A brief history of Flames draft weekend trades

No matter who the general manager has been over the past decade, the Calgary Flames love making trades at the National Hockey League draft. The tendency makes sense: all NHL GMs get together in one spot, have a few meals together and, presto!, trades.

Here’s a quick rundown of the last 10 years of Flames trades made on NHL Draft weekend.

Darryl Sutter was busy in 2008. He first sent the Flames’ first rounder (17th overall) and a second round pick in 2009 to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Mike Cammalleri and a second rounder in 2008 (which he used to take Mitch Wahl at 48th overall).

Then he sent away Alex Tanguay and the Flames’ fifth round pick to Montreal for their 2008 first rounder (25th overall, used to take Greg Nemisz) and a second rounder in 2009 (which Sutter subsequently traded at the 2009 trade deadline to get Jordan Leopold).

In his second-last draft as GM, Sutter was busy. He made two fairly standard draft trades – trading down to gain a pick, trading up by packaging picks – and one pretty clever one. He traded down from 20th to 23rd overall, gaining a third round pick in the process; he drafted Tim Erixon in the first round, then packaged the newly-acquired third rounder with Calgary’s fourth round pick to trade up to get Ryan Howse in the third round.

The clever trade involved sending pending free agent Jordan Leopold to Florida with a third round pick in order to get a four day head start on signing Jay Bouwmeester by gaining his rights. It was a smart gamble and the Flames nabbed him long-term before he hit the open market.

The big move here was sending a sixth round pick to the San Jose Sharks for the rights to European goaltender Henrik Karlsson. Considering that most sixth round picks don’t amount to squat, it was a decent roll of the dice.

Hoping to open up enough cap space to re-sign pending free agent Alex Tanguay – the same player the Flames traded away three years prior at the same event – new GM Jay Feaster packaged Robyn Regehr ($4 million AAV), Ales Kotalik ($3 million AAV buried in the minors) and a 2012 second rounder (to sweeten the pot) to Buffalo for Chris Butler and Paul Byron. Buffalo was so excited about the deal their GM flew to Saskatchewan to convince Regehr to waive his no-trade clause.

The funny post-script of all of this is that Feaster was unemployed within a couple seasons and Regehr ended up winning a Stanley Cup a few years later with the Kings before retiring.

Remember when Feaster had to send a 2012 second rounder to Buffalo to get them to eat $7 million of cap space in a trade? Well, Feaster went into the 2012 Draft with an eye towards trading down from 14th overall to get a second rounder back. Buffalo jumped at the chance (again), moving from up from 21st and giving the Flames a chance at getting Mark Jankowski and then Patrick Sieloff in the second round.

Satisfied with his prior two drafts’ worth of trades – or worried he was going to get canned – Feaster made zero trades at this year’s event.

In his first draft as GM, Brad Treliving flipped a third round pick to Chicago for Brandon Bollig. Bollig brought a Cup ring and a cool beard to the team. He finished off his contract in the AHL.

The day before this draft, Treliving packaged the Flames’ first rounder and a pair of seconds, one of which he had acquired by selling off Curtis Glencross, and sent them to Boston for Dougie Hamilton. Then he traded up into the late second round, sending a pair of third rounders to Arizona, to get Oliver Kylington.

At this event, Treliving sent a second rounder and a conditional 2018 second (which wasn’t converted) to St. Louis for Brian Elliott. It served its purpose.

At last year’s draft, the Flames sent a 2018 first rounder, a 2018 second rounder and a 2019 second rounder to the Islanders for Travis Hamonic and a 2019 fourth round pick. While lottery protecting the first rounder might’ve been a better idea that what was done, Hamonic ate a lot of minutes for the Flames over his first season.

All we’re saying is: history suggests that the Flames will make a trade or two over the weekend.

Founded in 1950, Sports Excellence Corporation represents over 150 family-owned independent hockey retailers across Canada and the United States. Our highly knowledgeable hockey specialists are available to assist all your equipment needs. Find your closest Sports Excellence retailer here: Find a location near you!