On Thursday night, the Calgary Flames moved back into playoff position with a 4-1 home victory over the Anaheim Ducks, leap-frogging the idle Vancouver Canucks for the final Western Conference wildcard spot.

The Flames’ on-ice performance took a backseat to a bigger story, though: a major trade that saw the Flames acquire forwards Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for forwards Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier, a 2025 second-round pick and a 2028 seventh-round pick.

Following the trade call – and hours of social media speculation regarding the swap – Flames general manager Craig Conroy and head coach Ryan Huska separately discussed the day’s events with the assembled media.

“So you know we’ve as a group we’ve had a plan kind of moving forward what do we want to do, age-appropriate guys,” said Conroy during his summation of the trade. “It’s not always easy –I know people always want something to happen really quick – but you know we felt at this point these two players are going to be a huge bump in our lineup.”

After praising his team for how they navigated a pretty unique, challenging game – Kuzmenko was scratched 90 minutes before puck drop and Pelletier was pulled after the first period, leaving the team with 11 forwards – Huska discussed the significance of adding Frost and Farabee to a group that’s pushing for the post-season.

“I like it because, I feel like these players coming in, we feel like they’re going to help us this year for one, but they also fit the wheelhouse for what we’re trying to do,” said Huska. “So these aren’t just guys that are going to kind of get us there now. We want to grow with these players as well. So, as I said, for me I think the players did this. They put themselves in a position where you want to see your general manager help you out, if you can, and I think because of the way our guys have competed this year and played they kind of earned the opportunity to have Craig act so as I said we’re all excited.”

Conroy emphasized the importance of adding two players in the club’s preferred age group, which allowed the transaction to address a couple of the team’s existing lineup gaps while adding two players that the team can potentially keep around for awhile going forward.

“I definitely wanted to give the team something and they deserved it,” said Conroy. “They’ve earned it and they you know to give them a boost, a shot in the arm, or whatever it is. We felt like these two players could do that and they’re at the right age. They’re not 33, 34-year-old players. They’re 24 and 25-year-old guys that we can grow with and that’s always been the plan, is not just to do a deal to get an older player – maybe at some point that makes sense – but for right now we really want to find guys that we can grow with the long term.”

“This came together pretty quick today, this morning, to be honest,” said Conroy. “But we’ve talked about the players maybe even last year and this year. It never really made sense. We were going back and forth. It just wasn’t the right time or it wasn’t the right return. So, you know, I think this morning we started, it started maybe a one-for-one player type deal, and then it grew a little bit more, and then, you know, it kind of became what it is now.”

Huska provided a succinct scouting report on his two newest players.

“Well Frost for one is a skilled, play-making centre,” said Huska. “He’s been pretty good in the face off circle this year which is something that we’ve struggled with. I think that’s fairly well known. Farabee is a guy that I think he’s a little untapped still, so we’re hopeful that he’s going to turn into even more of a goal scorer but he does have an edge to his game. I think it was here where he was chasing Pospy around the ice when Philly was here. So both guys bring something similar: both guys can help us generate offensively and one’s a play-maker, one’s got the ability to be a hard guy as well too. So as I mentioned I’m looking forward to having both these guys and getting to know them.”

Per Conroy, both players are expected to be in the lineup on Saturday night against Detroit.

Because it’s FlamesNation, yes, we’re getting into the math a bit. We asked Conroy during his press conference about retained salary – there is none – and about how he feels about his team’s cap situation moving forward.

“We all know the cap’s going to go up, and with the money we have, there’s still going to be opportunity for us,” said Conroy. “Whether that’s free agency. We do have to sign some of our guys here, so we’ll be working on that as the year goes along. But, yeah, we’ve had years in the past where maybe I’ve had a couple million. It’s pretty tight. You don’t have a lot to work with. This definitely gives us lots of options, and, we still said we can try to use that cap, that money. If teams need, as the deadline comes, if they need a third party, I’ve told teams we’re willing to do that. We’d be in that game, obviously, for something in return. But so we just don’t want to spend it to spend it. We want to spend it on the right things to make us better.”

The Flames added $800,000 in cap commitments in the swap, and now have $17.5 million in full-season cap space available – barely putting a dent in their war chest. With the trade the Flames made, they seem to feel that they’ve made their group better for this season and the long-term… and they didn’t really hinder their flexibility going forward either.

The Flames return to action on Saturday night at the Saddledome when they host the Red Wings.