The Calgary Flames will have a new look when the puck drops this season, but one thing remains the same.
General manager Brad Treliving says they're all in.
Calgary, which won the Pacific Division last season (50-21-11), is confident it can still contend after an eventful offseason that included the losses of its top two scorers, forwards Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk. This after the Flames advanced to the Western Conference Second Round for the second time since losing Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"I can just tell in [Treliving's] eyes, the way he was talking, he wants to win right now," said forward Jonathan Huberdeau, one of the fresh faces in Calgary's lineup. "He wants to build a winning team and wants to go get players. Right now, we have a good lineup. Our defense is really good, we have a great goalie. Look through the lineup, we just have a good team. He's excited and I think he thought I'd fit well on that team. That made me think, I want to be there. He wants to win for a lot of years, not only one year."
Huberdeau, who signed an eight-year, $84 million contract extension with the Flames on Aug. 4., was acquired with defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, forward prospect Cole Schwindt and a conditional first-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft from the Florida Panthers for Tkachuk and a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2025 draft on July 22.
Tkachuk was second on the Flames last season with 104 points (42 goals, 62 assists). His departure came nine days after Gaudreau, who led Calgary and tied for second with Huberdeau in the NHL scoring race with 115 points (40 goals, 75 assists), signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets as an unrestricted free agent on July 13.
The Flames also signed free agent center Kevin Rooney to a two-year contract and re-signed forward Trevor Lewis to a one-year contract.
"You deal with issues as they come up," Treliving said. "We've dealt with a couple issues. Players have made choices. They have every right to make those choices. We deal with them as they come up. You can crawl over into the corner in the fetal position and suck your thumb, or you can deal with it. What we've tried to do is deal with it."
The addition of Huberdeau, a second-team NHL All-Star who finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting as the most valuable player in the NHL, should help bolster a roster that appeared to be reeling.
Calgary still features Jacob Markstrom, who went 37-15-9 with a 2.22 goals-against average and .922 save percentage in 63 games last season and was named a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as best goalie in the NHL, and Elias Lindholm, who is coming off an NHL career-high 82 points (42 goals, 40 assists) and was a finalist for the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward in the League.
Forward Andrew Mangiapane, who scored an NHL career-high 35 goals last season, signed a three-year, $17.4 million contract on Aug. 2.
Weegar, a right-shot defenseman, has the ability to play on either the left or right side. He had an NHL career-high 44 points (eight goals, 36 assists) in 80 games last season with Florida.
The top pairing of Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin also had their best seasons to date. Andersson led all Flames defensemen with 50 points (four goals, 46 assists); Hanifin was second with 48 points (10 goals, 38 assists).
Calgary will be guided again by Darryl Sutter, who won the Jack Adams Award as the top coach in the NHL.
"We've got a team that is, I thought, a top team in the league, a team that's competing every year to be a Stanley Cup champion and we're going to continue to do that," Treliving said.
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