By Payton Knoph
Calgary - The Calgary Flames are playing for their playoff lives. With the real possibility that the FNHL Cup favourites will miss the playoffs all together, GM Jeff Nagle got to business re-tooling a team that never seemed to gel. With a grand total of 12 trades in 12 days, the Calgary Flames are a notably different team. And with the moves made over the past two weeks, the Flames will be much more flexible to build upon in the offseason.
Coming into the season with one of the deepest bluelines in the league, the Flames knew that their depth would be a challenge to maintain. With three of their top five defencemen facing new contracts in the offseason and with them, subsequent raises, there was not much time to rest on the future. It was time to make a move now, to not only shake up the current team, but solidify it's depth moving forward.
Here's a high-level break down of who's out and who's in since the season began:
OUT
D Jonas Brodin 80OV, 28yr, RFA
D Nicklas Grossman 80OV, 30yr, UFA
D Shea Weber 80OV, 36yr, UFA
F Sven Andrighetto 75OV, 22yr, RFA
F Alex Chiasson 75 OV, 31yr, UFA
D Dylan Olsen 75OV, 31yr, 4 years remaining on current deal
F Dan Sexton 75OV, 28yr, RFA
F Rocco Grimaldi 76OV, 28yr, RFA
F Joel Farabee 74OV, 19yr 2 years remaining on current deal
IN
D Adam Larsson 80OV, 29yr, 3 years remaining on current deal
D Simon Despres 79OV, 30yr, 2 years remaining on current deal
F Emile Poirier 78OV, 25yr, 2 years remaining on current deal
F Adam Burish 78OV, 35yr, UFA (rental)
F Zach Hamill 76OV, 34, 2 years remaining on current deal
F Simon Hjalmarsson 76OV, 33yr, UFA (rental)
D Jordie Benn 74OV, 29yr, UFA
D Marcus Pettersson 73OV, 23yr, 3 years remaining on current deal
D Mikey Anderson 71OV, 20yr, 2 years remaining on current deal
NAS 2026 Rnd 2
CHI 2026 Rnd 1
$3,500,000
All told, the Flames cleared out many underperforming contracts that they had no intention of resigning and created significant salary cap space with few key free agents to sign in the offseason. This cap flexibility will give the Flames ample opportunity to add a significant piece to their team during the offseason while still being very competitive for the remaining 1/3 of the current season.
1/18/2021 - 377 words
