In Calgary, however, things haven’t gone according to plan. As one person told NHLRumors.com:
“If the Flames have expectations, they fall short, and if no one expects anything from Calgary, they surprise.”
NHL Rumors: Could the Calgary Flames make more moves than Rasmus Andersson?
And the Flames are underperforming, especially after abandoning the label and narrative of players not wanting to be there with the signings of Matt Coronato, Dustin Wolf, Mikael Backlund and Connor Zary. And it’s all well and good that they’re changing the narrative, but the vultures are still circling as teams try to add and see who they can pluck from the Calgary Flames.
So it was interesting to hear Flames President of Hockey Operations Don Maloney talk Sportsnet’s Brendan Parker on Wednesday night during the Calgary-Buffalo game that he is not throwing in the towel this season.
“We’re not throwing in the towel. We know we have a lot of work to do. There’s still three-quarters of the season to go, and we just have to keep working and we know we have good players here,” Maloney said. “We have a good veteran group. We have some younger players who are being pushed. We have a great young goaltender and a goaltending tandem, but we have to put everything together. We have talked about it, but at the end of the day you don’t get a medal or red ribbons in this competition. It’s win or lose, and we haven’t won enough.”
And that’s why the Calgary flames are always in trade rumors. Players like Rasmus Andersson, Blake Coleman and Nazem Kadri are present. However, Kadri isn’t going anywhere unless he wants to leave, he sees himself as part of the solution in Calgary. As said on TSN Radio in Montreal last summer, it better be an offer GM Craig Conroy can’t refuse if you want his number one center.
NHL Rumors: Could the Calgary Flames make trades after the 20-game mark?
This isn’t just a few seasons ago when the Flames had all these open unrestricted free agents, right? It was the 2023-2024 season when Calgary traded Tyler Toffoli, Nikita Zadorov, Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanevand goalkeeper Jacob Markstrom. They don’t have that this year. The only UFA still pending is Andersson, and like Kadri, it better be an offer that makes Conroy think and say, “Yes, I want to do it.”
He is currently not receiving those offers. While it may have been a mistake to trade Andersson before the season, we all know he’s gone given what their captain, Mikael Backlund, told The Athletic. That was not a good look. But there has to be a solution. However, Conroy will do it in due time. There is no rush to make a move, just to make a move.
And as Maloney later said, it’s also not healthy to rebuild or adapt the game on the fly by only playing young players. It doesn’t help the culture.
“We don’t rush these players, and that’s why we, I know everyone wants this rebuild a little faster than this retooled, look at the young players, but we’re just determined not to throw young players in before they’re ready. It’s not working,” said Maloney. “It’s not good for your culture. We’re going into the season, we want to win hockey games. We expect to be a playoff team. That’s what we have to get in our minds every season. Obviously, we’re 20 games in, 20-plus games in. We’re always reassessing and reevaluating.”
Look, there are good rebuilds like Anaheim, San Jose, Chicago and Montreal. Then there are bad renovations, as we see to some extent in Buffalo and Detroit. But if the Red Wings make the playoffs this season, they will be in the right rebuilding column.
NHL Rumors: New Jersey Devils and the Calgary Flames
However, that is the fear of ownership; they don’t want to fall into that Buffalo category of missing the playoffs for 14 and maybe 15 straight seasons. That’s why the Calgary Flames are always in the dark middle. But they need a top pick to speed things up. They don’t have that explosive weapon like the New York Islanders have with Matthew Schaefer, or the Sharks with Macklin Celebrini, or the Blackhawks with Connor Bedard.
The Calgary flames have chosen their direction. We’re at the 20-game mark and they’re not throwing in the towel, at least not yet. Maybe they’ll get to the point where they have to decide on Rasmus Andersson, and they can afford to let him go for nothing?
The Calgary Flames remain interesting for the upcoming season. Maloney, Conroy and company could be the domino that kicks off the trade movement in the NHL as we get close to the holiday break and trade deadline.
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