The Calgary Flames find themselves in a roster reset that was forced upon them, with players choosing not to sign extensions with the club. Call it a retool, call it a rebuild, call it whatever. The takeaway is that the Flames are resetting their roster.
We will see what direction they choose, if they continue to trade out veteran players, or if they begin to add to this group. They might not do much this year and let the season play out. But, depending on how they finish, they might be tempted to make some big additions and strive to make the playoffs.
Right now, the Flames only have cap commitments of 54M for the 2025–26 season. That means there is a ton of space to be used, assuming the cap floor comes in at around 68.5M.
With that in mind, I wanted to bring up an example of a team that was in a similar situation to the one the Flames now find themselves in: the Nashville Predators. They are a perfect example of why you cannot and should not rush a roster reset.
The Predators just went through what the Flames are going through now
Let us begin in the 2022–23 season. The Predators were looking at a situation that was very similar to the one in which the Flames were last year. However, I will add one caveat: they have some absolutely elite players in Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg. The Flames do not.
Regardless, the Predators weren’t where they wanted to be in the standings, so they sold off the likes of Mattias Ekholm, Nino Niederreiter, Mikael Granlund, and Tanner Jeannot before the trade deadline. In return, they targeted futures and young assets. I was very jealous of the Predators at the time because they were selling off players while they were above the Flames in the standings. The Flames did not sell off assets and narrowly passed the Predators to pick 16th overall. Nashville selected 15th overall.
Flash forward to the 2023–24 season. The Predators surprised a lot of people and made the playoffs with a roster that most counted out. That came off the backs of Filip Forsberg’s career-high 94-point season, Roman Josi adding 85 points, and Gustav Nyquist scoring at nearly a point-per-game pace. Ryan O’Reilly was rejuvenated. They took the Vancouver Canucks to six games and made it a very close series.
Preds made a huge gamble that hasn’t paid off so far
On the backs of their surprise playoff appearance, the Preds decided to add to their group for 2024–25. They had a busy free agent frenzy, committing a massive amount of money to three 30+ year-olds. Steven Stamkos netted a four-year, 8M AAV deal. Brady Skjei got a long-term, seven-year, 7M AAV deal. Jonathan Marchessault also joined the Preds on a five-year, 5.5M AAV deal. That is over 108 million dollars committed to three players all in one day.
As the Nashville Predators’ 2024–25 season is proof so far, you can’t rush a roster reset by throwing a bunch of money at guys on July 1. The Predators are a bottom-three team with a record of 11–19–7 and a -29 goal differential. I believe they will rebound by the end of the year—they have the lowest PDO in the league at 0.972—but by no means will they make the playoffs. Not exactly the return on the hefty July 1 investment that the organization made. And they already have over 77M in cap commitments for the 2025–26 season.
To give the Preds a bit of credit, they have a very passionate fanbase and some elite players who aren’t getting any younger. They just committed to Juuse Saros for another eight years. But sometimes, teams have seasons where they overperform. In 2022–23, the Preds were a team on the edge of the playoffs. Their 2023–24 season looks like an overperformance. They’ve underperformed in 2024–25, and their best-case scenario is likely finishing where they did in 2022–23.
Why the Predators are an example for the Flames
I use the Preds as a comparison because the Flames and Predators have been in similar situations the last number of years. The Preds began their reset a year prior to the Flames and looked like they overperformed in the second year of their roster reset. This led to them committing term and dollars to try to compete with what is left of their aging core.
For the Flames, they sold off, and now it looks like they are overperforming in their second year of the roster reset—although there is still a lot of season left. If they somehow sneak into a wild card spot, that’s exciting for fans and the city. But that shouldn’t give Flames ownership and management any funny ideas about the team. They still need a lot of work. Teams overperform and underperform from season to season.
The worst-case scenario is they make the playoffs, and the team commits a bunch of money and term to free agents, then they flatline back to form in 2025–26. Suddenly, your young players have a harder time cracking the lineup and/or playing significant minutes, and you’ve gotten rid of any flexibility you’ve created over the last calendar year.
The Flames got lucky to avoid this scenario when players rejected their contract proposals last year. It was the beginning of a change that this team desperately needed. We will see how the rest of the 2024–25 season plays out for the team. But let’s just hope ownership and management are patient and don’t rush things, or you can quickly turn into the 2024–25 Nashville Predators.
Photo by Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images
