Welcome to our countdown of the top Calgary Flames news stories of 2024, where we will be counting down our most-read stories of the year in the days leading up to 2025.
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It goes without saying that the Calgary Flames are a much different team to end 2024 than they were to begin it. But it&#8217;s worth emphasizing: it was a noisy, crazy first few months of the calendar year.
But after the dust settled and the Mar. 8 trade deadline passed, a sense of normalcy gradually emerged within the club. After literally months of wondering if key teammates would be around for the next game&#8230; they didn&#8217;t have to worry about it anymore, and they could just play hockey. (Yeah, the Jacob Markstrom saga dragged on into the summer, but most of the big distractions had been resolved.)
The Flames played 20 games after the trade deadline and with a fairly depleted roster, they went 7-13-0 and fell completely out of the playoff picture. However, the seven wins showed some flashes of the Flames team we&#8217;ve seen for the majority of the 2024-25 season. (And for the curious: five of their seven wins were on home ice, truly a sign of things to come.)
Anyway, a pretty impressive 4-2 victory over the playoff-bound Los Angeles Kings at the end of March was probably the best representation of what the Flames could become. Our Jeff Middleton dug into what Flames head coach Ryan Huska seemed to like about the effort:
<blockquote>&#8220;I thought we did a really good job [defensively],&#8221; Huska said following the game. &#8220;I think for us, it&#8217;s more about the pressure up the ice that allowed us to have some success, and I thought our guys were very detailed in the neutral zone. So, we did a good job with our structure and made it hard for them to get through us. And then when they did in the third period a little bit, I thought Marky was excellent.&#8221;
The Flames didn&#8217;t lead in the shot-blocking statistic, but the blocks that they earned came at big times. Rasmus Andersson, in particular, put his body on the line a couple of times, which not only wears off on the team around him (especially on a season-long basis), but also contributes to the standards that the Flames coaching staff is trying to uphold.
&#8220;I think there are standards,&#8221; Huska said. &#8220;Whether you&#8217;re in the playoffs or out of the playoffs, you have to have standards and expectations of yourself first and foremost and then of your teammates. So if you&#8217;re going to do things like that, then it&#8217;s easy for you to expect someone else to do the same thing. If you&#8217;re looking to build something, those are things that are very important.&#8221;</blockquote>
In Huska&#8217;s comments there are definitely echos of things we would subsequently hear from Flames veterans like Blake Coleman, Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar during the 2024-25 season in terms of standards, expectations and the team&#8217;s identity.
<a href="https://flamesnation.ca/news/calgary-flames-cap-off-march-with-impressive-victory-over-kings-huska-pleased-with-the-teams-attention-to-detail">You can read the full story by clicking here</a>, and be sure to tune in each day until Dec. 31 for the rest of our countdown!

Welcome to our countdown of the top Calgary Flames news stories of 2024, where we will be counting down our most-read stories of the year in the days leading up to 2025.
<div class="bam-inline-promotion-block" data-max-length="2" data-placement-id="2109" data-context="web-content-promocard" data-property-id="328"></div>
It goes without saying that the Calgary Flames are a much different team to end 2024 than they were to begin it. But it's worth emphasizing: it was a noisy, crazy first few months of the calendar year.

But after the dust settled and the Mar. 8 trade deadline passed, a sense of normalcy gradually emerged within the club. After literally months of wondering if key teammates would be around for the next game... they didn't have to worry about it anymore, and they could just play hockey. (Yeah, the Jacob Markstrom saga dragged on into the summer, but most of the big distractions had been resolved.)

The Flames played 20 games after the trade deadline and with a fairly depleted roster, they went 7-13-0 and fell completely out of the playoff picture. However, the seven wins showed some flashes of the Flames team we've seen for the majority of the 2024-25 season. (And for the curious: five of their seven wins were on home ice, truly a sign of things to come.)

Anyway, a pretty impressive 4-2 victory over the playoff-bound Los Angeles Kings at the end of March was probably the best representation of what the Flames could become. Our Jeff Middleton dug into what Flames head coach Ryan Huska seemed to like about the effort:
<blockquote>"I thought we did a really good job [defensively]," Huska said following the game. "I think for us, it's more about the pressure up the ice that allowed us to have some success, and I thought our guys were very detailed in the neutral zone. So, we did a good job with our structure and made it hard for them to get through us. And then when they did in the third period a little bit, I thought Marky was excellent."

The Flames didn't lead in the shot-blocking statistic, but the blocks that they earned came at big times. Rasmus Andersson, in particular, put his body on the line a couple of times, which not only wears off on the team around him (especially on a season-long basis), but also contributes to the standards that the Flames coaching staff is trying to uphold.

"I think there are standards," Huska said. "Whether you're in the playoffs or out of the playoffs, you have to have standards and expectations of yourself first and foremost and then of your teammates. So if you're going to do things like that, then it's easy for you to expect someone else to do the same thing. If you're looking to build something, those are things that are very important."</blockquote>
In Huska's comments there are definitely echos of things we would subsequently hear from Flames veterans like Blake Coleman, Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar during the 2024-25 season in terms of standards, expectations and the team's identity.

<a href="https://flamesnation.ca/news/calgary-flames-cap-off-march-with-impressive-victory-over-kings-huska-pleased-with-the-teams-attention-to-detail">You can read the full story by clicking here</a>, and be sure to tune in each day until Dec. 31 for the rest of our countdown!

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