How would you summarize the 2024-2026 season for the Calgary Flames?
They were the closest team to the playoffs that didn’t get to punch their ticket. 96 points. St. Louis took the eighth and final Western Conference Wildcard spot by the tiebreaker of total wins.
That much we can all agree on.
But is this group trending down or up? They’re clearly moving in
some sort of direction, but with a core of aging veterans, do they roll out next season a little older and a little slower, expecting better results?
Do they come out of the gate looking like the 11-2-3 team that we saw in the final 31 days of the season?
Or will they be the 5-4-1 Flames we saw last October?
Most would agree that finishing with another bottom-five offence will stack the odds against them. Calgary’s 220 goals last season ranked them 29th across the league. It’s just common sense that your team shouldn't be in the playoffs when the majority of the season features a scoreboard that reads 2 or 3 on the Flames side.
Then again, maybe Calgary needs that.
Much of the team's identity is centered around third period rallies and late season pushes. There is no way that the leadership group buys into that message if they have a forward group of point-per-game scorers and a former Norris nominee or two on the blue line.
Enter stage right, pending UFA Mitch Marner, who appears to have played his last game as a Leaf and is coming off a 102-point season and a point-per-game postseason.
Turning of the Leaf
Marner, who turned 28 earlier this month, had a an ugly game seven. Many fans point to some untimely turnovers from the six-foot star playmaking winger prior to a very public rallying cry.
From the perspective of the fanbase and local media, Mitch appears to have worn out his welcome after another painful post-season exit. Letting him walk may not be good for the team, but maintaining the status quo, in their eyes, is just driving further down a road of misery.
It’s difficult to feel too bad for guys making millions of dollars a year chasing a Stanley Cup, but there certainly are elements of tragedy to Marner’s situation. The hometown kid who came up short. The hero turned villain after so many ugly moments in the public eye.
If only there were someone who went through a similar experience with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Culture
What do you think the odds are that Nazem Kadri
already reached out to Marner about signing in Calgary?
It may be the worst kept secret in the NHL that players make soft pitches to their friends prior to their playing rights expiring with their current organization.
Calgary’s strongest offensive force this year, Kadri and the big six of Flames leadership have a full buy-in from the roster and have cultivated a dressing room that plays for each other every night.
“This is a great city with great fans and a bright future,” weighed in Defenceman MacKenzie Weegar on Locker Cleanout Day. “So I say it to everybody and I mean, I talk to Frosty and Ferby and I ask them, do you enjoy it here? You've been here for a month and they absolutely love it here. So, it's a great place. It really is.”
No offence to the Maple Leafs as an organization, but their core appears splintered at the worst of times. Mitch Marner has appeared to be part of the problem in the past, but with an insulated leadership group there that has his back?
Perhaps, much like we saw with Nazem Kadri after he left Toronto, we see a new Mitch Marner both on and off the ice once out of the limelight of the Six.
“But I think with what we're building here and just when you talk to the players, they're our best salesmen,” said Conroy during his Locker Cleanout availability.
More importantly, the dude can score.
Scoring
Listen—the Calgary Flames did great last season with what they had.
Zero players in the top 50 in scoring, a rookie netminder, and a truckload of third period goals.
The fact that the team found themselves with 96 points in the standings by season’s end is nothing short of miraculous, but making the playoffs with an offence that scores less than 87% of the league isn’t a viable approach in the long term. Conroy and Head Coach Ryan Huska have to find offence somewhere.
Meanwhile, Mitch Marner is on a seven-season streak of hitting at least a point-per-game pace. He has three +90-point seasons to his name over his nine-season career, and last year he reached a career-high 102 points with 27 goals and 75 assists.
His two-way game is nothing to turn your nose up at either. The fourth overall selection at the 2015 NHL Entry Draft was nominated for a Selke in 2023-24 and ranks ninth in +/- over the last seven years with a +129 in 498 games.
One more factor helping the pitch? Calgary has room under the salary cap for a big fish.
Cap Space
“I don't think our list would be very long,” said General Manager Craig Conroy when asked about the team’s approach to free agency this summer. “But if there's a person that's a game changer that we feel we have an opportunity to get, we're definitely going to take a shot at them. Does that mean we're going to get them? I don't know.”
It sounds like the Calgary Flames brain trust is certainly looking at someone like Mitch Marner. With the second-lowest payroll in the NHL of just $70,187,446, (the floor is $65,000,000) Conroy could certainly tender an offer similar to Leon Draisatl’s eight-year, $14,000,000 annual average value deal penned last summer and start next year with elite talent on the first line.
We’ve examined a few reasons why Marner is a fit in Calgary. How about we address the cons?
Too Many Wingers
Calgary’s signed forwards heading into next season:
Sharangovich-Kadri-Zary (RFA)
Huberdeau-Frost (RFA)-Coronato
Farabee-Backlund-Coleman
Lomberg-______-Klapka
Say the Flames sign Marner and add another winger; how many shoes have to drop to make room for a call-up at some point next season?
Despite their meagre cap hit, the roster is
packed—especially when it comes to wingers.
What is the point of drafting and developing players if your NHL squad never makes room for them?
We saw it in 2024-25 on the blue line. Jake Bean and Tyson Barrie were brought in and took up spots #6 and #7 on the depth chart. As a result, Ilya Solovyov, Hunter Brzustewicz and Zayne Parekh played a combined total of seven games.
Yan Kuznetsov didn’t get a sniff despite putting up a strong season with the Wranglers. A +21 with only 38 penalty minutes in 72 games this season. The 50th overall selection in 2020 is in his D+5 season and is yet to play a minute of NHL regular season hockey.
Not to mention that the Flames are dying for size on the blue line. The 23-year-old is six-foot-five and weighs 220 pounds.
The goal of having younger guys on the AHL squad is to eventually allow them to show that they can play better than a Bean or a Barrie. One of Conroy’s blunders this season was taking that possibility away before the season even began.
Conroy has already committed too many roster spots on the flanks. Unless he’s making a few follow-up trades, a Marner signing would cost the Flames dearly in lost development.
OK. Another con.
Marner Isn't Fast
The fact that the Flames are slow is finally getting recognized.
One Sportsnet Stats graphic on the game broadcast (two weeks after I wrote about it) aside, I'm the only analyst who pushes that rock down the road, and it's pretty cool seeing it get asked about and addressed by Conroy and Huska on Locker Cleanout Day.
Yes, the Flames are one of the league's slower teams. They ranked 28th in total speed bursts over 18mph by the Four Nations Face-Off break in February. I could go on all day about Calgary's mediocre speed metrics, and I did in these two articles. Read them if your interested.
[How Fast Are the Calgary Flames? Breaking Down the Numbers]
[How Useful is Speed? The fastest to slowest teams in the NHL listed]
OK, the Flames are slow. What is your point?
Mitch Marner isn't slow-slow, but he certainly plays a game more centered around quickness. Let's take a look at his speed burst totals courtesy of NHL Edge.
He finds himself above the 50th percentile in
totals, but given that he averaged 21:19 a night; his per 60 rates aren't above average for speed.
He would fit in with most of the team in Calgary, but having Martin Pospisil and Morgan Frost as your only high-end speed options next year means another season of struggling to take the blue line, more getting stuffed by the trap, and, of course, another bottom-10 offence.
Starting next season with the same speed options would result in Marner likely regressing to the 75-85 point range.
If Huska's goal is to continue to make the Flames a harder team to play against and a hard out in the playoffs, him and Conroy need to address speed before anything else. With a scarcity in open roster spots, Marner isn't a fit unless you can shed another slower guy to make room.
The last one is certainly not least.
The Tkachuk Dilemma
Why would Mitch Marner sign on for seven
more years in a Canadian market? Is there a player in the league that has faced more nonsense from the media?
Kadri can make his pitch that the team is a great group, the city is nice to live in, and that Marner would be a hero in the city—but there will always be the immature side of a Canadian fanbase.
A group that has been trying to run Rasmus Andersson out of town since November.
There may be no player who needs a few seasons of driving a golf cart to work more than Mitch Marner. To that effect, it may be better for all parties if Conroy gives the concept a pass come July 1.
Stats via the National Hockey League, NHL Edge, Puckpedia, and Natural Stat Trick. Follow me on Twitter/X for more weird stats, trends and storylines.
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