Any talk of Conroy being involved in a potential top C that's available? Zegras , necas ? Or any other options and is rasmus being shopped I've seen rumors everywhere I think it would be a good idea for the team and rasmus.
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Winding down July with your questions
Photo credit: Mike Gould
Folks, we’re into the true dog days of summer in the hockey world. Aside from salary arbitration settlements, there’s not a ton of news, and it’s likely to stay quiet until we get closer to September.
As we settle into the last few weeks of relaxation, let’s check in with the mailbag!
Disclaimer: I am no “insider,” nor do I claim to be. I think the Flames are willing to explore a lot of things, but I also think they’re pretty clear-eyed about what the re(verb)ing process entails and the things they need to do to progress through the stages. I don’t think they’re going to ignore opportunities to improve their hockey club, but I also think they’re pretty unwilling to try to cut corners to move the building process along.
It’s been a rather quiet July, any chance things pick up in early August and we start to see some RFA signings? Plus lots of Twitter desire for Conroy to throw out an offer sheet or two…could that even happen?
I don’t think the Flames will be entertaining any offer sheets this year – aside from the Ryan O’Reilly situation, it’s never really been their style.
I do think we’ll start to see Craig Conroy and his crew start crossing off restricted free agents from their to-do list, though. The Flames have six RFAs to re-up: Dustin Wolf, Jakob Pelletier, Adam Klapka, Yan Kuznetsov, Cole Schwindt and Ilya Solovyov. Wolf and Pelletier are among the team’s most exciting and important prospects, and the remainder of the sextet are pretty interesting young players. I would imagine the Flames try to get Wolf and Pelletier done before the others, if only because of their potential impact on the NHL roster.
Do you see a scenario where Kadri waives his NMC to go to a contender?
I wouldn’t rule anything out, but there’s a lot to factor into the situation. Primarily, it’s “Hey, what motivates Nazem Kadri?” And what motivates a high-level athlete often shifts over time. For some, the answer is always “money” or “championships.” But I would argue for most athletes it can change for any number of reasons over the course of their careers.
According to PuckPedia, Kadri has a full no-move clause until 2025-26, and then a 13 team no-trade list for another three seasons. He carries a lot of say over where he goes. He also has a $7 million cap hit. It’s not a deal that’s impossible for a contending team to absorb, but there’s a difference between adding Kadri as a rental on an expiring deal and adding him with four more seasons on his deal.
Long story short: if Kadri wants to be a Flame, he’s gonna a Flame. If he wants to be elsewhere, it wouldn’t be impossible to facilitate it, but the length of the deal would make it a bit of a challenge.
Ryan why would they dig a hole to have the concourse at ground level? The practice rink, dressing rooms, etc. below ground level. Did they not learn anything from the 2013 flood? The arena is located in a flood plain. MSG in NY has the ice level on top of a parkade I believe.
They’ve done a lot of background work on the flood potential – and flood mitigation strategies – and between the city’s flood mitigation plans and how the building’s been designed, everyone seems pretty confident that it’s not a huge risk. Heck, just moving two blocks north from the Saddledome – immediately beside the Elbow River – to the area they’re building in changes the risk parameters quite a bit. Long story short: they haven’t ignored the issue, and they wouldn’t be spending $900 million on a LEED silver certified design and then shrug when it came to the potential of floods.
Madison Square Garden is built on top of Penn Station in New York City, which in itself has made it one of the more contentious pieces of modern engineering in the sports space. Consequently, the ECHL’s old Las Vegas Wranglers explored building an arena (of sorts) on the Plaza Hotel’s parking structure back in 2014, but it was deemed too logistically challenging to construct.
Any idea on when the floor plans seen at city hall for Scotia Place will be available online?
As of now, there’s a 20-page project summary posted on the city’s online database. The development permit submission was said to be 1,900 pages – admittedly, many of them likely fairly dry design process documents – so we’ll see if more of the detailed design documents become available as they sort through the gigantic file.
In the spirits of Paris 2024. What Flames players would excel in the summer Olympics? And what sport?
I’m told the Swedish players are really good at the “two-touch” pre-game soccer warm-up, so I’m willing to predict that Rasmus Andersson and Mikael Backlund would be useful for Sweden at the summer games.
Who are the Flames top 5 best prospects in your opinion.
Cheap plug: the 2024 edition of FlamesNation’s annual prospect rankings will begin to be unveiled after the August long weekend. Without spoiling anything: there was more variation between our individual rankings list than we’ve seen in many years.
The Flames are entering the season with the following players as pending unrestricted free agents on July 1, 2025: Andrei Kuzmenko, Anthony Mantha, Kevin Rooney, Walker Duehr, Dryden Hunt, Joel Hanley and Dan Vladar. We’re not prepared to say to expect any of them to be traded this coming season, but if you’re the Flames, you could potentially get some good value for some of those individuals at the trade deadline and some of those teams could find themselves on a contender if they have strong seasons.
#flamesmailbag Any update on Vladar's injury recovery?
As of last update from the club, Dan Vladar was expected to be a full participant at training camp. But considering he’s coming off a fairly significant surgery, we’ll see how he looks at training camp before we make any pronouncements about his fitness to play.
The Flames need an impact, potentially elite forward that has to mature within the organization for them to take the next step in the rebuild. Who do you see from next year's draft, or in a trade from another organization, that could be that hyped forward much like Parehk on D.
Our pal Steven Ellis, from Daily Faceoff, posted his “extremely early” top 32 draft rankings back on July 3. Here are the five highest-ranked forwards:
- Boston College centre James Hagens at 1st
- Brampton right wing Porter Malone at 2nd
- Djurgardens centre Anton Frondell at 3rd
- MHK Dynamo Moskva centre Ilya Ryabkin at 4th
- Saginaw left wing Michael Misa at 6th
Yes, Ryabkin plays with Flames prospect Yegor Yegorov in Russia. Yes, Misa is the younger brother of Flames 2024 draft pick Luke Misa and teammates with first-rounder Zayne Parekh. And yes, based on early skims of lists from smart people that study the draft intensively, it feels like a forward-heavy first round group (to counter a defence-heavy first round group in 2024).
If you were calling the shots, what does Parekh have to show in camp to make the Flames opening roster? And if he does, what does he then have to show to stick around past nine games?
I say this with nothing but respect for Zayne Parekh, who absolutely rules at hockey. Yes, you can make the “What does Zayne Parekh have left to accomplish at the OHL level?” case. Because the list of things he hasn’t done in junior hockey is tiny. But considering how important Parekh could be to the Flames’ next chapter, what’s the point of burning the first year of his entry-level deal on a season where the Flames really don’t seem poised to do anything special?
I would give Parekh a run of pre-season games, then send him back to Saginaw to dominate the OHL. Next season, when you have a much better idea of how the club’s youngsters are to being core players – and when you’ve added some players via the many 2025 draft selections they have – it becomes a much different conversation.
From David via e-mail: “Lipinski remains unsigned despite showing the most growth in his game last year. Should we be concerned?”
I wouldn’t be overly concerned. A year ago the Flames signed Parker Bell during training camp in a similar situation. There’s no looming time pressure on the Flames to maintain Lipinski’s rights, so we imagine if anything happens it’ll be in the fall.
Do you think there’s any room at the inn for Ollie to come back? I know Connie said the door was closing … has it closed?
I’d never say that the door is completely closed, because you never know what could happen, but I’m not sure where Oliver Kylington fits into the Flames’ lineup after their off-season additions. They have a bunch of cap space, but I don’t know if they have wanna make any additions that could potentially block the progression of the organization’s younger players.
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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