It’s been a hot minute since the Anaheim Ducks and Calgary Flames made a trade.
Earlier this season, when the two teams matched up, we looked at the penalty-filled 2006 post-season. There have been two post-season matchups between the two teams since then, with the Ducks getting the better of the Flames in five games during the 2015 post-season, and sweeping them in the 2017 post-season.
Instead, we’ll look at the seven trades between the two teams since the Ducks joined the league in 1993-94 as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The most recent trade came over a decade ago.
The first trade
On Oct. 30, 1995, the Flames sent Bobby Marshall to the Ducks in exchange for Jarrod Skalde.
Marshall, a defenceman, was selected in the sixth round of the 1991 draft. After three seasons at Miami University in Ohio, he joined the Saint John Flames of the American Hockey League, scoring seven goals and 31 points in his first season. After just 10 games in his sophomore season, Marshall was on the move and finished the season with the Ducks’ AHL team, scoring three goals and 31 points to give him three goals and 36 points for the season.
The North York, Ontario native spent another full season in the AHL in 1996-97, scoring one goal and 36 points, but spent the rest of his career in the Central Hockey League, Germany, United Hockey League, and Western Professional Hockey League. The latter was created by former Flames general manager Brad Treliving.
Skalde had a long career, as he was drafted in the second round of the 1989 draft. He played just one game with the Flames in the NHL, but scored 32 goals and 68 points with their AHL team after the trade. For his career, Skalde played 115 games with 13 goals and 34 points with the New Jersey Devils, Ducks, Flames, San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Thrashers, and Philadelphia Flyers.
The three big ones
The three biggest trades between the two teams came in a three-year stretch. On Jun. 10, 2000, the first one was made as the Flames traded Jean-Sébastien Giguère to the Ducks for a 2000 second-round pick
Up to this point, Giguère was just a high-potential goalie who hadn’t found results quite yet. That changed after the trade, finishing the 2000-01 season with a .911 save percentage in 34 games. He took over the Ducks’ crease in 2001-02, finishing the season with a .920 save percentage and 2.13 goals against average in 53 games.
The next season, Giguère had the same save percentage and 2.30 goals against average in 65 games. He dragged the Ducks to the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals, where they fell in seven games. Giguère finished with an incredible .945 save percentage in that run, winning the Conn Smythe, just the fifth player on the losing team to win it. He was the latest as well until Connor McDavid won it in the 2024 post-season.
Giguère eventually won his Stanley Cup with the team in 2007 and finished his Ducks career with a .914 save percentage and 2.47 goals against average. He’s the best Ducks netminder in franchise history and finished his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche.
As for the pick, it was used to select Matt Pettinger, but not by the Flames. Before the 2000 draft, they traded it to the Washington Capitals for Miika Elomo, who played two NHL games, none with the Flames, and the Ducks’ 2000 fourth-rounder, used to select Hungarian Levente Szuper. I wrote more about this particular trade in this Throwback Tuesday here.
The Flames won the next trade, though. On Sep. 26, 2000, they traded Andrei Nazarov and a 2001 second-round pick for the rights to Jordan Leopold. Nazarov was acquired in the Michael Nylander trade in early 1999 and was coming off a season in which he scored 10 goals and 32 points in 1990-2000. He never came close to reaching those highs again, with his next best season coming in 2001-02, where he scored six goals and 11 points.
As for the pick, it eventually returned to the Flames in a trade with the Phoenix Coyotes, it’s a whole thing. Andrei Taratukhin was picked by the Flames and played just one season in North America with the AHL’s Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights.
Taratukhin played with Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik in 2013-14, four seasons later, Nazarov coached that team, but Tratukhin was no longer on it. They were also nearly teammates on Omsk Avangard, but Taratukhin played there in 2002-03 and 2003-04, while Nazarov played there during the lockout season in 2004-05.
Leopold was the best piece of the trade, with the left-shot defenceman playing parts of four seasons with the Flames in two separate stints. He scored nine goals and 33 points with the team in 2003-04, and added 10 assists during their run to the Stanley Cup Finals. They eventually traded him to the Colorado Avalanche before the 2006 draft for Alex Tanguay, and got him back in a trade before the 2009 trade deadline.
After the 2008-09 season, Leopold bounced around the league quite a bit, playing for the Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009-10. He spent three seasons with the Buffalo Sabres after the 2009-10 season, scoring a career-high of 13 goals and 35 points in 71 games in 2010-11, but was eventually traded to the St. Louis Blues before the 2013 deadline. In his final season in 2014-15, Leopold split his time between the Blues, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Minnesota Wild.
The last big trade between the two teams saw the Flames send Rob Niedermayer to the Ducks for Mike Commodore and Jean-François Damphousse. Starting with Damphousse, he played just six National Hockey League games, 10 with the Flames organization, before retiring after the 2004-05 season.
Commodore, a defenceman, had limited games with the Flames during the regular season, picking up one assist in 18 games between two seasons. However, he was a key shutdown defender during the Flames’ Stanley Cup Final run in 2004, playing 20 games with two assists. Commodore won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, and played until the NHL until the 2011-12 season, retiring after the 2013-14 season.
As for Niedermayer, he won the 2007 Stanley Cup with the Ducks, scoring five goals and 10 points in 21 post-season games. He retired after the 2010-11 season, finishing his career with 186 goals and 469 points in 1,153 games.
The three most recent trades
Since the 2009-10 season, there have been three trades between the teams.
The first of the three came on Mar. 3, 2010, as the Flames traded Curtis McElhinney to the Ducks for Vesa Toskala, yes, that Vesa Toskala who allowed a shot in from the opposite end of the ice. Toskala played six games for the Flames that season, posting a .918 save percentage and 2.27 goals against average before playing two seasons in the Nordic countries to end his career.
McElhinney spent his career as a journeyman backup netminder, getting his start with the Flames, but playing with the Ducks, Ottawa Senators, Phoenix Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes, and Tampa Bay Lightning. He was on the team when the Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021.
On Jun. 10, 2010, the Flames traded Jason Jaffray for Logan MacMillan. Jaffray played 49 NHL games with four goals and 11 points, but only three games came with the Flames. MacMillan was selected 19th overall in the 2007 draft, but only played three seasons professionally in North America, before finishing his career in Austria and Great Britain.
The most recent trade between the two teams came on November 21, 2013, as the Flames sent defenceman Tim Jackman to the Ducks for the 2014 sixth-round pick. Jackman’s career-high came in 2010-11 with the Flames, scoring 10 goals and 23 points in 82 games, but he never came close to that success again, finishing his Flames career with 13 goals and 36 points. With the Ducks, he scored eight goals and 11 points in 83 games over three seasons.
As for the pick, the Flames used it to select defenceman Adam Ollas Mattsson. He played parts of three seasons with the Stockton Heat of the American Hockey League, but has spent the past six seasons playing in Sweden. He is the only player in this article who is still active.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. They can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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