The past few seasons have been very, very noisy for the Calgary Flames.

In 2019-20, then-head coach Bill Peters resigned mid-season amidst a scandal, and then the season was derailed by a pandemic. In 2020-21, the Flames changed coaches mid-season and played the entire campaign in an empty arena due to pandemic social distancing rules. In 2021-22, the team was awesome on the ice but had to play their final 54 games over 121 days after the entire team got sick. Then Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk left the club in the 2022 off-season, starting a changeover in the Flames roster that carried on through much of the next season. (They also installed a new coach and general manager during this span.)

All that with the existential issue of the team’s future arena looming overhead, along with other behind-the-scenes challenges.

Like we said: the past few years, on several levels, have been pretty noisy for the Flames. But after that whirlwind of change, the 2024-25 season has been quite calm thus far for the Flames. That’s not to say that it’s been entirely smooth sailing, but the tumult of prior seasons – coaching and management changes, unclear futures for prominent players and arena drama – are dealt with.

Midway through the first year of the team’s transformation process – retool, rebuild, roster rehabilitation, call it what you will – things are going pretty well. The Flames have developed a pretty cohesive team identity, seem to have settled into a playing style that gives them a chance at success, and several of their key young players have progressed while playing at the NHL level.

A year ago, the Flames were the main character of the NHL because of all the drama. Who would stay? Who would go? And what would first-year general manager Craig Conroy possibly do before the trade deadline? It was noisy, it was messy, and it was probably exhausting to be living through.

This year, things are calmer, the team seems in a nice rhythm, and we’re starting to wonder if – after a half-decade of seismic, constant change – perhaps the Flames have an appetite to do very little between now and the Mar. 7 trade deadline.

Are there any pending decisions on Conroy’s desk with looming time pressures? Not really. The team’s pending unrestricted free agents include goaltender Dan Vladar, defencemen Joel Hanley and Tyson Barrie, and forwards Andrei Kuzmenko, Walker Duehr, Justin Kirkland, Anthony Mantha and Kevin Rooney. Vladar’s probably the most prominent player on that list, and it’s been suggested by our insider colleagues that a robust market hasn’t yet developed for his services – Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli noted that the Flames and Vladar’s camp have had chats about a possible extension. Kirkland and Mantha have both suffered season-ending injuries, while the jury remains out on the demand for the other players.

Similarly, there don’t seem to be any players on the farm team that definitely need to get some NHL playing time this season. Sure, it would be advantageous to reward players like William Strömgren, Rory Kerins, Adam Klapka, Ilya Solovyov, Sam Honzek and Devin Cooley with some NHL games, but all of those players will remain under team control next season, injuries will still probably happen to create short-term opportunities in the interim, and the Flames have already promoted youngsters Matt Coronato and Jakob Pelletier to the NHL during this season. It might be better to leave the Wranglers intact and let them cook as they chase a potential Calder Cup in the spring.

The Flames are early in the process of transforming their team with an aim towards sustainable, long-term success. They’re still adding to their farm system, so there may not be much of an appetite to upgrade the roster for this season by sending young pieces or draft picks out in-season. Similarly, the team seems really cohesive and drama-free right now, and so there may also not be much of an appetite on the Flames’ end – or demand for its surplus players – to conduct any sell-off moves.

Things could change, and often do, but it feels like after a crazy few years, it could be a pretty quiet winter and spring for the Flames.