As we approach the 2025 NHL trade deadline on March 7, eyes are on the Calgary Flames and what they will do with defenceman Rasmus Andersson. Teams have been calling, but General Manager Craig Conroy isn’t moving off his player with the Flames in the playoff hunt. He very much intends to extend Andersson in Calgary when he is able on July 1.
This is an all-too-familiar position for the Flames, as just last year, they were on bended knee trying to convince Noah Hanifin to stay. We all know how that went. Hanifin rejected Conroy’s offers and was eventually traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for a rather disappointing return. In return, the organization received a conditional first-round pick in either 2025 or 2026, 26-year-old depth defenceman Daniil Miromanov, and a conditional third-round pick in 2025.
It’s not a great return for a top-four blueliner, and it shows a lack of commitment to any direction for the organization. Nothing against Miro, but he’s not the key to winning a Stanley Cup. Nor is he particularly young and likely to be part of a future winning team. Nevertheless, he was a player the Flames targeted in addition to draft capital.
Check out what we had to say on the Andersson situation on the Fuel and Fire Podcast here!
The Flames are making a push for the playoffs
As of today, the Flames sit one point back of the Vancouver Canucks for the second wild card position in the Western Conference with a game in hand. They’re very much in the playoff conversation right now. The problem is they’re also just four points out of the bottom-10 in the league.
GM Conroy—or the powers that be who actually decide the team’s direction—can taste the playoff revenue and are opting to continue pushing forward.
Trading Rasmus Andersson does not help toward that goal. He is a reliable, minute-munching defenceman, averaging 24:06 time on ice this season. Through 58 games, he’s blocked 142 shots, scored eight times, and added 13 assists for 21 points.
Notably, Andersson’s possession numbers are down significantly this year. His Corsi For is down at 47.1%, the worst of his career. His Fenwick For is also down at 47.3%, the second worst of his career since his rookie season in 2016–17. This is also the first time in his career he’s been so heavily relied on defensively, starting 55.5% of his shifts in his own zone. For context, the most d-zone starts he had over a full season before this was 45.2% last year—more than 10% lower.
Andersson scored a career-best 50 points in 2021–22 and a career-best 11 goals in 2022–23. Over a full season, he averages seven goals and 35 points, 148 shots on goal, 54 hits, and 133 shot-blocks. He’s a top-four two-way defenceman for any team in the league and would contribute meaningfully to any long playoff run.
Flames need to learn from history
Craig Conroy walked into a mess last season when he took over as GM. He had seven key impending unrestricted free agents to work on, including Hanifin, long-time Flame Mikael Backlund, Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli, Chris Tanev, Nikita Zadorov, and Oliver Kylington. Of that group, only Backlund re-upped with the Flames, and he was rewarded with the captaincy.
Try as he might, Conroy could not convince the other six players to remain in Calgary. This steadfast determination to convince players to stay likely cost the Flames with Hanifin. While Conroy did manage to get a good return for Lindholm, the return for Hanifin two days before the March 8, 2024, deadline was a letdown.
When we look at each player’s stats for the Flames in the season leading up to the trade deadline, we can see some similarities. While they play a different style, both players are clearly core members of the Flames’ blue line heading into their respective trade deadlines:
| Player | GP | G | A | P | ATOI | CF% | FF% | SOG | BLK | HIT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rasmus Andersson | 58 | 8 | 13 | 21 | 24:06 | 47.1 | 47.3 | 114 | 142 | 22 |
| Noah Hanifin | 61 | 11 | 24 | 35 | 23:46 | 49.5 | 50.2 | 123 | 89 | 46 |
Simply put, the Flames cannot afford to let this drag out. Right now, both sides are saying all the right things. Andersson wants to stay, and Conroy wants him to stay. What if the player’s tune changes this summer? What if the Flames struggle out of the gate next season and Andersson decides Calgary is no longer where he wants to be?
There are too many similarities to the Hanifin situation last season to ignore, and the longer Andersson goes unsigned after July 1, the more those similarities grow.
Trading Andersson is the smart move
Vegas ended up inking Hanifin to an eight-year, $7.35M average annual value deal a month after last year’s deadline. Considering the rising salary cap, Andersson likely commands $8M plus on a similar deal when he’s eligible to re-sign come July 1.
Andersson will be 30 years old when that contract kicks in—he’ll turn 30 on October 27 of the year the deal starts. Signing him for eight years at big money is not something a middling team should be considering. They already have a lot of money committed to Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, and MacKenzie Weegar, all of whom are over 30, and they sit outside the playoffs right now while rookie goaltender Dustin Wolf is playing out of his mind.
Andersson has a $4.55M cap hit through the end of next season. Trading him now maximizes his value, especially if the Flames are willing to retain some salary. An acquiring team would be getting a top-four defenceman at a very modest cap hit for two playoff runs. Now is the time to trade him; don’t wait.
As I said above, if Andersson changes his mind about staying in Calgary, the Flames will be in exactly the same situation with him next year as they were with Hanifin last year. They’ll be trying to overpay him to stay before eventually dealing him at the deadline for a lesser return.
It’s good asset management to move Andersson now—while the team hasn’t shown they are playoff-calibre—for the best possible return. As soon as the deadline passes next Friday, Andersson’s value on the trade market takes a big hit.
I say this all as a massive fan of Andersson. I absolutely love the player, but sustained success is far more important than my feelings. The best move for the Flames is to maximize the return on Andersson, and that’s not going to be in Calgary as he enters the back half of his career.
