The Calgary Flames find themselves right where they always seem to be as the calendar shifts to 2025—in the mushy middle between being in the playoffs and not in the playoffs. In any other season, this would be another year to groan and move on, but the conditions on the first-round pick for Matthew Tkachuk from the Florida Panthers and subsequent trade with the Montreal Canadiens in the Sean Monahan move mean that being outside of the playoff picture and not in the bottom ten is bad news for the team.
This was expected to be the year for the Flames to tank—and tank hard—finishing in the bottom 10 and ending up with another high-end player to add to the team’s core as they rebuild. However, on the back of resurgence from Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri along with great strides forward from Dustin Wolf and Connor Zary, the Flames are looking like a half-decent team.
This is looking like a very good draft, with a number of elite players in the top five. Matthew Schaefer, James Hagens, Michael Misa, Porter Martone, and Ivan Ryabkin are all names to know this year, and if the Flames were to end up with any of them, it would be enormous for this team’s future. Hagens appears to be the guy who will go first overall, and if the Flames could get the American-born centreman who has 20 points in 16 games as a rookie for Boston College in the NCAA, it would be massive for this team’s future.
However, there are only 10 spots in the draft lottery. Here’s what would need to happen for the Flames to get one of those spots:
How the NHL’s bottom 10 is looking
Here is how the bottom 10 shakes out right now:
| Team | Record | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle Kraken | 17–19–2 | 36 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 16–17–3 | 35 |
| New York Islanders | 14–16–4 | 35 |
| New York Rangers | 16–19–1 | 33 |
| Anaheim Ducks | 14–17–4 | 32 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 14–18–4 | 32 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 14–19–4 | 32 |
| Nashville Predators | 11–19–7 | 29 |
| San Jose Sharks | 11–22–6 | 28 |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 12–23–2 | 26 |
The Flames are currently sitting 16th in the league with a 17–12–7 record and 41 points on the year, just six points outside of the drop zone. Between them and the Canadiens sit the Ottawa Senators (40 points), Pittsburgh Penguins (39 points), Utah Hockey Club (38 points), St. Louis Blues (38 points), Columbus Blue Jackets (36 points), and Philadelphia Flyers (36 points).
For the Flames to move down, other teams need to move up. In the Eastern Conference, the Senators currently sit in the second wild card spot and will be looking to hold on to that at least. The Penguins are going to push their chips in again with Sidney Crosby to try and give him another playoff run. Meanwhile, the Columbus Blue Jackets have been unbeatable at home this year and if they can figure out how to win on the road, they should be better than their record suggests.
Then there are the Rangers, who should be doing much much better than they are. They seem like a team that should rocket up the standings if they are able to start figuring it out with the amount of talent on their roster.
The other team that really should be better in the East is the Buffalo Sabres, who saw a 13-game losing streak tank their standings. At the bottom of the East currently, they also likely move up the charts rapidly and their current three-game winning streak will help that.
The West is tougher to see movement. Chicago and San Jose are basement dwellers this year, and likely finish 31st and 32nd in some order. Anaheim and Nashville are probably not far ahead of them, although the latter is a better team than their record suggests.
Between Utah, St. Louis, and Seattle, there is a chance one or two of them go on a run and push for a playoff spot, but it feels like they are all a step away from being a playoff team.
What will it take for the Flames to finish bottom 10?
The standings are still quite close in the mushy middle, but it will take a lot for the Flames to finish in the bottom 10. Assuming Chicago and San Jose are locks for a wild card spot, the Flames would need eight of the next 14 teams to pass them in the standings between now and April.
It seems reasonable to assume that the Flames get passed by Ottawa and Pittsburgh in the East and likely St. Louis in the West. That drops them to 19th. Throw in the Rangers figuring it out and the Flames move to 20th.
They would then need three more teams to pass them. That would mean falling behind Utah, Columbus, and Philadelphia at least to reach the 23rd spot in the league. That would give the Flames a spot in the lottery but with the worst odds to win it and the highest odds to pick 10th overall. This would also save them from losing their draft pick to Montreal, who would end up with the Florida Panthers’ first-rounder.
Calgary handling their own destiny
For the last two years, a bottom 10 finish would mean ending with 81 points or fewer on the year. That would mean that in their next 46 games, the Flames would have to pick up 40 or fewer points. That would be a 20–26 record or worse in that time. Yikes!
The Flames don’t have an easy schedule remaining the rest of the way, but don’t have a particularly hard one either. While they do have two games against the Vegas Golden Knights and Winnipeg Jets respectively, they also have four against Anaheim and three against San Jose, which would be great games to lose if they want to finish at the bottom of the league.
The Flames have an opportunity to move some of their older players to contenders this year, with Nazem Kadri, Rasmus Andersson, Dan Vladar and more all having their names out there in the rumour mills. Losing high-end talent would expedite the team’s ability to tank, but whether GM Craig Conroy goes this route still remains to be seen.
The odds are stacked against the Flames
And even if they do, there still is so much that has to go right for the Flames to end up in the lottery conversation. There is a lot of hockey still to be played, but the days pass quickly and the organization will need to pick its direction or else end up in the mushy middle that it knows all too well.
