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Flashback Friday: Looking at the fallout from the Flames’ most recent trade with the Hurricanes

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

By Cynthia Ryley Delaney

Oct 16, 2026, 20:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 16, 2026, 23:06 EDT

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On Thursday evening, Jake Middleton became the first Calgary Flames defenceman to score their first goal for the team on a penalty kill since Noah Hanifin back in 2018.

What’s funny is that goal came against Hanifin’s current team, the Vegas Golden Knights. The Flames shipped him to their Pacific Division rivals ahead of the 2024 trade deadline. Six years before that, the Flames acquired Hanifin alongside Elias Lindholm from the Carolina Hurricanes, the Flames’ next opponent.

That trade is one of the most important in recent Flames’ history, to say the least. It’ll also be the topic of this edition of Flashback Friday.

The Flames latest trade with the Hurricanes

Hanifin was a young defenceman when he joined the Flames, but he had some great seasons with the team. In 2021-22, he scored a then career-high 10 goals with a career-best 48 points. It was a memorable season for the Flames, as they finished first in the Pacific Division and had one last swan song with that group that included Matthew Tkachuk and the late, great, Johnny Gaudreau.

In parts of six seasons with the Flames, the left-shot defenceman scored 42 goals and 1919 points, with his career-high 11 goals coming in 61 games with the team before he was traded to the Golden Knights.

Unsurprisingly, Lindholm’s best season as a Flame also came in 2021-22. The right-shot centre scored 42 goals and 82 points in 82 games, setting career-highs across the board while playing alongside the aforementioned Gaudreau and Tkachuk. In parts of six seasons with the Flames, Lindholm scored 148 goals and 357 points in 418 games.

Both players were dealt ahead of the 2024 trade deadline. First was Lindholm, who was traded to the Vancouver Canucks for Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo, Andrei Kuzmenko, a 2024 fourth-round pick, and the Canucks’ 2024 first-round pick. Just over a month later, Hanifin was traded to the Golden Knights for a 2026 first-round pick, a 2024 third-round pick, and defenceman Daniil Miromanov.

These two trades, which are a part of the larger Curtis Glencross trade tree (a personal favourite of mine), will get larger and will be beneficial when the Flames become contenders. A year after the Lindholm trade, Kuzmenko was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee, two players in the Flames’ current top six, and two players who could be traded in the coming years.

That first was used to select Matvei Gridin, a winger with the potential to be the shooter on one of their top two lines. Brzustewicz looked solid with the Flames last season as well, and could factor in their blue line plans in the future. That 2024 fourth was flipped, sent to the Flyers for a pair of picks to select Luke Misa and Eric Jamieson, the latter also having the potential to be a bottom-pairing defenceman for the Flames.

Who knows where this side of the tree goes, but the Hanifin side of the trade tree is a bit more interesting to me. It hasn’t expanded nearly as much, as the NHL player coming back (Miromanov) played limited games with the Flames before departing for the Kontinental Hockey League’s SKA Saint Petersburg this past off-season.

But the two prospects the Flames selected are interesting. That 2024 third was used to select a Russian, netminder Kirill Zarubin. After strong seasons in Russia’s junior league, the 21-year-old has finally come to North American and has appeared in two games for the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers.

The 2026 first, which was initially a 2025 conditional first, was used to select Jack Hextall 30th overall. In the early goings, Hextall is already looking to be a good find for the Flames. Joining the Michigan State University Spartans in 2026-27, the right-shot centre has already scored two goals and four points in his first two games. He’s doing this playing alongside fellow Flames’ prospect Cullen Potter, another late-first round pick who looks to be a solid find.

By moving Dougie Hamilton, Michael Ferland, and Adam Fox’s rights for Hanifin and Lindholm, the Flames set in motion a pair of trades that have ramifications to this day and potentially for the next decade as well.

Unfortunately for the Flames, this was the most recent trade with the Hurricanes, as they elected to not take the Hurricanes’ package for Tkachuk back in 2022. That choice set in motion another notable trade tree, the same one Potter is a part of. But perhaps we’ll cover that in another edition of the Flashback Friday.

Cynthia Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for DFO Calgary, DFO Edmonton, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @CynthiaRDelaney.

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