What letter grade do you give Flames management for their trade deadline efforts?
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FlamesNation Mailbag: The deadline is over, the stretch drive begins
Photo credit: Mike Gould
The 2026 trade deadline has concluded. The Calgary Flames made a bunch of trades prior to pencils down on Friday afternoon, including the departures of Nazem Kadri and MacKenzie Weegar.
As we tee up the stretch drive, with 20 games left to go, let’s dive into the mailbag!
I give the Flames an A-.
Craig Conroy inherited the remnants of a hockey club that hadn’t really done a heck of a lot in the playoffs. And rather than double down on the remnants, he decided to try to turn over assets and make the team younger. They’ve gotten a ton of prospects. And a ton of draft picks. And a ton of salary cap flexibility. While I totally understand holding onto Blake Coleman and Zach Whitecloud if the offers weren’t amazing, it definitely felt like this was the time to maximize Coleman’s value as an assist. That’s the only real quibble I have. They’ve accelerated the process that Conroy began in 2023.
Really happy with Conroy and the team moving Veterans for prospects and picks. Center continues to be the priority for Flames. What do the centers look like in 2-3 years?
Honestly, I am not sure.
If Mikael Backlund’s still playing NHL hockey in 2-3 years, he’s a lock, but probably only as fourth line. I think they’re still trying to evaluate if Morgan Frost is a long-term piece or not. In the system there are some promising pieces like Cole Reschny, Theo Stockselius, Cullen Potter, Jonathan Castagna and Carter King. Some of these guys will probably make it. We’ll see how many.
Ok with Strome, but we took a camp dump from Ducks why did we need to give up 7th round pick. We helped them.
So here’s what I think happened with Ryan Strome, based entirely on my guesswork:
- The Flames traded Nazem Kadri to Colorado.
- The Flames decided they wanted a veteran centre, especially with Rory Kerins week-to-week in the AHL. Knowing the division well, they called Anaheim and asked about Strome, a frequent healthy scratch.
- The Ducks liked the idea of moving Strome, and probably just asked for a seventh-rounder.
- A seventh-rounder is not a lot to pay for a reliable veteran who’s played 900 games, so the Flames agreed.
It came together very quickly, we’re told.
Ryan with all of the trades the Flames made these past weeks can you please give us an update Le 10 ten flames prospects list? Thanks!
We’ll do a more detailed prospect breakdown in the coming weeks, but here’s roughly how I see it.
- Zayne Parekh – he’ll graduate from prospect status this year
- Cole Reschny
- Matvei Gridin – he’ll graduate from prospect status this year
- Hunter Brzustewicz
- Cullen Potter
- Sam Honzek
- Andrew Basha
- Ethan Wyttenbach
- Aydar Suniev
- Henry Mews
They’ve done a great job adding high-end prospect depth. They arguably still lack elite-level guys other than Parekh, but that could be dealt with this June.
With Rasmus and Weegar traded away, the focus is on developing the flames young D corp. What have you seen in Huska and the coaching staff’s history of their strategy to develop young Dmen and how they put them in situations to succeed?
So far they haven’t had a ton of opportunities, since they’ve had a veteran-heavy group until recently but consider Yan Kuznetsov. The AHL coaching staff and development team got him ready for an NHL opportunity, and then the NHL staff put him in a position to have a chance for success. That gives me a bit of confidence in their ability to move young defenders into the NHL in the future.
The Flames depth chart is thin at the RW. Do you think Conroy & staff will reload that prospect pool significantly at the draft with their multitude of picks?
Here’s the right side depth chart: Matt Coronato, Joel Farabee, Adam Klapka, Matvei Gridin, and then some question marks at the minor league level, primarily guys who usually play on the left that get moved to the right out of necessity. This is why so many people are excited by Ethan Wyttenbach: he’s a rightie and he’s excelled as a freshman.
Conny's flat-out said that the picks are capital that can be used at the draft and beyond. Given the stuffed wallet he's sitting on this season, which is more likely- he trades up at the Draft and adds another prospect or pkgs them for a player with term?
If you packaged together the 4 second rounders with the Vegas pick do you think that gets you a second top 10 pick? Is there a good tool somewhere for this?
Right now, the Flames have four second-round picks: their own, Utah’s, the NY Rangers’, and Ottawa’s. Using the current standings, these picks would be at 34th (NYR), 35th (CGY), 46th (OTT) and 49th (UTA). If you use the Perri Puck Value Calculator at PuckPedia, if you combine those four picks, their value is equivalent to the 12th overall pick in the first round.
So if you’re thinking “Hey, can the Flames move up?” Well, between their early first, Vegas’ pick later in the first and all those second-rounders… they have some resources to try.
Will the arrival of Strome and Maatta propel the flames to a 21-0 end to their season?
Will Huska focus on minutes for youngsters like Gridin and Parekh or will he rotate with some kind of eye on wins?
Should they coach defensive systems this year or open it up and try getting more offense?
The Flames are going to play 20 games from here on out. They’re not trying to lose those games. That said, their group is depleted right now and the best people to slot into the open spots are young players. So they’ll slot them in, try to win games, and even if they fall short the hope is they’ll learn a few things and improve as a result of the game experiences – again, regardless of what the scoreboard says at the end of the games.
Will the Flames try and resign Olofsson? Do you think they should?
He hasn’t played a game yet. I think it depends on how he fits in and how the Flames feel about the wingers in their developmenta system. They don’t want to block youngsters, but they don’t want to throw them to the wolves, either.
Flames haven't won more than 5 playoff games in a season since 2004. Try to explain to us when you think that'll happen & why
Next season could be another tough year. The first season in Scotia Place, 2027-28, the hope is there’s a bit of uplift. I would project the team to try to push for a playoff spot in 2028-29 or so, and potentially be, like, good, by 2030-31 or thereabouts. So my short answer is 2030-31.
They don’t want to take shortcuts. So it might be awhile before they can build the infrastructure to have sustainable success.
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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