A lot of time, planning and hard work go into building something. And the agonizing thing about building something is that for awhile it doesn’t really look like much of anything.

At first, it looks like either nothing worth noticing, or even a bit of a confusing mess. But then, all of a sudden, things snap into place, things start progressing, and eventually it seems unbelievable that anything else had been in that place –  it’s as if what was built had been there all along.

There’s been a lot of building going on in Stampede Park over the past several years, and there’s a lot of building left to do.

A lot of things have been put in place: the expansion of the BMO Centre, the 17th Avenue extension, the revamped Victoria Park LRT station, and a general revamping of the streetscapes in the area. The last pieces, and arguably the most important, are the construction of Scotia Place… and a Calgary Flames team worthy of playing in it.

For the Flames and its fans, the last couple of seasons were pretty rough. The thrill of the dramatic Game 7 overtime win over Dallas was followed by the indignity of a five game loss to Edmonton in 2022, and then by a period of dramatic roster, coaching and management changeover.

Just over a decade ago, while the word was never proclaimed the Flames began a rebuild when they traded franchise icon Jarome Iginla in 2013. The current process didn’t have as distinct a beginning, but over the past 16 months the Flames have traded away several prominent veteran players. While the organization may be reticent to proclaim the word “rebuild,” their actions have spoken loudly: the team is regrouping, retooling and reloading, with the aim of producing a contending team to call Scotia Place home either when it opens in 2027 or shortly thereafter.

The last 16 months were the demolition phase. Now, the Flames start to build something. And up and down the 2024-25 Flames roster, there are reasons for optimism paired with some reasons to believe that the building process may take a bit of time.

The duality of how this year’s team is constructed – with an eye towards both the present and the future – is evident throughout the roster, but perhaps most visibly in net.

The tandem this season, with the departure of Jacob Markstrom via an off-season trade, is Dan Vladar and Dustin Wolf. Vladar is the incumbent backup, four years older than Wolf, and has posted so-so numbers the past two seasons while dealing with a hip issue. Well, he had that hip fixed via surgery, so perhaps he can bounce back to the goalie he was when he arrived in Calgary. Meanwhile, the 23-year-old Wolf gets a chance to be a full-time NHLer. Once the fourth-from-last player drafted in 2019, he’s won his league’s goaltender of the year award in four of the past five seasons.

If Vladar can return to form, or Wolf can adjust to NHL shooters – or both – the goaltending could be pretty solid.

The Flames’ defensive group is kind of weird, but in a fun way.

The pillars of the blueline are the two established core members of the team, MacKenzie Weegar and Rasmus Andersson. And then there are a bunch of projects that could bear fruit:

The Flames have a lot of promising younger defenders in their farm system – Artem Grushnikov, Hunter Brzustewicz and Zayne Parekh send their regards – and some of these projects will be retained, while some will need to be moved to make room for these up-and-comers.

The high proportion of projects make the defensive group a bit of a weak spot overall, but you can see what the club likes in each player and it’s not hard to imagine a few of those projects turning out positively.

The forward group contains more certainty than the defensive group, in terms of a higher proportion of established NHLers, but there’s a good crop of fun young players to watch develop.

On the veteran side, the Flames have names like Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman and Jonathan Huberdeau returning from previous years. Offensive-minded pending unrestricted free agents Anthony Mantha and Andrei Kuzmenko could be moved at some point during the season given their contractual situations. Yegor Sharangovich, arguably the biggest success story of general manager Craig Conroy’s “let’s acquire interesting players with impressive underlying numbers and see what happens” strategy, is on the injury reserve to start the season but could be the team’s most potent offensive weapon after a breakout season in 2023-24.

On the young side, the Flames begin the season with five of their opening 13 forwards being under the age of 25: Martin Pospisil, Connor Zary, Adam Klapka, Matt Coronato and Sam Honzek. While Klapka was found by the club’s European scouts and signed as a free agent, the other four were draft choices, and all five have been working through the club’s development apparatus – now co-located in Calgary alongside the NHL team. Pospisil and Zary took advantage of call-ups last season and cemented themselves as NHL regulars, a feat that Klapka and Honzek likely hope to replicate. While Coronato probably heads to the AHL when Sharangovich returns from injury, he’s part of a wave of young players pushing for full-time NHL duty. (And that’s not even factoring in a few members of the 2023 and 2024 draft classes that are waiting in the wings to potentially go pro in the coming seasons.)

The forward group will probably continue to see changes in the next few seasons as some older players depart and younger players from the farm system (hopefully) are able to take their places. Right now they lack high-end, elite offensive skill. But you can see what the Flames have on their current roster and sort of see the shape of a group that could be pretty good in the future.

The goal of the Flames isn’t to win a Stanley Cup immediately, but rather to build a team capable of winning one a few years down the road. The path between now and then won’t necessarily be smooth or quick. Heck, it’s guaranteed that this season we’ll see this Flames club have a few long, painful nights at the office. Patience will be needed as the team learns tough lessons, grows and matures.

For fans and well-wishers, it’ll be important to remember a key thing: this is a process. In tough times, on long nights, you may need to repeat that to yourself as a reminder. This is a process. And it won’t be instantaneous or painless. This is a process. But in the modern NHL, it may be the only way to build the type of successful, sustainable team the Flames and its fans deeply desire.

This is a process. This is the season that process begins.

Welcome to FlamesNation’s continuing coverage of the 2024-25 Calgary Flames season.