With the Stanley Cup Final now set between the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers, it has become official that all of the conditional draft picks of the Calgary Flames were keeping an eye on failed to convert.
The team had the chance to upgrade a couple of picks and obtain an additional one, but thanks to the way the Stanley Cup Playoffs have played out they are leaving empty-handed.
What were the conditional picks?
The Flames had three trades this past year that conditions linked the playoff success between the Vancouver Canucks, the Dallas Stars, and the Vegas Golden Knights, all of the conditions were based on those teams winning a certain amount of playoff rounds. Let’s go back through it shall we;
The first trade is when the Flames traded Elias Lindholm to the Vancouver Canucks for a package that included Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo, a 2024 first-round pick (which will be 28th overall), and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2024. The condition is that if Vancouver made it to the Western Conference Finals, that fourth-round pick would become a third-round pick in 2024. The Canucks ultimately lost in the second round to the Oilers so the pick will remain in the fourth round in this year’s draft.
The second trade is when the Flames moved Chris Tanev to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Artem Grushnikov, a second-round pick in 2024, and a conditional third-round pick in 2026. The condition was that the Flames would receive that 2026 third-round pick if the Dallas Stars advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, which did not happen. The Flames will only receive the second-round pick in this year’s draft.
The final trade is when the Flames sent Noah Hanifin to the Vegas Golden Knight for Daniil Miromanov, a first-round pick in 2026, and a conditional 2024 third-round pick. The condition was that if Vegas won one round in this year’s playoffs, that pick would upgrade to a second-round pick in 2025. The Golden Knights lost to the Stars in the first round of the playoffs so the Flames will keep the third-round pick for this year’s draft.
An unfortunate turn of events
In possibly the darkest timeline for all Flames fans worldwide, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett are going back to the Cup Final, and the archrival of the Flames will be their opponent. The Flames also managed to miss on all three conditions in two game sevens and a very tight game six.
The Flames will still have a good number of picks entering this year’s draft and for the next few, but it would have been nice for them to have a couple extra assets or sit higher in the draft order. At the end of the day, that is the way the chips fell and the management team will now have to prepare for the upcoming draft with what they originally had on the table.
