With so many teams in the hunt you would think the sellers would get big returns, the Panarin return is scary low. Is that a one off? Do you think the flames can get more than that if they sell 91 & 20?
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Hooray, it’s the Olympic break!
Photo credit: Mike Gould
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy are upon us, pals, and we’re seeing some of the best and brightest in winter sports from around the globe competing!
As we navigate three weeks between Calgary Flames games, let’s delve into the mailbag!
From all reports I’ve seen, it sounds like for Artemi Panarin it was Los Angeles or bust. That probably ended up eroding the Rangers’ negotiation leverage, as their situation became more about doing right by the player than was about extracting value.
Via PuckPedia, Nazem Kadri has a 13-team no-trade list while Blake Coleman has a 10-team yes-trade list, so the Flames won’t be able to do a pure auction for either guy… but they look like they’ll have a bigger market than the Rangers had with Panarin.
Ryan with all the veteran trade chos the flames have please let us know a realistic young player from another team that you’d love to see the flames target and why. Thanks!
The Flames need young centres. I do kinda wonder if they could finagle someone like Dean Letourneau out of Boston or Max Plante out of Detroit. At this point, if I’m the Flames I want to accumulate a ton of young centres with potential and let them battle it out to see who grabs what roles at the NHL level.
Is Conroy going to use his cap room to eat a bad contract for an asset?
I think it’s a possibility. The Flames have oodles of cap space and have, by all accounts, an ownership group that’s willing to spend to the salary cap if there’s value in doing so. If you’re a playoff team, fill your boots and spend. If you’re not a playoff team, there will need to probably be some sort of logic behind whatever bad money is being eaten. Ownership gave the thumbs-up to eating two years worth of money on the Jacob Markstrom trade; if there’s a deal with a similar value proposition, I imagine they’ll entertain it.
If the Flames get the first, second, third or fourth pick in the draft, who would they choose? (Top 4 wishlist in order?)
We’ll be diving into the merits of the top four or five players on the site in the next little while. I don’t know what the Flames would necessarily do, but here’s my rough logic:
- Gavin McKenna: I don’t think there’s been a more dissected player in hockey over the last few years, and his “struggles” adjusting to Penn State and the NCAA means that you know how he’ll react to adversity and how well he can adapt.
- Ivan Stenberg: He’s one of the older players in his draft class, but man, he’s adjusted incredibly well to high-end hockey. He’s scoring at around a point-per-game pace in one of the best leagues in the world.
- Keaton Verhoeff: He might lack the game-breaking offensive touch that McKenna has, but Verhoeff has adjusted really well to playing college hockey.
- Tynan Lawrence: Probably the best centre in the draft class, Lawrence was superb in the USHL and is adjusting to the NCAA.
Beyond that top four, I like Chase Reid and Caleb Malhotra quite a bit.
After Huberdeau, Kadri, Coleman and Backs move on, who will be the core pieces of a Flames re-tool (not including Wolf)? Is Matvei Gridin in the conversation? Expecting Zayne Parekh is. How about another forward? #Flames
On the blueline, I think the Flames will be leaning heavily on guys like Yan Kuznetsov and Kevin Bahl to help their more offensive-minded defenders figure out the NHL. Among forwards, I think you’ll see a lot of players like Matvei Gridin, Matt Coronato and Cole Reschny. This year’s upcoming draft will also likely have big implications for forming the future core.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/BlueSky at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan.Pike [at] BetterCollective.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)
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