On Tuesday evening, the Calgary Flames host the New York Islanders.
There’s not a ton of history between the two teams. Due to being in opposite conferences, they’ve never had a playoff matchup. There have been eight trades between the two franchises (including the Atlanta Flames days), but we’ll look at three in this article. Funnily enough, there has only been one trade between the two teams in the 21st century.
Let’s look at the three major trades between the Islanders and Flames.

Flames acquire John Tonelli

The first major trade between the Islanders and the Flames came before the 1986 trade deadline, as the Flames sent Steven Konroyd and Rich Kromm to the Islanders in exchange for John Tonelli.
Without question, the Flames got the better end of the deal here. In his sophomore season in 1979-80 with the Islanders, Tonelli scored 14 goals and 44 points. However, he scored seven goals and 16 points in the postseason en route to his first Stanley Cup. And then the following three seasons, he won three more Stanley Cups.
The season before the trade in 1984-85, Tonelli scored a career-high 42 goals and 100 points and had 20 goals and 61 points in 65 games leading up to the trade. Tonelli only played nine regular season games for the Flames during the 1985-86 season but put up seven goals (tied for postseason high) and 16 points in 22 postseason games.
As you know, the Flames made the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time that season, with Tonelli finishing tied for fifth in team scoring as the Flames fell in five games to the Montréal Canadiens. It’s okay though, as the Flames got their revenge on the Canadiens three seasons later, read more on that here.
Unfortunately, Tonelli wasn’t on the Stanley Cup-winning team in 1989, as he played two more seasons for the Flames. In 1986-87, he scored 20 goals and 51 points in 78 games and in the following season, he scored 17 goals and 59 points in 74 games.
As for the players the Flames gave up, Steven Konroyd was a left-shot defenceman with a long career starting in 1980-81. Before the trade, he had a career-high seven goals with 27 points, adding five assists with the Islanders after the trade. 
After his Islanders playing days, he played parts of four seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, parts of two seasons with the Hartford Whalers and Detroit Red Wings, and eight games with the Ottawa Senators. In 1994-95, his final National Hockey League season, Konroyd returned to the Flames and played a game with the team that drafted him.
Kromm was the other player the Flames gave up to acquire Tonelli. He scored a career-high 20 goals and 52 points the season before his trade while putting up 12 goals and 29 points in 63 games with the Flames before the trade. The left winger scored seven goals and 14 points in 14 games to end the season with the Islanders.
Unfortunately, Kromm started a steady decline afterward. In his first full season with the Islanders, he scored 12 goals and 29 points in 70 games. The following season, his production slipped further as he scored five goals and 15 points in 71 games.
In 1988-89, Kromm played the majority of the year in the American Hockey League but played 20 games with the Islanders where he had a goal and seven points. Throughout his next four seasons, he only played eight more games.

Flames trade Robert Reichel

Before the 1997 trade deadline, the Flames traded long-time forward Robert Reichel to the Islanders for a package of Marty McInnis, Tyrone Garner, and a sixth-round pick that turned out to be Ilja Demidov.
Reichel had two 40-goal seasons in 1992-93 (88 points) and 1993-94 (93 points) before the 1994-95 lockout shortened the season to 48 games, where he had 18 goals and 35 points. After a season in Germany, Reichel’s final season as a Flame was in 1996-97, where he had 15 goals and 43 points in 70 games before the trade.
The centre finished his season with the Islanders scoring five goals and 19 points in 12 games and in his first full season, he scored 25 goals and 65 points. Reichel played one more season with the Islanders, scoring 19 goals and 65 points in 70 games before being traded to the Phoenix Coyotes before the 1999 trade deadline.
Reichel played his next two seasons in Czechia, before returning for three seasons to play with the Toronto Maple Leafs scoring 43 goals and 123 points in 228 games from 2001-02 until 2003-04. His playing career didn’t end until after the 2009-10 season though, as he played six seasons with Litvinov HC in Czechia.
The best player the Flames received in this trade was McInnis. The left wing played parts of three seasons for the Flames, scoring three goals and seven points after the trade. In the forward’s only full season in Alberta, he scored 19 goals and 44 points in 75 games but was traded after just six games in 1998-99 to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.
McInnis was productive for the Mighty Ducks, scoring 57 goals and 145 points in 272 games, before playing his final two seasons with the Boston Bruins in 2001-02 and 2002-03.
Garner was selected in the fourth round of the 1996 draft by the Islanders and only played three games in the National Hockey League, where he had an .838 save percentage and 5.18 goals-against average for the 1998-99 Flames. The netminder’s playing career ended after the 2007-08 season.
With the 140th overall pick in the 1997 draft, the Flames selected Ilja Demidov from the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League. Demidov never played in the National Hockey League and only played 118 more games in North America in the International Hockey League, East Coast Hockey League, and American Hockey League throughout two seasons. The Russian defenceman played in Europe, ending his career in 2017-18 with the EHC Berlin Blues, a lower-tier German team.

Flames acquire Travis Hamonic

The John Tornelli trade was a win for the Flames, the Robert Reichel trade was a toss for the Flames, and the Travis Hamonic trade was not a great trade for the Flames..
Of all nine trades the two franchises have made, this was the only trade made in the 21st century. On the second day of the 2018 draft, the Flames moved their 2018 first-round and second-round pick, along with a 2019 second-round pick to the Islanders for right-shot defenceman Travis Hamonic.
Through his first seven seasons in the National Hockey League, Hamonic had 26 goals and 146 points in 444 games with the Islanders. However, he only played two postseasons, scoring a goal and three points in 17 postseason games with the Oilers.
Hamonic started the 2017-18 season in the prime of his career, turning 27 a few months after the trade. He spent three seasons with the Flames, scoring 11 goals and 42 points in 193 games, along with no points in five postseason games in the 2019 postseason.
The St. Malo, Manitoba native signed with the Vancouver Canucks after the 2019-20 season, spending two seasons there before being traded to the Ottawa Senators before the 2022 trade deadline.
Starting with the 2019 second-round pick, the Islanders used that pick to draft left-shot defenceman Samuel Bolduc from the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. The 23-year-old made his debut in 2022-23, scoring two goals and three points in 17 games, along with playing two postseason games. In 2023-24, he played 34 games with two goals and five points.
So far in 2024-25, he’s only played one game but has three goals and eight points in 15 games with the Islanders’ American Hockey League team.
With the 2018 second-round pick, the Islanders selected right-shot defenceman Bode Wild from the U.S. National Under-18 Development team. Unfortunately, he never played a game in the National Hockey League, spending two seasons with the Bridgeport Sounds Tigers of the American Hockey League, before departing to play in Europe aside from a season in the East Coast Hockey League in 2022-23.
Where this trade hurts is the 2018 first-round pick they trade. The 2018 draft was a strong one for defencemen, as Rasmus Dahlin was selected first overall, while the draft also produced Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist, Evan Bouchard, K’Andre Miller, and Rasmus Sandin, all in the first round. One other defenceman picked in the first round was by the Islanders, as they selected Noah Dobson immediately after selecting Oliver Wahlstrom.
Dobson is one of the best young defencemen in the league, scoring 10 goals and a career-high 70 points in 79 games last season. The two seasons before, he scored a career-high 13 goals in each, and at the age of 24 years old, he hasn’t hit his prime yet. So far in the 2024-25 season, Dobson has a goal and eight points in 18 games.
Imagine Dobson on the Flames. Boy, that’d be nice.
Thanks for reading! You can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.