Insider: Flames Are One Move Away From An All-Out Fire Sale

Like a house of cards waiting to collapse. That’s essentially how insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period describes the Calgary Flames right now.

Everyone around the league is keeping a close eye on the Flames, who continue to bring up the rear in the NHL, with just 12 points, at 5-12-2, in an extremely disappointing start to the season. Names like Nazem Kadri, Rasmus Andersson and Blake Coleman have been circulating like wildfire, but Pagnotta told Jeff Marek on The Sheet that he’s heard this week that if one guy goes, it could be an all-out rush to the exit.

If one domino falls, how many more will follow, because of how tight that group is? It’s a pretty tight group in that room, and if one guy goes, and another guy says, ‘Ya, i might be willing to explore that as well’… How’s that going to affect some of the other guys on that team? And how many guys, if they are going through that re-tool/rebuild and have two, three, four years left on their contract, how many of those years do they want to go through that rebuild process? So this may have an interesting trickle effect.

Names that would fall into that category include the likes of Mackenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau.

All that being said, Pagnotta doesn’t feel that the Flames are there quite yet, and thinks they’re probably “two or three weeks away” from that type of heat up in trade activity. He also feels that ownership and management really need to get on the same page about all this.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Vegas Golden Knights have often been linked to Andersson, while the Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks, among many others, are said to have great interest in Kadri. Andersson is a pending UFA, is almost a certainty to be dealt, one way or another, but Kadri still has three more years left on his deal after this one, at a $7 million annual price tag. It has repeatedly been reported that he is not interested in being dealt.

No doubt, Calgary will continue to be at the centre of trade talk around the NHL over the next few weeks.