If you head over to PuckPedia to check on your favourite team’s roster these days, you’ve probably seen their handy rundown of the 32 National Hockey League clubs in order of cap spending. If you scroll way down, you’ll find the Calgary Flames with the 30th-most cap commitments among the 32 clubs – $69.25 million.
In other words, the Flames have the third-most cap space in the NHL, a pro-rated $24.3 million.
The Flames have a ton of cap flexibility this season. Moreover, they don’t have any major contracts expiring this season that require renewal. So while a lot of recent discussion has been focused on what will happen to next season’s cap ceiling – Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the cap could grow past the anticipated $92.5 million ceiling for 2025-26 – the Flames are uniquely positioned to take advantage of their continuing flexibility.
Let us explain.
The Flames have 14 players on one-way NHL deals for the 2025-26 season:
- G Dustin Wolf – $850,000
- G Devin Cooley – $775,000
- D MacKenzie Weegar – $6.25 million
- D Rasmus Andersson – $4.55 million
- D Jake Bean – $1.75 million
- D Daniil Miromanov – $1.25 million
- D Ilya Solovyov – $775,000
- F Jonathan Huberdeau – $10.5 million
- F Nazem Kadri – $7 million
- F Yegor Sharangovich – $5.75 million
- F Blake Coleman – $4.9 million
- F Mikael Backlund – $4.5 million
- F Ryan Lomberg – $2 million
- F Martin Pospisil – $1 million
- Jacob Markstrom’s retained salary – $1.875 million
All-told, the Flames have $53.725 million committed to two goaltenders, five defencemen and seven forwards. Put a different way, with a $92.5 million cap ceiling, they have $38.775 million to fill nine roster spots (two defencemen and seven forwards), or about $4.31 million for each roster opening.
Friedman reported that the cap ceiling could end up at between $95-97 million. The Flames’ cap space would bump to $41.275 million with a $95 million cap ceiling or $43.275 million with a $97 million cap ceiling. (The cap floor would be around $68 million with a $92.5 million ceiling and creep towards $70 million if it got towards $97 million.)
The Flames have several prominent players on their current roster that are pending restricted free agents and would likely be in line for raises this off-season. That list includes forwards Matt Coronato, Connor Zary and Adam Klapka, and defencemen Kevin Bahl and Brayden Pachal. (Minor-leaguers Jakob Pelletier, Jeremie Poirier, Yan Kuznetsov and Waltteri Ignatjew are also pending RFAs.)
Given the players likely in line for moderate raises, we don’t think the Flames will have any issue hitting the cap floor for next season, regardless of where the cap ceiling ends up. But barring them throwing around silly money in free agency, they could potentially enter the 2025-26 season with a vast, vast amount of cap flexibility.
Vast.
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