Although the Calgary Flames have cooled off after a red hot start to the 2024-25 campaign, general manager Craig Conroy is reportedly not planning to transition into a full rebuild this season.
Despite the Flames holding onto a playoff spot in the Western Conference halfway through November, Conroy will not divert from his overall plan, The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta reported.
“They’re in a really interesting position because they haven’t fully embraced – going into this season – a rebuild because they thought they would still have pieces to remain moderately competitive, which they appear to be at this stage,” Pagnotta said on Wednesday's episode of The Latest on TFP.
The hockey insider continued: “They had a nice win against LA the other night, but this team, with the teams right behind them that are eventually going to improve, they’re going to have some pieces that they could potentially move later on in the season if they dip a little bit. I’m not saying it’s going to be a full-on fire sale; I don’t anticipate that happening, at this point, but they do have some pieces that they could potentially move to fill up the younger asset pool, to fill up some draft picks and still not tear it all down.”
Pagnotta explains that Conroy is taking his time evaluating the Flames' roster, and will “keep tabs on the trade market” depending on how the team performs over the coming months.
Through 17 games, the Flames are a modest 8-6-3 — good enough for fourth place in the Pacific Division. Calgary started strong, winning four in a row and five of six to start the campaign.
But the team has lost eight of 11 since, and it looks like the wheels are falling off after a surprisingly strong start. If Conroy and the Flames do decide to sell a couple of pieces ahead of next March's NHL Trade Deadline, forward Andrei Kuzmenko and defenseman Rasmus Andersson will likely be at the top of the list.
Flames' Rasmus Andersson, Andrei Kuzmenko could be on trade block
Kuzmenko and Andersson are valuable trade chips, and both could be shipped out of Alberta by the end of the 2024-25 season. The Russian forward is in the final year of his contract, and owns a 12-team no-trade list, per Pagnotta. He's being paid $4.5 million this year — $1 million was a signing bonus — and he'll be an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Andersson still has another year on his deal at a $4.55 million cap hit, and the Swedish blue liner owns a six-team no-trade list. As it stands, his trade value is probably quite a bit higher than Kuzmenko's.
“Rasmus Andersson is a player that, before the season started, was all over the trade rumor mill, and teams [could look] at him to potentially pry him out of Calgary closer to the deadline,” Pagnotta said on Wednesday. “He was open to a move because the team wasn’t competitive last year. Has his mindset changed? We’ll see how the season progresses from that perspective.”
Both Kuzmenko and Andersson certainly could be moved, especially if Conroy decides that the roster as currently constructed is not capable of competing for a playoff spot next spring. But that hasn't happened yet, and the squad continues to hang around the postseason conversation through six weeks.
It'll be interesting to see how the Flames fare over the next couple of months — and whether it leads to another fire sale before the trade deadline.
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