Flames Weekly Notebook: Where do they go from here?

Welcome to the first edition of my new weekly column where I will give some thoughts and opinions on all things Calgary Flames. I chose a good time to start this up with because of the storylines developing around the Flames.

From a results perspective, the start to this season could not have gone worse for the Flames. They are a Stuart Skinner brain fart away from going 1-9-1.

From a long term perspective, this isn’t the worst thing to happen. The Flames need to begin a full on rebuild if they want to acquire the elite talent they’ll need to become a contender in the future.

This group is not good enough to make the playoffs, let alone win a series. This is the fourth year that this core group has been together and they haven’t made the post-season or shown that they could be a post-season threat if they did make it. It’s time to blow it up and build for the future.

With that out of the way, let’s dive into some other Flames topics!

Get the “for sale” sign out

The first order of business for Craig Conroy this week is to call every GM in the NHL and let them know that nearly every player on the Flames roster is for sale.

Nazem Kadri, Rasmus Andersson, Blake Coleman, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, Yegor Sharangovich, Ryan Lomberg, Justin Kirkland, Jake Bean, Joel Hanley, and Brayden Pachal should all be on the market.

Conroy should set his price for each player, and if a team meets it, pull the trigger on a deal any time between now and the trade deadline.

There is no point in waiting to see if the team pulls themselves out of this hole. This season is over from a making the playoffs perspective. It’s time to move on and start collective assets.

There aren’t any teams that are true sellers at the moment. The Flames could do themselves a favour by putting their players on the trade market and try to take advantage of desperate teams looking to add to their team now. Conroy could theoretically create a bidding war for his players since they are the only ones who will be available in a deal this early in the season.

Goal scoring issues shouldn’t surprise anyone

The Flames have scored an abysmal 20 goals in ten games this season. At some point they will start scoring more goals, this pace is unsustainably bad.

But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are struggling to score goals this year based on what we saw in the 2024-25 campaign.

The Flames played 61 games from Oct. 19 – Mar. 16 last season. In those 61 games, they scored 147 goals which was dead last in the NHL. The next closest team was the Nashville Predators who scored 162 goals. The gap between the Flames and the 31st team was 15 goals during that span. 15 GOALS!

For 75% of the season the Calgary Flames were by far the worst offensive team in the NHL.

That has carried over into this season. Nearly every player has not played up to their potential throughout the first 10 games.

This team will start scoring goals at a respectable rate at some point this year. We just don’t know when.

Nazem Kadri’s future

What is going through Nazem Kadri’s head right now? He can’t be happy with the outlook of the Calgary Flames season.

The 35 year old has been the best player on the Flames since joining the team as a free agent in the summer of 2022.

Kadri is one of the most competitive players in the NHL. All this guy wants to do is win. And it’s become clear that will not happen in Calgary. It makes sense for both the player and the team to explore a trade.

The good news for Craig Conroy is that Kadri only has a 13 team no trade list which means he can start a bidding war between 18 teams for Kadri’s services.

There are a lot of competitive clubs that are in desperate need for a second line centre. Montreal, Toronto, Carolina, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Colorado, and Minnesota are all teams that could have interest in the 2022 Stanley Cup champ.

The Flames want to keep Kadri around for his 1,000th game. It’s an important milestone for the player and team. But as soon as that night comes to an end, Conroy should be on the phones shopping his best forward.