How is the Calgary Flames roster shaping up for 2024-25?

The 2024 trade deadline has come and gone in the National Hockey League and throughout the league, there are two reactions following the grind towards the deadline: “Thank goodness that’s over” and “Now what?”

In the case of the Calgary Flames, the deadline represented a benchmark in the continued transformation of the hockey club under new general manager Craig Conroy. As the dust settles following the deadline, how is the club’s roster starting to look for next season?

After the wheeling and dealing, here’s who the Flames have under contract or under team control:

There are 10 forwards under one-way deals and when you add in Connor Zary, who’s going to be entering the final year of his entry-level deal, that makes it 11 established NHLers under contract.

These 11 NHLers are to be paid a combined $45.288 million.

Let’s slot those 11 guys onto lines:

Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman
Zary – Kadri – Pospisil
Huberdeau – Sharangovich – Kuzmenko
(somebody) – Rooney – Duehr
(somebody) – (somebody)

Now, that leaves three spots blocked off for “somebody.” Who’s under contract that could fill those slots? Players currently under contract include Matt Coronato, Dryden Hunt, Samuel Honzek, Parker Bell, William Strömgren, Rory Kerins, Ilya Nikolaev, Lucas Ciona and Clark Bishop. Pending restricted free agents include Jakob Pelletier, Cole Schwindt, Adam Klapka, Riley Damiani and Dillon Dube. It’s worth pointing out that Pelletier will require waivers next season, so he seems like a virtual lock for an NHL job, and it’ll be interesting to see where he slots in.

On the blueline, five players are on one-way deals for 2024-25.

These five make a combined $13.613 million.

In terms of how they slot onto possible pairs:

Weegar – Andersson
(somebody) – Miromanov
Hanley – Pachal
(somebody)

As with the forwards, that’s two “somebody” spots. So who could be “somebody”? An obvious contender is Oliver Kylington, who could easily slot onto that second pairing left-side spot pretty easily. Kylington is a pending unrestricted free agent, but somebody who the Flames organization values highly and presuming he’s playing pro hockey in 2024-25, he seems like a good bet.

Beyond Kylington, the Flames have a few players under contract or team control on the blueline. Under contracts include Jeremie Poirier and Artem Grushnikov, while their pending RFAs include Nikita Okhotiuk, Yan Kuznetsov and Ilya Solovyov.

The two goaltenders on one-way deals are… the same two from this year!

This tandem makes a combined $8.2 million.

Behind this duo is pending RFA Dustin Wolf.

All-in, the 11 forwards, five defencemen and two goaltenders we’ve outlined here have combined salary cap commitments of $67.1 million. Assuming a salary cap ceiling of $87.5 million, that leaves the Flames with $20.4 million to fill those five “somebody” spots – two on the blueline and three among the forward ranks.

It would be naive to predict that every single player on a deal returns – there will be further changes to the roster as they move through the 2024 off-season. But it’s also pretty obvious that, man, the Flames have some holes in their roster, but they also have a massive amount of cap space and roster flexibility.

Let’s see what they do with it.