The Calgary Flames are in a familiar position – the “mushy middle,” where they’re not good enough to be a playoff team and not bad enough to get high-enough NHL draft picks.
It looked like the Flames were about to escape that position this season when they were in a playoff spot for a long time and added some players at the trade deadline, but they ended up falling short anyway.
To that end, the Flames are better off building for the long term. Staying in the mushy middle won’t lead anywhere.
Calgary can acquire top draft picks and prospects if they’re willing to part ways with key veterans in trades and avoid being a mushy-middle squad once again.
That leads to Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson – a minute-munching blueliner who is in his prime at 28 and has one year left on his contract at a $4.55-million cap hit. With rumors that contract extension talks for Andersson aren’t going well, the prospect of Calgary GM Craig Conroy dealing Andersson becomes more tantalizing by the day.
The Flames don’t need to trade Andersson immediately. Conroy can still be patient for a few more days. But if a situation arises on July 1 – the opening of free agency – where Florida Panthers blueliner Aaron Ekblad re-signs or heads elsewhere, Andersson could easily be the best D-man available to acquire. At that point, the Flames could set a high price for Andersson that many teams should line up to pay.
Wouldn’t that make a heck of a lot of sense for Calgary than hanging onto Andersson and embracing the status quo? It’s not as if Andersson was going to put the Flames on his back and singlehandedly deliver Calgary into the 2026 playoffs. So why not trade him for what could be a terrific package of picks and prospects and be patient as Flames youngsters develop into a core that will be with the Flames for the long haul?
It’s not like the Flames don’t have any other veterans, either. Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar is signed through 2030-31. Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman and Nazem Kadri are all around on offense for now, although it would be worth seeing if there’s a good return for Kadri as well.
You can argue that Calgary was only two regulation wins out of making the post-season last year, and a slight tweak of improvement would make the Flames a playoff team in 2025-26. But that’s the best possible development.
It’s just as likely, if not more likely, that the same group misses the playoffs again. If they do narrowly miss out yet again, it will be another missed opportunity, and they’ll yet again fail to be low enough in the standings to acquire a foundational piece in the draft.
We’ve argued consistently that being a mushy-middle team is the worst place a team can be. But that’s where the Flames appear to be headed in 2025-26. So, moving a defenseman who averaged 23:59 of ice time last season would help Calgary immensely.
NHL Rumor Roundup: Could Noah Dobson And Rasmus Andersson Hit The Trade Block?The contract negotiations of two notable defensemen have drawn considerable interest recently in the NHL rumor mill.
It would take guts to move Andersson, and while Conroy has shown he has guts with last year’s deal with Philadelphia that saw the Flames acquire forwards Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee, Conroy would need to be just as gutsy to move on from Andersson.
That said, what are they really doing – other than wasting time – if they’re not building a legitimately elite team to compete with the real powerhouse teams in the Pacific Division?
You can’t convince us that the Flames have the generational talents that Western Conference teams like Edmonton, Colorado and even Chicago have. And so it becomes crystal clear that Calgary has to bear down and suffer through some lean seasons to be able to draft and develop the high-end players they need to legitimately compete with the true powerbrokers in the West.
That process can kick into high gear with the trading of Andersson. If Conroy makes him available, he’s going to get a spectacular package in return. And if it means the Flames have to fall to the bottom of the Pacific for a couple years, so be it.
The alternative – the mushy middle – is a far worse destiny for this franchise. And the sooner Conroy comes to terms with that reality, the better things will be for long-suffering Flames fans.
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