Offseason checklist for the Calgary Flames

This case is a particularly interesting one. Wolf has just 71 career NHL appearances under his belt which isn’t much of a sample size. 53 of those came this season and he posted a 2.64 GAA with a .910 SV% while being a finalist for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him on some Vezina Trophy ballots as well although he didn’t finish in the top three in voting there. 

At this point, any doubts about Wolf being their goalie of the future (and present) have basically been erased so the Flames will undoubtedly want to get him locked up to a long-term deal.

Pricing out such a contract this summer could be tricky, however, given the limited track record. The prudent play would generally be a shorter-term contract in these situations but Wolf is only two years away from UFA status and will be arbitration-eligible if unsigned by next summer. Accordingly, the options may just be a medium-term pact that buys out two or three UFA years or a long-term (or max-term) agreement.

For the former, Wolf would likely point to the five-year $25M contract Seattle gave to Joey Daccord last year as a starting point. Daccord had similar numbers and experience at the time, making that one of the cleaner comparables. While all of those years were UFA years and Wolf has two RFA years remaining, the projected higher salary caps moving forward would largely offset that, allowing Wolf to likely push for more than that.

As for the latter, we’ve seen the market for starters recently push past the $8M mark with some consistency, including Jeremy Swayman, Linus Ullmark and Jake Oettinger who all recently joined Ilya Sorokin at $8.25M per season. Wolf doesn’t have as much success as those four but in talks, both sides will probably be forecasting him having a similar performance next season. That could help him get into that range to the point where an eight-year deal could start with an eight. 

Conroy will need to decide if he’s comfortable going to that level now or if the team is better off waiting to see how next season goes and adjusting their offers from there.

Center decisions

As is the case with many teams across the NHL, Conroy has made it known that he’d like to add down the middle. More specifically, he’d prefer to add someone around the same age as his core group which is something that’s especially much easier said than done. Given that the intent is to acquire a player who would be with the team long-term, striking to acquire that piece when it becomes available makes sense even if they’re not likely to be in contention for another couple of years.

Of course, it’s worth noting that Conroy managed to swing a move to add a middleman in that age group when he acquired Morgan Frost from the Flyers this season, taking on the full freight remaining on Joel Farabee’s contract to do so. The thought was that a change of scenery could reinvigorate him after a relatively quiet first half of the season in Philadelphia. However, that didn’t happen as he managed just three goals and nine assists in 32 games despite an increase in playing time after the swap.

Unfortunately for Calgary, it needs to make a big decision on Frost’s future in the coming weeks. He’s a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer but more importantly, he’s a year away from UFA eligibility. Now, a short-term bridge deal would walk Frost right to the open market. Assuming it’d like to avoid that, it’ll have to find a common ground on at least a medium-term agreement, on that would come in around double his $2.4M qualifying offer. Is that a price the Flames are willing to go to for a player who certainly struggled in his first few months with the team. With arbitration eligibility, this one will have to be handed over the next couple of months.

The other center they have to make a decision on is Connor Zary, who split time between playing down the middle and on the wing. Over his first two seasons, he has been a secondary scorer and is coming off a year that saw him put up 13 goals and 14 assists in 54 games. A pending restricted free agent with his entry-level deal coming to an end, Conroy will need to decide if he wants to do a long-term deal with the 23-year-old as he did with Matthew Coronato or if a bridge agreement makes the most sense. 

They can certainly afford the former given their cap situation (more than $28M in room, per PuckPedia) but the latter seems more likely on a deal that could land around the $3M mark per season.

Determine Andersson’s future

Veteran defenseman Rasmus Andersson has been a fixture on Calgary’s back end for the past seven years (plus brief stints for his first two pro campaigns). Back in 2020, he signed a seven-year contract that carried a $4.55M AAV, a deal that carried some risk at the time but has turned out to be quite the bargain. The Flames have one year left at that price before the 28-year-old becomes eligible to test the open market next summer.

Given that Calgary is a fair ways away from being a legitimate contender, Conroy fielded lots of calls about Andersson’s availability heading into the trade deadline but he opted to stand pat. Now that he’s entering the final year of his deal, those calls are going to pick back up.

While the Flames certainly wouldn’t want to move him, the question becomes how much they’re willing to pay him. As an all-situations right-shot defender and a rapidly rising salary cap, Andersson is likely poised to push for $8M or more on his next contract as things stand even though he’s coming off bit of a down year. If they’re willing to go to that number and Andersson’s willing to sign, a long-term extension getting done early in the summer — he can sign as of July 1 — wouldn’t be a surprise at all.

If that doesn’t happen, then trade speculation will undoubtedly be cranked up. Calgary still wouldn’t have to deal him right away knowing that if need be, he’d yield a strong return in an in-season swap but that comes with a risk if injuries come into play. Still, Conroy has three options here — extend, trade or hold, and all have positives and negatives tied to each approach. He’ll have to figure out the best one over the next couple of months.