The Flames will finally fulfill a series of ludicrously-complex conditions from a 2022 trade with the Montreal Canadiens, with the lottery drawing determining which selection goes to the Habs to conclude the Sean Monahan trade: the Flames’ own pick at 16th overall (99.5% odds) or, should the Flames somehow win the lottery drawing (0.5% odds), Florida’s first-rounder from the Matthew Tkachuk trade.

For a few reasons, the pick owed to Montreal has cast a pall over the Flames’ 2024-25 season for a proportion of their fans. For some, it was a reminder of the mistakes of the final year of Brad Treliving’s tenure as general manager. And even for the more optimistic group, it was an asset being sent out the door during a time where the Flames are trying to accumulate as much talent as possible in an effort to remake the hockey club.

Friends, as the “why are there so many trade conditions?!” era of the Flames reaches its conclusion, let us present what is definitely a lukewarm defence of the Monahan trade with Montreal: the move had a logic behind it, even if it wasn’t an especially great gamble.

The price paid by Sean Monahan

There are many existential frustrations that surround the Flames’ existence, and let me pose one that’s stuck with me for awhile: the Flames traded Jarome Iginla in the spring of 2013 after spending years driving themselves mad trying to find the ideal centre to play with him, and then about 12 weeks later they drafted him in the form of Monahan.

One of the stories that has stuck with us about Monahan actually comes from his draft year. The Ottawa 67’s weren’t a great team that year, and Monahan was their heart and soul. Monahan was banged up during the year but kept battling because he wanted to help his team make the playoffs. It didn’t quite pan out that way, unfortunately, and the 67’s were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in their 10th-from-last game, a game that Monahan left early with a sore back.

Being eliminated from the playoffs is a tough pill to swallow, but surely the silver lining was that Monahan would be able to rest up and recover, right? Right?

Monahan played Sunday night in Belleville after leaving Friday’s game with his back injury. Despite the 67’s being eliminated from post-season contention and the game – and the eight that followed it – being functionally meaningless.

According to the Ottawa 67’s blog: “Monahan was such a last-second decision to play that his equipment wasn’t originally brought to the rink. After being picked apart by International Scouting Service, this type of effort could show the character that an NHL team wants in a player.”
A paragraph after Monahan’s coach noted how physically sore the centre was in the game, Monahan told the Ottawa Sun: “”Playing through pain is something an athlete always has to do, playing through is just part of your character,” said Monahan, a top prospect for the 2013 NHL draft.””

Moving forward, Monahan was drafted by the Flames at sixth overall in the 2013 NHL Draft, and made the Flames roster in his very first training camp, earning accolades for his physical and mental maturity. He soon became a crucial component of the Flames’ offensive attack as a young team matured, with a dynamic Johnny Gaudreau whizzing around the rink and scoring sweet goals, and Monahan using his big frame to wreak havoc around the opposing team’s blue paint.

But the area in front of the net is called the “high rent district” in hockey circles, and it’s because players pay a big price for hanging around there. If you’ve followed the NHL, you’ve probably seen the amount of slashes and cross-checks that go uncalled around the front of the net. Monahan made his living around the front of the net, and undoubtedly took a lot of lumber to his back, shoulders and hips over the years.

While Monahan was one of the most productive goal-scorers in recent Flames history, all that punishment he absorbed around the net gradually took his toll, and he slowed down considerably. Remember the hug between Gaudreau and Monahan in the tunnel behind the Flames bench after the Game 7 overtime win over Dallas in 2022?

Monahan wasn’t in his gear because he did not play a single game in the 2022 playoffs. Heck, he missed 17 games in the regular season, including the final 15 games. He had missed six games in 2020-21, too. Simply put: just as the Flames had built a pretty great team around him, Monahan’s body was starting to fail him.

The summer of consequential decisions and dilemmas

The summer of 2022 was a crossroads for the Flames.

Gaudreau opted to test free agency, signing in Columbus. Matthew Tkachuk declined to sign long-term as a restricted free agent, leading to a trade to Florida. The Flames were down two big pieces and had a third, Monahan, that was a big question mark due to the toll his many injuries had taken on his body and game.

Despite the departures and Monahan’s status, Treliving certainly seemed to think that the Flames had a good hockey team with a chance to win. The Flames had received Jonathan Huberdreau and MacKenzie Weegar from Florida in the Tkachuk trade, and while replacing Gaudreau and Tkachuk’s scoring was definitely a tall order… Nazem Kadri remained available in free agency and seemed like a good fit for the style of game the Flames were playing.

So the Flames had a decision to make.

As of that summer, Monahan’s ability to play a full season – and play one at full effectiveness – was unclear. He had a year left on his contract with a $6.375 million cap hit and the Flames were bumping their heads up against the salary cap. Yes, if Monahan was injured in-season he could be placed on long-term injury reserve. But unless Monahan was out for the entire season, the Flames couldn’t use up his cap space with an off-season addition.

So the Flames had three choices:

Gamble on Monahan remaining uninjured and effective for most, if not all, of the 2022-23 season.
Buy Monahan out and get some cap relief ($4.375 million).
Trade Monahan to another team and get full cap relief, but have to send a pick out as part of the deal.

Buying out Monahan would’ve only been an option in the days following Tkachuk’s trade to Florida – the second buyout window is only available for 48 hours, starting 72 hours after a team’s final arbitration case is resolved – and given the Flames’ tight cap situation, it might not have given them enough relief to sign Kadri.

So if the idea was that they needed to make cap space for Kadri and maximize the team’s remaining contention window, trading Monahan with a pick was probably the least bad option. When you look at PuckPedia’s cap relief calculator, the equivalent value of a team taking on $6.375 million of cap space would be the 28th overall pick. The Flames will likely end up giving up the 16th overall pick – an overpay relative to the cap relief they received, but not a massive one.

How it turned out

Hockey players are among the most insanely competitive people in the world, sometimes to their own detriment – NHL teams have among the best medical personnel in pro sports, but if a player is hellbent on playing through an injury, it’s tough to stop them. Going to Montreal, an environment where the team was rebuilding, probably did put Monahan in a place where he was finally able to get back to the player he used to be – whether Monahan played or not, the Habs likely wouldn’t have moved up the standings all that much.

In the three seasons since the Monahan/Kadri switcheroo, here are their numbers:

Monahan has played 161 games (with Montreal, Winnipeg and Columbus) and put up 51 goals and 132 points.
Kadri has played 246 games (all with Calgary) and put up 88 goals and 196 points.

Their per-game production is pretty similar, but Kadri has played 84 more games than Monahan.

Trading Monahan to Montreal, losing a first-rounder in the process, and signing Kadri was part of a busy off-season where Treliving was seemingly trying to keep the team’s core together for one last, big run. While there was a sort of logic behind the shuffles, the success or failure of the moves – and Treliving’s own estimation of what the group was capable of – were probably going to be judged by whether the Flames could make that big run.

A run never happened. They missed the playoffs in 2022-23, Treliving left for Toronto after his contract expired, and the Flames began their great dismantling.

On Monday, after nearly three years, the Monahan trade will finally be fully completed. There are no more lingering conditions or baggage remaining from the Treliving era and the Flames can continue to chart their new course unabated.

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