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FlamesNation Mailbag: Stampede hangover edition
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Photo credit: Mike Gould
Ryan Pike
Jul 15, 2024, 12:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 14, 2024, 19:20 EDT
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Friends, the 2024 edition of the Calgary Stampede is complete and the townsfolk have begun sweeping away the excess hay and preparing for next year’s event.
As we continue our summers, let’s dive into the mailbag to see what’s on everyone’s minds!
Right now, I think the Flames are probably done with major tinkers. For now. But remember how Yegor Sharangovich basically got an audition for a long-term role last season and it resulted in him getting a five year extension? Well, I suspect pending unrestricted free agents Anthony Mantha and Andrei Kuzmenko will be auditioning this season – and maybe even Rasmus Andersson, Jake Bean and Daniil Miromanov, considering they all have two years left before they’re UFAs. (And the players who don’t quite fit in long term? They may be moved elsewhere in exchange for picks, prospects and/or younger players.)
Who will be core veterans on the Flames roster when the youngsters become big pieces of the team and the club begins to push for the post-season again? While the kids audition for NHL roles, the older players are auditioning for long-term roles, and the hope is likely that it creates a really fun, competitive atmosphere around the team.
There are a few challenges for the Flames to engage in offer sheets:
  • There are conditions tying up their 2025 first and third-round picks, so they can only negotiate offer sheets that are below $1.511 million (and have no picks attached) or between $2.290 and $4.580 million (and have a second-round pick attached). That narrows the types of players they can go after.
  • I don’t think they have an internal appetite to block the progression of their prospects, so that minimizes their desires to add blueliners or wingers via offer sheet.
  • The Flames would love to add young centres, but the teams that have young centres that the Flames would be able to afford with the picks they have to offer as compensation all have enough cap space to simply match the Flames’ offer sheet(s).
Long story short: I don’t expect the Flames to use offer sheets, but I wouldn’t rule out trades to help out cap-strapped teams closer to the start of the season when everybody’s rosters and cap situations become better-defined.
I don’t think there are many teams that have success with a lot of one-dimensional blueliners. When you have to shelter multiple pairings from having to play in defensive situations, it handcuffs your ability to just roll lines and pairings and play your game. So I would imagine the Flames hope that some of their offensive-minded young prospects round their games out a bit before making a push for the NHL roster.
But for a recent example of having multiple offensive-minded guys, look at Colorado with Cale Makar and Bowen Byram. If you have the right players to compliment your puck-moving blueliners (and your youngsters can defend reasonably well) there’s no reason you can’t have more than one of them on your team.
Jonathan Huberdeau played his best possession hockey playing with Andrei Kuzmenko and Yegor Sharangovich last season, so they’re obvious candidates. Based on playing styles – and the potential to try other players at centre and free Sharangovich up to play the wing – we’d look at some combination of Connor Zary, Martin Pospisil or Anthony Mantha as linemates, too. (We really like the possibility of Pospisil or Mantha using their size to open up some space for Huberdeau.)
We’d also like to see Huberdeau play a bit at five-on-five with Daniil Miromanov. Huberdeau’s a great distributor, and Miromanov has a super shot from the point. It could add an element to the Flames’ even strength attack to align their ice times a bit.
Right now, the Flames retain rights to two categories of older, out-of-contract players for CBA-specific reasons.
  • Because there’s no transfer agreement between Russia and the NHL right now, the Flames retain the rights to drafted players like Rushan Rafikov and Pavel Karnaukhov. (For every other European country with a transfer agreement, the Flames keep the rights to a player for about four years after their drafting.)
  • Because they qualified these players as restricted free agents but they signed in Europe, the Flames retain the rights to “defected” RFAs Carl-Johan Lerby and Eetu Tuulola until the July 1 after they turn 27. (Essentially until the time that they would normally qualify as unrestricted free agents.) Nikita Okhotiuk, who’s reportedly signed with CSKA Moskva in the KHL, would also fall into this category.
Teams are able to hold the rights to up to 90 players at a time – including the up-to-50 players under contract – so retaining the rights to these types of players doesn’t really reduce their flexibility at all.
Jake Boltmann was a third-round pick by the Flames in 2020. He’s played out his undergraduate eligibility at Notre Dame and completed his degree, and he’s transferred to Northeastern University as a graduate student. Based on our understanding of his NHL rights, since he’s graduated from college the Flames will lose his rights on Aug. 15. (We would suggest that Boltmann continuing on as a graduate student means that he hasn’t received a substantial offer from the Flames, as it seems unlikely that a player would continue in the college grind if the NHL was a possibility.)
Boltmann was a rock-solid college player and a superb student, who was named to the Big 10’s all-academic team in his three full seasons in the conference. He just didn’t progress all that much as a player once he arrived in college beyond his original “rock-solid” status. It happens sometimes.
I haven’t heard anything, but historically Sportsnet puts out a press release sometime in late September to trumpet the various NHL events they’ll be broadcast and note the regional broadcast schedules for the various teams they have the rights to. I would imagine that they’ll announce the 2024-25 broadcast teams (and any changes to them) in that press release.
Honestly, beyond hammered out some contracts with his six restricted free agents, there’s not a ton of outstanding items that are demanding Craig Conroy’s attention. So far, things are progressing as you would hope they would if you’re Team Rebuild and want the Flames to get younger and then build towards the future. I hope Craig’s at a lake relaxing for a little bit, as that’s what I would try to do – especially if I was running a team like the Flames that doesn’t have any salary arbitration cases to worry about.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/X at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan [at] TheNationNetwork.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)

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