Coleman is going to hurt players like Zary, Frost, Sharangovich, Farabee, Pospisil. 1 or 2 of these guys just won't get the chance, unless we have major injuries. I'm ok to trade a Zary for futures or a young dman and I'm willing to wait and see how it goes but this off season is very important, and it just makes way more sense to say goodbye to a vet than Zary, especially when the return probably is the same.

there are a couple posters that are giving Conroy an F for his moves or wanting to trade everyone and full tank. I think most posters on team rebuild are somewhere in the middle, need a top pick and need to move players out but it doesn't have to be all right now.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Highly unlikely we see any successful offer sheets this off-season. The Blues/Oilers situation only came about because the Oilers were capped out. No team in the league this off-season is under that much duress.

The Stars are with Bourque for sure. Oilers with Bouchard.

Not a ton of scenarios but there are some out there.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Highly unlikely we see any successful offer sheets this off-season. The Blues/Oilers situation only came about because the Oilers were capped out. No team in the league this off-season is under that much duress.

Avalanche, Lightning, and Stars have some work to do. Avalanche and Lightning don't have any intriguing RFA's to worry about though. However, the Stars have Bourque to sign and only $4,955,084 in space. And, they have Benn, Duchene, Granlund among some other older UFA's to ponder. I wouldn't want the Flames to throw big money at Bourque, but someone else might and put the Stars in a tough spot.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

Getting 3 stars in a draft like Dallas did is not a model, if the Flames could do that, they would've done that already. Kudos to Dallas for both finding those guys, and developing them properly.

Glad he called that out. Finding the best players at every stage of the draft is something all NHL teams are already doing. I just shook my head when Conroy said the Flames are looking to take the Stars approach to building a contender. It amounts to ‘the owner won’t let us tank, so we’re going to cross our fingers and hope we hit some home runs in the draft.’

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Glad he called that out. Finding the best players at every stage of the draft is something all NHL teams are already doing. I just shook my head when Conroy said the Flames are looking to take the Stars approach to building a contender. It amounts to ‘the owner won’t let us tank, so we’re going to cross our fingers and hope we hit some home runs in the draft.’

This. Dallas isn’t a model. It was luck. It’s arguable they got 3 stars as 2 of the players have been big time disappointments in the playoffs.

It was sad and embarrassing to hear them used. They had to go get a star in Rantanen because they lacked star power and still do. Dallas is what we should avoid to be stuck with mid tier 1C like Hintz.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

The tank crowd loves to talk about the high picks that were drafted by the team with only Vegas being the unrealistic outlier. With that said Florida in my opinion is built very similar to Vegas. Tkachuk, Reinhart, Bennett, Bobrovsky have been just as or more important to their runs as Barkov/Ekblad. Florida traded for former top 10 picks and it worked out. Flames did something similar with the Hurricanes trade in 2018 and it was the key move that helped them win the division twice in the 4 years after that deal.


Outside of the Hawks and Pens most teams win the cup a decade or so after their top players were picked. Last years Panthers had 3 of the top 4 picks from 2014 on their team and a top 2 pick from 2013. The Avs won 9 years after MacKinnon was picked. The Lightning won a decade or so after Kucherov and Vasilesky were picked. Blues were a decade or so after O’Rielly, and Pietrangelo were picked. The 2 Pens cups in 16-17 were 11-13 years after Crosby/Malkin. Kings cup in 2012 was 9 years after Carter/Brown/Richard and 2014 was 9 years after Kopitar.

Edmonton is making their push 9-10 years after McDavid was picked. Realistically for Calgary if they can get a couple of high picks in the next couple of years they can really look to be contending in 2035 and beyond

lol the tank crowd ?

Haven’t you been talking about trading guys away

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Always pointing to Yakupov, rather than McDavid/Barkov/MacKinnon etc.

Point being, don't toss around Yakupov like it's some historic level failure/cautionary tale when the team that screwed that up so hard is still actually way better than the Flames.

I can name drop Dach, Kotkaniemi, Turcotte, Patrick, Puljujarvi, Dal Colle, Juolevi, Murray, or G. Reinhart if you prefer.

I know a certain section of the fanbase wants to pretend these players don’t exist or weren’t drafted as high as they were by teams that “tanked” or were just bad but they’re just as much part of reality as McDavid, Barkov, and MacKinnon are. You can’t just ignore them because they don’t fit the narrative and make it a little more difficult to pretend you have it all figured out.

It was a facetious comment highlighting the silliness of thinking one or two vets are holding the team back from achieving their true ranking destiny. The fact that the Flames traded away 70% of their vets and got better seems totally lost on people who believe this.

And the Kent article is so silly. The Flames spent 71% of their cap on vets? A team with the lowest cap and at least one vet making over 10M? YOU DON’T SAY?? lol. So did the much lauded Sharks. Wonder if there’s a correlation between rebuilding teams at the cap floor and spending most of their cap on vets. Guess we’ll never know.

[Psytic]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Glad he called that out. Finding the best players at every stage of the draft is something all NHL teams are already doing. I just shook my head when Conroy said the Flames are looking to take the Stars approach to building a contender. It amounts to ‘the owner won’t let us tank, so we’re going to cross our fingers and hope we hit some home runs in the draft.’

I wouldn’t be surprised if they have data that shows this team wouldn’t survive a long term rebuild. Maybe we aren’t giving the owners enough credit for why they refuse to ever do one. Starting to think there’s more to it than just being stubborn. Flames fandom compared to the Oilers is very minimal sadly.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Florida had to draft both their #1 Selke winning Centre, and their #1 defenceman. The hardest positions to fill in the sport.

Vegas hit the Eichel trade, which is a once in two decades quality of player that comes up for trade - the last one being Thornton.

I am not against the Flames picking high. I am against the loser culture you want them to adopt to try and do it. Take a worse return on Kadri just so we can tank harder? Astonishingly terrible take. Edmonton is still where Buffalo is if they do not win the McDavid lottery.

I have zero issues with the moves Conroy has made and while I am not against having a bad season the 5-6 posters that beg for this team to be a bottom feeder it gets tough to sit silently by and read these takes that losing will equal winning. Very risky for a market like Calgary.

I will say I agree if we see Conroy spending 1sts and futures and all his cap space to try and compete next year this team is doomed. Until I see that I am going to trust the man steering the ship who I think has done far more right than wrong in his 2 years on the job

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

lol the tank crowd ?

Haven’t you been talking about trading guys away

I am okay with the Flames picking high and sending out vets but I also am not saying we must dump Kadri or other vets in a race to the bottom.

If they make deals like the Markstrom trade or send out pending UFA’s for futures then absolutely. The Kadri nonsense yesterday was over the top.

While the Flames had a fun season picking 31-32 instead of 16 stings but that is Trelviing’s fault. I am not going to massively overreact to something until it happens. By all accounts the team is trading Andersson this summer. Outside of one report from a no name writer that suggests the Flames are big game hunting we have no other reason to suspect the Flames are deviating from the plan Conroy has laid out. Get younger and make more draft picks.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I am not against the Flames picking high. I am against the loser culture you want them to adopt to try and do it. Take a worse return on Kadri just so we can tank harder? Astonishingly terrible take. Edmonton is still where Buffalo is if they do not win the McDavid lottery.

I have zero issues with the moves Conroy has made and while I am not against having a bad season the 5-6 posters that beg for this team to be a bottom feeder it gets tough to sit silently by and read these takes that losing will equal winning. Very risky for a market like Calgary.

I will say I agree if we see Conroy spending 1sts and futures and all his cap space to try and compete next year this team is doomed. Until I see that I am going to trust the man steering the ship who I think has done far more right than wrong in his 2 years on the job

Seems to be 2 groups in the rebuilding group. Some just seem to go way too far with what we need to be doing. If Conroy trades Anderson, even if he tries to re-sign him, he's doing the right moves. To say Rasmus has no value keeping him at a team friendly deal is way off IMO as well.

All it takes is 1 year below .500 and you can get that guy.

Continuous building and adding to your picks and prospects will eventually put us in a spot to draft or trade for a star. F grading for Conroy last season was the worst post I have seen in a long time. Not weaponizing cap space and losing on 2 4ths is not a reason to fire him. He did retain salary on Markstrom for 2 years. He has targeted unprotected 1sts too. So far, he's A+ type GM for me.

Coronato contract deserves an A+ rating IMO

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I am okay with the Flames picking high and sending out vets but I also am not saying we must dump Kadri or other vets in a race to the bottom.

I don't disagree but I would add this: Culture building is a top down process, everyone in the organization has to pull the same direction. You can't do it with just the players, no matter what veterans you have.

Florida started in the garbage can when they drafted Barkov. They had Huberdeau already but then drafted Ekblad. But the team would have never gone anywhere with the previous cheap and meddling owner. Everything changed when Viola took over, he spent to the cap and changed the culture and was willing to spend on coaching. Then finally moved on from Tallon who had overstayed his visit anyway and brought in a guy who shared the vision. Now everything was aligned in the organization.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Culture is huge. Flames didn't exceed expectations because Wolf came in and dragged this team kicking and screaming into what should have been a playoff spot in any other given year. That's not what I saw. I saw a team that worked extremely hard at a very consistent rate, and Wolf was a part of that success.


Will the Flames buck the trend of only being able to put together ONE season of high-compete? That's what strong culture to me translates into - a team that competes hard consistently.



Yes, I get the argument that with giving up so many points in one goal games, some of that can be reversed and this team can get into the 100pt club. Sure. Absolutely.


However, if the culture doesn't stick from last year to next season, then it can quickly go the other way, and the Flames lose a lot of games by 2 or more goals - Wolf or not.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

This. Dallas isn’t a model. It was luck. It’s arguable they got 3 stars as 2 of the players have been big time disappointments in the playoffs.

It was sad and embarrassing to hear them used. They had to go get a star in Rantanen because they lacked star power and still do. Dallas is what we should avoid to be stuck with mid tier 1C like Hintz.

Is it luck when they did it again with Stankoven
And Hintz
And Harley

At what point it isn’t luck but that maybe they are actually good at finding players?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Psytic

I wouldn’t be surprised if they have data that shows this team wouldn’t survive a long term rebuild. Maybe we aren’t giving the owners enough credit for why they refuse to ever do one. Starting to think there’s more to it than just being stubborn. Flames fandom compared to the Oilers is very minimal sadly.

I don’t think it’s sad, I think it’s a very special part of our identity as a fanbase and even as a team.

I used to go to A’s games a ton. This is not the Dodgers, the Angels, or the Giants mind you. I will always remember bringing a friend from out of town who got to chatting with the guy beside him. My friend was decked out in gear, but said it was his first game and that he was “hopping on the bandwagon.” The guy, who was probably in his 40s at the time just laughed and said, “There ain’t a bandwagon to hop on to!” Guy was a season ticket holder and loved going to the games despite knowing there wasn’t much hope of them ever being more than an afterthought.

Flames are never going to be THE team. Not in Canada, not even in Alberta, and just barely in Calgary. I think fans should embrace that identity fully, but have full awareness that it means the team can’t operate like the Oilers, the Leafs, or the Canadiens. That’s OK too. The team just has to do things their own way. And if you want to endure that, endure it. If you want a team that does things like the Oilers, Leafs, or Canadiens, then cheer for one of those teams.

[Ped]

Dallas gets a lot of crap but they have made 3 semi-finals in a row. Sure it's not the Cup, but it's still pretty impressive.

[Funkhouser]

How about some speculation surrounding Dallas. They are facing a major cap crunch with Rantanen, Oerringer and Johnson's raises next year. They have about $5M to re-sign Duchene, Benn and Granlund. Word is that they (a) need to offload cap this summer, and make space for extensions for Robertson and Harley next summer.

-Dallas needs some cap relief. Matt Dumba ($3.75M) has one year left and could fit on our back end.
-They need some championship pedigree to push them to the next level (Coleman).

DAL gets:
-$3.75 cap relief (Dumba)
-Coleman (2 seasons, 50% retained at $2.45M)
-Sam Morton (cheap 4th line C, replaces Bourque short term)
-Soloyov, Kuznetsov or Poirier (cheap D man who has aged out of our system but could find a home on their bottom pair to replace Dumba)

CGY gets:
-Dumba
-Bourque
-unprotected 2027 1st
-Angus MacDonell

I'm still not convinced Bourque will be anything but a bottom-six centre, but this allows us to get another first, and build depth up the middle.


Thoughts?

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Psytic

I wouldn’t be surprised if they have data that shows this team wouldn’t survive a long term rebuild. Maybe we aren’t giving the owners enough credit for why they refuse to ever do one. Starting to think there’s more to it than just being stubborn. Flames fandom compared to the Oilers is very minimal sadly.

Haven’t we seen a recent poll that showed more than 50% of flames fans supported a rebuild? I think there’s no more or less appetite for it in this market than others.

Why are the Flames not ‘Alberta’s team’? Perhaps because the Flames way of doing business and running a team has historically produced the 2nd most entertaining option in Alberta.