After many weeks of Calgary Flames fans waiting on bated breath, the team announced that they have signed defenceman Hunter Brzustewicz to a three-year entry-level deal. The American blueliner sits second in OHL scoring among defencemen, just a couple of points behind projected top-10 pick Zayne Parekh. He also leads the entire league in assists with a whopping 73 in 62 games this season.
With him now signed, the Flames have just two players remaining unsigned that they need to action this summer. Here’s who’s left.
Jake Boltmann
The Flames’ 2020 third-round pick, Boltmann was an off-the-board pick when he was selected, but brought with him one of the most wholesome moments of the entire draft:
However, he simply has not developed the way the Flames had hoped. Now in his fourth season of college hockey, the 22-year-old has 20 points so far in his entire college career, 13 of which were scored in one season.
This season, he had just two assists and 22 penalty minutes in 30 games with Notre Dame. His team was knocked out of the Big-10 Playoffs, and are unlikely to earn a spot in the Frozen Four. The team finished 9–13–2 this season, good for fifth in the conference.
This is likely the end of Boltmann’s college career, and he is almost certainly going to be looking for new opportunities. All the best to him.
Joni Jurmo
The more interesting case is that of Joni Jurmo, who was acquired as part of the Elias Lindholm deal from the Vancouver Canucks. A smooth-skating blueliner, Jurmo is a massive 6’5″ and is now in his second season in the Finnish Liiga. Not known for his scoring, he has just one goal and four assists in 46 games, but playing consistently in Finland’s top league is a big deal.
Jurmo was taken just two picks after Boltmann, but unlike his American counterpart, there is a very good chance that the Flames see what they have in Jurmo and sign him to a North American deal before his rights expire this summer.
Here are a few reasons that make it likely he gets signed. First, the Flames traded for him as part of the deal, and are likely invested in seeing if they can develop him to being even a replacement-level NHL blueliner. If they can get even a handful of NHL games out of him, it’s a massive win.
On top of that, the Flames likely want to see what he can do on the North American ice. Some players thrive when they come across the pond, and Jurmo’s game may translate better on this side. Even more than that, they likely want to see him more with their own eyes, and signing him for a year or two is a small price to pay for this.
Finally, it’s worth remembering just how big he is. NHL executives have a thing for larger defencemen, and tend to prioritize that over high-skilled players. Jurmo has a curious mix of both, and that makes him even more appealing.
I would bet that we see Jurmo in North America next season with the Wranglers.
What other business is left for the Flames?
There is remarkably little for the Flames to do this summer in the way of signings and re-signings from within the organization. Jakob Pelletier, Dustin Wolf and Nikita Okhotiuk need new contracts, but all are restricted free agents and will likely be easier contracts to sign for the team.
Oliver Kylington, A.J. Greer, and Dennis Gilbert are unrestricted free agents this summer, but Kylington will almost certainly be re-signed in the near future. Whether the Flames keep or don’t keep Greer or Gilbert is mostly academic. Depth players are relatively easy to find on the waiver wire or in free agency they can honestly go either way. Assuming the numbers are consistent, I can see the Flames pushing to stick with the devils they know, but it doesn’t really move the needle either way.
On the Wranglers, the Flames have seven RFAs and three UFAs to deal with. The biggest names will likely be re-upped this summer, with the balance being mostly a coin flip. In either event, the team should be able to handle this with ease.
The bigger question is what Craig Conroy will do with open cap space this summer. As a team in a re-tool it’s hard to imagine that the Flames will want to spend right to the cap, but they do have some cash to splash on a high-profile free agent if they want to. Expect this to be a very interesting summer for the team as they look to build back better for 2024–25.
