Calgary Flames 2024 free agency opening day live blog
By Ryan Pike
2 days agoFriends, welcome to FlamesNation‘s coverage of the opening day of free agency for the 2024-25 season!
The National Hockey League’s calendar officially flipped over to 2024-25 as of midnight ET, and Canada Day provides the first opportunities for the NHL’s 32 member clubs to shape their rosters for the coming season.
For the Calgary Flames, we expect them to be making a few moves.
Based on their established incumbent NHL players, the Flames have some holes to fill and some cap space to use. They have 17 players (under the minimum of 20 and maximum of 23) projected for the NHL roster, as well as $58.225 million in cap commitments – below both the cap floor of $65 million and cap ceiling of $88 million.
Projected for the NHL roster right now are goaltender Dan Vladar, blueliners MacKenzie Weegar, Daniil Miromanov, Kevin Bahl, Rasmus Andersson, Joel Hanley and Brayden Pachal, and forwards Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, Andrei Kuzmenko, Yegor Sharangovich, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, Martin Pospisil, Connor Zary, Walker Duehr and Kevin Rooney. And that’s it!
Based on their roster and cap situation, here’s what to keep an eye out for:
- With top prospect Dustin Wolf only have 18 NHL games under his belt and Vladar coming off hip surgery, we would expect to see the Flames go looking for an experienced third goaltender.
- Given the lean nature of the NHL group’s blueline, we would expect the Flames to kick tires on some defensive help. We wouldn’t rule out Oliver Kylington returning – even if he is expected to test the market – but we wouldn’t be surprised if the Flames went looking for some reinforcements either.
- Andrew Mangiapane’s departure via trade with Washington leaves the big club with just 10 established forwards, and a pair of them – Rooney and Duehr – spent a good amount of time with the AHL’s Wranglers last season. If the Flames have designs on staying competitive, they may look to add to their forward group to provide a bit of help to the players they haven’t traded elsewhere.
The market opens at 10 a.m. MT on Monday, but news could start trickling in earlier than that.
8:55 a.m. MT – Free agency opens in an hour and we’re starting to see some rumours emerge, including some Flames interest in old friend Sean Monahan.
9:55 a.m. MT – Just finished off my first appearance as part of the West Panel on Daily Faceoff’s live free agency show – alongside Jeff Paterson of Rink Wide and the Winnipeg Free Press’ Ken Wiebe. Check it out on YouTube!
10:41 a.m. MT – On the first day it was possible to occur, the Flames have signed forward Yegor Sharangovich to a five year contract extension ($5.75 million AAV).
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