For the first time in what feels like forever, the Calgary Flames are going through a retool of their roster. Gone are Chris Tanev, Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli, and Nikita Zadorov. Noah Hanifin is reportedly also on the way out, and there are still rumblings that Jacob Markstrom could join him before the trade deadline.
So far, the Flames have acquired numerous picks, a handful of high-end prospects, and a couple of roster players in exchange. This return has been broadly positive—with the Lindholm trade being the most positive for the Flames—while the Tanev, Toffoli, and Zadorov returns were broadly fine. There has yet to be one that feels fully not to the Flames’ benefit.
This is a sharp contrast to the last time the Flames went through a rebuild between 2012 and 2014. This one saw the Flames trade away their aging core centred around Jarome Iginla to usher in the Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan era. Let’s take a look at what happened.
How did the Flames get to the point of needing a rebuild?
For the better part of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, the Calgary Flames were perfectly fine. They had the capacity to sneak into the playoffs, finishing third, fifth, eighth, seventh, and fifth in 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08, and 2008–09 respectively. They would then go on to barely miss the playoffs in each of the next three seasons, before deciding that they needed to fully rebuild their team.
The Flames wasted years of potential growth with the hopes of maybe sneaking into the playoffs and hoping for a run. While there is absolutely a financial incentive to make the playoffs as often as possible, sustained financial success relies on building a strong team that can contend. Two or three playoff games a season is not a way to make serious money in hockey.
Rebuild year one: 2012–13
The Flames seemed to come to their senses in 2012–13 when they finally started to make moves to make their team. While many point to the Jarome Iginla trade as the first move, the Flames did try to add additional draft capital in the 2012 draft by trading down from 14th overall to acquire an additional second-round pick. However, that was the year that the Flames selected Mark Jankowski in the first round, and the second-round pick was Patrick Sieloff, which was somehow even worse. This could have paid dividends for the team, but it was simply not to be.
That season was the beginning of the plan to rebuild, as the Flames began their quest to rebuild from the ground up. On March 28, the Flames traded Jarome Iginla to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Kenny Agostino, Ben Hanowski, and a first-round pick.
This was an incredibly underwhelming return for a player who was destined to be a Hall of Famer, but given his tenure with the Flames, they almost certainly asked Iggy where he wanted to go and were beholden to that team for the return.
Agostino played just 10 of his 86 career NHL games with the Flames, while Hanowski played all of his 16 career games for the Flames; collectively, they combined for five points. Not even a fraction of what Iginla did for the Flames.
That’s okay, because the key piece in that deal was the coveted first-round pick that they would use in that year’s trade deadline.
Iginla was just the first domino to fall that season. The team would then trade Jay Bouwmeester to the St. Louis Blues for Mark Cundari, goalie Reto Berra, and another first-round pick. Berra would be a piece in the blue paint for the Flames for a few years.
They also let Blake Comeau go in a deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets that would net them a fifth-round pick.
Then, at the end of the season, they traded Alex Tanguay along with the signing rights to Cory Sarich to the Colorado Avalanche for David Jones and Shane O’Brien.
In the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, the Flames had not one, not two, but three picks in the first round, as well as an additional seventh-rounder. As most Flames fans know, this was one of the worst drafts in Flames history. Aside from Monahan, who they took with their own first-round pick, there was little to show from the rest of the draft. Their other two first-round picks were Emile Poirier, who played just eight NHL games, and Morgan Klimchuk, who had just one career game. Yikes!
Ironically, it was the seventh-round pick who did best. John Gilmour featured in 37 games, mostly for the New York Rangers.
Rebuild year two: 2013–14
The following season, the Flames made a number of lateral moves, acquiring players for deep picks and then trading away other players for similar depth picks.
This was the year that the Flames acquired Ladislav Smid and Olivier Roy for Laurent Brossoit and Roman Horak.
This year, the Flames also traded away Lee Stempniak and Reto Berra for a third and a second-round pick that year. They would then trade the third-round pick to Chicago Blackhawks for Brandon Bollig.
That year, the draft was another very forgettable one. It was the one year that Brian Burke was in charge of the Flames before they hired Brad Treliving as their GM. In that draft, they prioritized size over all else, getting Sam Bennett in the first round and a whole lot of nothing else in the balance of the draft. Another very forgettable draft.
Rebuild year three: 2014–15
This was the year of the “Find-a-way” Flames, where they walked into games night after night without a prayer of winning and somehow dug in and picked up victories. Had things gone differently, the team likely would have finished with another shot at the lottery and another year of rebuilding, but this team found a way to make it to the second round of the playoffs on the back of Gaudreau, Monahan, and Jiri Hudler.
Over the course of the season, the Flames did make a couple of smart rebuilding moves. They traded away Curtis Glencross to the Washington Capitals for a second and a third-round pick, and they also sent Sven Baertschi to the Vancouver Canucks for a second-round pick that year.
Both of these trades were incredibly impactful. GM Brad Treliving made a splash at the draft, acquiring a young Dougie Hamilton from the Boston Bruins for a first and two second-round picks. One of those second-round picks came from Washington in the Glencross deal. This trade gave the Flames an elite blueliner to build around instead of trying to find one in the draft. Thankfully, the Bruins squandered those picks, with none becoming impact NHLers.
The team then traded up in the second round of the draft, sending the other Washington pick to the Arizona Coyotes along with their third-rounder to select in the second round. This pick was Oliver Kylington, who is still making an impact on the Flames’ blueline.
This draft would quietly become one of the Flames’ best in recent memory. They acquired Kylington and Rasmus Andersson in the second round and also got Andrew Mangiapane in the sixth round. Really good value for the Flames.
Rebuild year four: 2015–16
This would be the final year of the rebuild. From here, the Flames would go on to acquire real NHLers in exchange for picks, as opposed to the other way around. While the team did not make the playoffs in 2015–16, they felt they had all the right pieces in the room to start to build a contender.
The Flames would make four pivotal moves in-season around the trade deadline. Least impactful, they moved Markus Granlund to Vancouver for Calgary-born prospect Hunter Shinkaruk. The right move at the time for a rebuilding franchise, but one that simply did not pan out.
They then traded away aging winger Hudler to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a second and a fourth-round pick. This could have been more impactful had those picks not been Tyler Parsons and Demetrios Koumontzis. Parsons was once expected to be the team’s goalie of the future but simply did not pan out.
They also traded away blueliner Kris Russell to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Jyrki Jokipakka, Brett Pollock, and a second-round selection. This pick would end up being Dillon Dube, who was briefly impactful before being charged with sexual assault in relation to the Hockey Canada Scandal.
Finally, the team traded David Jones to the Minnesota Wild for Niklas Backstrom and a sixth-round pick. That pick would become Matthew Phillips, who showed a lot of promise in the Flames’ system but was never given a real opportunity at the NHL level with the team.
This was also the year that the Flames drafted Matthew Tkachuk sixth overall. He would go on to be one of the key pieces of this team’s rebuild and a key member of the organization. They also took Adam Fox—who could have been the offensive defenceman that this team needed—but was instead packaged off twice before becoming that player in New York.
Lessons learned from the Calgary Flames’ last rebuild
Three key lessons come to mind looking back on the four-year rebuild that the Flames went through. The first—and perhaps most important—is that the team took a long time before realizing that they needed to rebuild. In that time, they wasted away the prime of a few of their stars—Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff being the key ones—and as a result, were not able to glean real value by trading either. Kipper retired a Flame before he could be traded, and by the time the Flames traded Iginla, his value had diminished substantially. This made the rebuild tougher at the outset.
Second, the Flames were clear when they went through the rebuild of what they were doing and what they wanted to achieve. They clearly communicated their plan, and the fanbase stuck with them through it. The team averaged over 19,000 fans in the stands nightly through the entire rebuild, dropping below that number in 2016–17 to just under 19,000. They did not drop below 18,500 fans on average in any season before the pandemic. For reference, they are averaging around 17,500 fans this season after averaging under 18,000 last season.
This is clearly a fanbase that wants the team to pick a direction. When the fanbase is aware of what the team is doing, it becomes easier to cheer for. There are so many storylines in a rebuild, and to go see a potential superstar is something that you can sell fans on, even if the team is losing.
The Saddledome was sold out last year when future first-overall pick Connor Bedard was in town playing in the WHL. Can you imagine how many fans would pay to see a generational talent take to the ice in a Flaming C, even if the team was losing? The Hawks were right near the top of the NHL’s attendance numbers prior to Bedard getting injured. This is massive for revenue.
Finally, the team needs to see the rebuild through. Too often, teams push through a rebuild too quickly and then suffer because they did not have the right pieces to really contend. With one or two more rebuilding years, this team could have looked a lot different. Instead, they opted to start adding pieces for draft picks through the latter half of the 2010s and the momentum dried up just six years later, culminating in the need for another rebuild now.
The Flames need to take these lessons into account going into this next chapter of their franchise. The team has some good pieces—particularly some good young pieces—but still lacks a dynamic elite player to really build around. This is the year to acquire as many picks and prospects as possible to build around. From here, they can catapult the franchise forward and—with a couple of years of proper development and asset management—could be a powerhouse when the new arena hopefully opens.
