The Calgary Flames had been teetering between either committing to a full “retool” or continuing to go for the postseason. With Thursday’s big trade with the Philadelphia Flyers, the team continued to trend toward the latter.
On Saturday Headlines on Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman reported that the team is fully on “Team Go For It” this season.
The Headlines
In his report, Friedman noted that Craig Conroy and the Flames organization have informed teams that Rasmus Andersson, Nazem Kadri, and MacKenzie Weegar are off the table in terms of any potential trade.
You can gather a few things from this. First off, the Flames are not looking to retool on the fly and are going to give this current group its best possible shot at a postseason berth. Second, the Flames were most definitely getting calls on all three players to the point where Conroy had to tell people to shut down their thoughts.
In the case of Andersson, it had been widely reported he would be a hot commodity as he has one year left on his deal after this season. For Kadri and Weegar, whispers of teams calling on both players had been long thought of but never confirmed. Now we know that all three have been targets by several teams across the league.
All three would likely fetch a haul on the open market, based simply on the fact that they are cost-controlled through at least next season. In the case of Kadri and Weegar, that time frame is even longer.
The team has the opportunity to extend Andersson this summer and all indications are the Flames are going to do whatever they can to sign him. For Kadri and Weegar, there is no real requirement to trade either player unless the team is offered a massive package.
This could of course be revisited in the summer depending on how the Flames season ends, but for now looks like all three players are sticking around.
