Free washer | Calgary Flames Summer 2022

There is always a danger in carrying out transactions in reaction to other events.

The GM of the Flames, opponents of the Canadian Thursday night in Calgary, was placed in this position this summer.

Team star Johnny Gaudreau had just left on his own on the free agent market after a career-best 115-point season.

The club’s other 100-point scorer, Matthew Tkachuk, demanded a departure and was granted by trading him to the Florida Panthers for Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar.

The discontent was palpable in Calgary. And after a season of 111 points, and sixth overall, Treliving craved anything but a rebuild. And his bosses probably saw the same way he did.

Under pressure like Treliving was this summer, we risk making the wrong decisions. We don’t take the risk of waiting if Sean Monahan has recovered well from his surgeries, we give up a first-round pick to the Canadian to get rid of his contract and plug a hole in the center by acquiring one of the most coveted on the free agent market, Nazem Kadri.

But unless you’re under pressure, signing a 32-year-old forward for seven years and 49 million after his best season of his career, by far, is not the most brilliant idea. Especially since we had to give up a first-round pick in 2024 to make room for this contract on the ground.

Monahan, 28, comes to Calgary today as second center for CH, between Josh Anderson and Joel Armia, with 14 points, including 5 goals, in 22 games, 55% success in face-offs and a 17:25 usage time.

Kadri, four years his senior, has 15 points, including eight goals, in 22 games, is averaging 17:01 and has a 46% face-off success rate.

Brûlots coach Darryl Sutter also praised Monahan on Wednesday in this text by Guillaume Lefrançois.

We do not blame Treliving, placed in a difficult situation, and perhaps, also, Monahan needed this change of air to revive the career, but the results are not to the advantage of the Flames for the instant.

When you’re under pressure, and you’ve just traded your 24-year-old star, Tkachuk, for two 29-year-old (Huberdeau) and 28-year-old (Weegar) players a year from getting full autonomy, you makes sure to retain these for the long term, no matter the cost.

Even if Huberdeau is eminently sympathetic to us, he makes a province very proud, this is a very good contract for him, but a very bad one for the Flames, despite all his talent. Huberdeau will be 30 years old when he enters the first year of this eight-year contract next year for 10.5 million per season. He will be 39 at the conclusion of his agreement.

Weegar emerged as a top defenseman at age 26 with the mighty Florida Panthers. He signed an eight-year contract too, which he will start at 29, at an annual average of 6.2 million, almost double his annual salary.

Where are the Flames in this quarter of the season? Fifth in the Pacific section with a 10-9-3 record (23 points, like CH), the last club to qualify for the playoffs, one point ahead of Minnesota and Nashville, with one less game to play.

Tyler Toffoli, 30, got from the Canadiens at the trade deadline for a 2022 first-round pick (Filip Mesar), a 2023 fifth-round pick and youngster Emil Heineman, 21, two goals in five games at Leksands, in the Swedish First Division (SEL), is the club’s leading scorer with 16 points in 22 games.

Jonathan Huberdeau is fifth with 12 points in 19 games, but seven points in his last nine games, on the first line with Elias Lindholm and Tyler Toffoli.

Despite their additions on offense, the Flames rank 19^e rank in the NHL with an average of three goals scored per game. They are 22^e in numerical superiority.

The future ? The Flames have drafted just three times in 2022, in the second, fifth and seventh round. They sacrificed their 2025 (or 2024) first-round pick, but reclaimed a 2025 first-round pick from the Florida Panthers.

The Flames farm club, led by youngsters Jakob Pelletier, Connor Zary, Jérémie Poirier and Cole Schwindt, all 21 or younger, is doing well.

The summer of 2022 will define Brad Treliving’s reign in Calgary. For better and for worse.

The Ducks have the perfect trainer to win the race!

Anaheim dominates the race for last place in the NHL, but begins to have competition at the bottom of the standings with the Chicago Blackhawks’ eight-game losing streak. The Ducks are two points behind the Hawks, with one game less to go. The injury-ravaged Blue Jackets are tied with Chicago with one more game to play. The Senators, unexpectedly, and the Arizona Coyotes have 17 points, three more than the Ducks. A sixth club, San Jose, is not far ahead, with a little more points, 20, but 26 games already to play.

Anaheim better not change coaches if they want to stay last. We wonder how the current coach, Dallas Eakin, is in his sixth season in the NHL. He was offered a club in transition in California, of course, but his results, in Edmonton and Anaheim, are catastrophic: record of 119-178-48 in career, and obviously no participation in the playoffs. His brief stint with the Oilers wasn’t glorious, he was kicked out a year and a half after erasing vestiges of the past in the Oilers locker room to save his young players from added pressure. He could well be on his last lap.