During an intermission segment for Sportsnet’s Saturday Headlines, Elliotte Friedman came in with more news on the Calgary Flames. They are one of the hottest teams in the league—unfortunately, not due to their positions in the standings, but rather their position in the trade market. Here’s the latest on the Flames.
Flames are taking calls
The Flames are taking a lot of calls, especially on their defencemen. Teams are calling and are having conversations on their trading timelines. Friedman added that some teams want to talk to players for extensions, which can improve the return on any potential trades the Flames go for.
Backlund speaks up
With the Flames in near free fall to start the season, they’ve started to rein things in a little and have looked a lot better as of late. They’re still 26th in the league but are just three points out of the second wild card spot.
This is a marked improvement from being 31st overall after the Heritage Classic less than three weeks ago. Some credit for the Flames playing better may be given to captain Mikael Backlund as it looks like he took matters into his own hands and spoke up.
Here’s the full quote from Friedman:
The other thing that happened in Calgary this week came from their captain Mikael Backlund. From what I understand, Backlund spoke to some of the players. I don’t know if it was in a group or if it was one-on-one, but he said “we have to end the noise.”
There are too many distractions around the team. Remember what happened last Friday night with [Nikita] Zadorov. He just said: “Enough of that. We have to concentrate on playing. If you don’t want to be here, let the general manager know and we’ll figure it out. As long as you’re here, no more noise, we have to play.” And that’s one of the reasons Calgary had a pretty good week.
Turning point in the season
Well, that would explain a lot for the Flames. Starting with the comments from Zadorov’s agent, this kicked off a flurry of interest in the Flames as Zadorov becoming available would be a massive add for any team, and he would fetch the Flames a good return.
The Flames will have to be real with themselves in terms of what they want to do. Despite better play, they are still nowhere near the level of a Cup contender. At least it looks like the team is rallying in the locker room for each other, which is a better sign for the rest of the season.
