A look at the state of the Flames reserve list (and changes since ‘the pause’)

The 2019-20 NHL season was long, tumultuous, and now it’s complete. It featured a five month pause and an intense 24-team tournament. Once the pause began, teams began making moves with the future in mind – and that ramped up once the playoffs ended.

How does the Calgary Flames’ organizational depth look? And how has that depth changed? Let’s take a look at the current state of the team’s reserve list – the players under contract and the unsigned draft picks whose rights they retain.

It’s hard not to see the Flames’ goaltending as upgraded. A 1-2-3 punch of Markstrom-Rittich-Domingue is vastly improved from Talbot-Rittich-Gillies. The minor depth is what it is, but Wolf and Chechelev are an intriguing pair of longer-term prospects.

So, there’s been a lot of turnover on the blueline. The NHL-level depth, it can be argued, has been diminished with the loss of five NHL regulars (and Valiev, who’s played NHL games). But the additions of seven youngsters aged 24 and under has definitely helped their prospect depth. And Tanev’s addition, as an age group asset, makes sense when you see how dang young everyone on the blueline is (aside from Young and Fresh Giordano).

Admittedly, the structure of the team’s fowards is a bit weird. They have 10 no-doubt NHLers, ending with Mangiapane. After that, there’s a mixture of potential call-ups that’s part “we know these guys are fringe NHLers but we can’t afford anything else” and part “we haven’t had a chance to try these young guys out and now we might need to use them.” And beyond the quasi-NHL cluster, there’s another layer of untested (but promising) youngsters who haven’t played much, if any, pro hockey yet. Among all areas of the team, it’s hard to argue that the forward group isn’t shallower than they were in March.