Flames Rumors: Andersson Has 2 Top Trade Destinations, Rejected Another Possible Deal

Rasmus Andersson will likely not be traded before the season starts, but there's a good chance he is by the trade deadline. The Calgary Flames have reportedly already tried to move him to one team, but he wasn't willing to sign an extension there, which vastly increases the return for the Flames in a deal.

According to David Pagnotta, "I think Vegas and Dallas are (Andersson's) two teams that he'd like to go to. There was a trade in place with LA pending an extension and he didn't want to go there."

This is interesting for a few reasons. It shows that the Flames were fully ready to go into the season with Zayne Perekh as the second pairing right defenseman at 19 years old and after one NHL game unless an NHL player was returned. But for the Los Angeles Kings, GM Ken Holland wasn't done after the poor offseason, especially with the moves made on the back-end bringing in Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin on large deals while losing Vladislav Gavrikov.

Now, in regards to the two teams Andersson seems to want to go to, both would be huge shifts. The Dallas Stars really need a top-4 right-shot defenseman as Miro Heiskanen plays his off side, Ilya Lyubushkin should be a third pairing d-man on a contending team, and Nils Lundkvist just hasn't turned into what the Stars had hoped for yet. It would take a deal with something significant off the roster going back as the money just wouldn't work for the Stars.

The Vegas Golden Knights seemingly lost Alex Pietrangelo for the season and will have a good amount of cap space to work with if he isn't coming back. The team picked up Jeremy Lauzon in the offseason and expects more from Kaedan Korczak this season, but at the same time, traded away Nic Hague due to the money he was going to get. I could absolutely see Korczak being a piece heading back to the Flames if Vegas were to acquire Andersson with an extension. The move would reunite Noah Hanifin and Andersson and have both of these solid top-4 d-men for the long haul.

There may be another option or two that swoop in and try to pay for Andersson as a rental, but that doesn't return as much for the Flames and there's a good chance that Calgary will just wait for a trade with an extension to maximize return unless they get desperate.