The 2025 Flames NHL trade deadline primer: contracts, clauses and cap space

The National Hockey League’s 2024-25 trade deadline is today (Friday) at 1 p.m. MT. After that point, players added to a team’s reserve list are not eligible to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

As of this morning, the Calgary Flames are in a playoff spot, just barely, in the first year of their roster overhaul. Just like everyone predicted.

Here are the various constraints the Flames are working within heading into the deadline.

The standings

The Flames have a record of 29-23-10 and 68 points, good for a .548 points percentage.

They’re eighth in points: one point ahead of Vancouver, who have a game in hand, for the final Western Conference wildcard spot. They’re ninth in points percentage, with Vancouver slightly ahead of them because of their game in hand.

Improbably, especially given the quantity and quality of players they’ve traded away over the past year, the Flames are very much in the hunt for a playoff berth.

Roster and contract limit

As of midnight ET on Friday, the 23-man roster limit is lifted (but teams need to remain salary cap compliant). Teams are also constrained by the NHL’s rule regarding 50 active contracts.

Right now, the Flames are using 22 active roster spots:

• Goalies (2): Dustin Wolf and Dan Vladar
• Defensemen (7): Rasmus Andersson, Kevin Bahl, Jake Bean, Joel Hanley, MacKenzie Weegar, Daniil Miromanov and Brayden Pachal
• Forwards (13): Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, Morgan Frost, Yegor Sharangovich, Blake Coleman, Kevin Rooney, Matt Coronato, Adam Klapka, Connor Zary, Ryan Lomberg, Martin Pospisil, Joel Farabee and Nazem Kadri

On the injury reserve list are Anthony Mantha and Justin Kirkland. Neither are expected back this season.

The Flames have 45 players under active contracts – this number doesn’t include Zayne Parekh, Andrew Basha, Matvei Gridin or Etienne Morin, whose deals don’t start until next season, but it does include Sam Honzek, whose deal could slide but since he’s in the AHL he could still play enough NHL games to trigger the first year. To be eligible to play in the NHL’s post-season, a player needs to be on the Flames’ reserve list – either under NHL contract, or the Flames have to own their NHL rights – as of the trade deadline.

No-trade and no-move clauses

Three players have active no-move clauses: Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri and Mikael Backlund.

Four players have active no-trade clauses of various kinds:

• Blake Coleman can approve a trade to 10 teams (e.g., he can block a trade to the other 21 teams)
• Anthony Mantha has an 8 team no-trade list
• Rasmus Andersson has a 6 team no-trade list
• MacKenzie Weegar has a full no-trade

These players can be traded, but would have to agree (in writing) to waive their no-move or no-trade clauses for the trade to be processed by the league.

Waivers and the recall limit

Three Flames on the active roster are waiver exempt right now and can be moved to and from the AHL as needed:

• Dustin Wolf
• Matt Coronato
• Adam Klapka

Wolf and Coronato have established themselves as everyday NHLers and we’re willing to bet that they’re not going to be sent to the AHL.

After the trade deadline, the Flames can only call up an AHL player four times under non-emergency conditions – “emergency conditions” means you don’t have enough healthy bodies to fill an NHL lineup (e.g., fewer than two goaltenders, six defenders or 12 forwards). If a player is brought up under emergency conditions and the team decides to keep them up after the emergency, that would use up a recall. Bringing up the same player four times under non-emergency conditions would wipe out all four recalls.

(Signing a college player and bringing them directly to the NHL would not burn a recall. However, bringing up a junior player that has an NHL contract – like Parekh, Basha, Gridin or Morin – after their junior season ends would count as a recall.)

The AHL roster

For an NHL player to be eligible to be assigned to the AHL at any point before the end of the season, they have to be on an AHL team’s roster as of the trade deadline. As noted, Wolf, Coronato and Klapka are waiver exempt and eligible to be assigned to the Wranglers on Friday.

We suspect we’ll see Klapka assigned to the Wranglers before the trade deadline to keep him AHL eligible, and he’ll be called back up after the deadline to rejoin the Flames.

The salary cap

The cap ceiling is $88 million. The Flames have $69.7 million of active cap commitments, between their active roster, injury reserve list and retaining salary on Jacob Markstrom. Between prior savings and current spending, the Flames have $18.09 million in cap space.

When you pro-rate the Flames’ cap space over the remainder of the season, they can add $82.7 million in full-season cap hits and remain compliant with the salary cap.

Pending free agents

The Flames have 22 players on expiring contracts:

• Unrestricted free agents (11): Anthony Mantha, Kevin Rooney, Justin Kirkland, Martin Frk, Clark Bishop, Dryden Hunt, Joel Hanley, Tyson Barrie, Jarred Tinordi, Jonathan Aspirot (Group VI) and Dan Vladar
• Restricted free agents (11): Morgan Frost, Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, Adam Klapka, Sam Morton, Rory Kerins, Kevin Bahl, Jeremie Poirier, Yan Kuznetsov, Waltteri Ignatjew and Connor Murphy

Draft picks

The Flames have picks in the next three drafts in the following rounds – we’ve made a few simplifying assumptions:

• 2025: 1st (own or FLA), 1st (NJ), 2nd (COL), 3rd (own), 5th (own), 6th (own), 7th (own)
• 2026: 1st (own), 1st (VGK), 2nd (own), 3rd (own), 3rd (VAN), 4th (own), 5th (own), 6th (own), 7th (own)
• 2027: 1st (own), 2nd (own), 3rd (own), 4th (own), 5th (own), 6th (own), 7th (own)

Suffice it to say: the Flames have many, many picks coming up over the next few drafts.