The 2025 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone. Pat Steinberg of the Fan 960 has confirmed that the Flames have no trades in the queue. Calgary is will be taking a run with the group.
We’ll be running through some numbered thoughts about the deadline as a whole Friedman-style since, obviously, there are no Flames trades to analyze.
17 Thoughts
1.) If Conroy makes the Farabee/Frost deal today instead of ten games earlier? He likely comes out looking like a genius. Not a bad idea to get more out of those two players earlier.
2.) Take the other side of that. What if Conroy were to flip Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee? Eric Francis fairly pointed out the Luke Schenn trade as an example of an inflated market. The third pairing defenceman fetched a second round pick in 2026 and a third in 2027. The return would have likely been a comfortable pile of first, second, and third round picks.
3.) The price was high, but Winnipeg made two trades that would have been perfect for the Calgary Flames. First, they traded a 2026 second round pick to bring back former fan favourite, Brandon Tanev, then they made the Luke Schenn deal.
The Flames need both another veteran to step into the top-four when needed as well as a boost to the penalty kill. Calgary has been 84.2 since the start of February, good for 5th in the NHL, but it’s just a matter of time before Rooney or Backlund get hurt again.
4.) Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk are going to play on the same team this playoffs. Buckle up.
5.) Casey Mittelstadt finds himself off to Boston in exchange for 33-year-old Charlie Coyle. The Bruins need a center, but Mittelstadt is about as far from Bruins hockey as you can imagine. That was Colorado saying, “We arent going deep into the playoffs with this guy.”
5.) No Daniel Vladar trade. Vitek Vanecek was traded for an undrafted AHLer a few days ago. The market was as cold as it gets for backup goalies.
6.) That undrafted AHLer was Patrick Giles, who is from Chevy Chase, Maryland. Per the town’s website:
“Can be traced to the larger tract of land called "Cheivy Chace" that was patented to Colonel Joseph Belt from Lord Baltimore on July 10, 1725. It has historic associations to a 1388 battle between Lord Percy of England and Earl Douglas of Scotland.”
Don’t mind my ADHD.
7.) Conroy’s prices have been allegedly described as “out of whack” by some people in the know. If so, it makes sense why no deals were made. Craig has to hold his ground on smaller deals to be taken seriously when bigger deals roll around. Brian Burke style.
8.) Conroy mentioned that he wanted to make retention deals, but none were available.
That became clear when the Blackhawks had to involve Taylor Hall just to get a third rounder for retaining half of Rantanen’s salary. Moments like those are when you wonder about market awareness within the organization.
9.) It’s weird to see the team opt to make a run with this group. They’re 3-4-3 in their last ten and will be passed by the Blues in about a week. Catch a St. Louis game in the near future. They look better than Calgary has all season and Binnington looks like a new man after the Four Nations Face-Off.
10.) A hell of a price for Mikko Rantanen.
Bet the house on Logan Stankoven reviving his season and putting up greater numbers than Rantanen.
11.) Shea Weber got traded this deadline. Let that sink in.
12.) Dylan Cozens ended up being traded.
Buffalo gets a similar center except Norris has an extensive injury history. That organization is cursed.
13.) You have to imagine that the conversation started with Connor Zary If Conroy wanted to pry Cozens out of Buffalo. The Flames just don’t have that many assets like Norris.
That would have been the biggest gamble of Conroy’s career. Zary is the best player on the Flames on so many nights.
14.) Speaking of #47. Zero shifts in overtime last night. Huberdeau played over half (2:14 of 4:17) of that overtime. Two of three shifts were poor showings, including missing his change and chasing the play on the goal against.
1:36 for Sharangovich, who has seemed off lately. 0:00 for Pospisil, who looked great that game.
We’ll see if Huska adjusts his OT deployment. Some coaches seem to treat it as a showing of respect for how long you’ve played in the NHL. Matthew Tkachuk famously griped on the Spittin Chiclets Podcast about Darryl Sutter’s lack of willingness to play the former Flames star at 3v3.
15.) I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I suggested four potential trades last blog, The two that ended up happening were bang-on in terms of what the players costed. Tanev went for a second and Soucy for a third. Toot toot.
16.) Does anyone else think that Brad Treliving had a terrible trade deadline?
Laughton is in for another season retained down to $1,500,000 per year. Carlo is on for two more seasons after this one at $4,100,000. Two good players that costed an exorbitant amount of assets to acquire, but they’ll get multiple kicks at the can from those moves.
Buyers had to back up the truck this deadline, but it feels like other GMs aren’t giving Treliving an inch. The new Toronto Tax.
17.) A quick look at Calgary’s stretch-drive schedule.
Not many easy games left.
There isn’t much indicating that Calgary will make the playoffs. They’ve been sinking in mud at a .500 points percentage since the start of 2025.
Their general manager just spoke to the media about how the team has earned the right to stay together. Almost every metric available points to them being a basement team held up by strong goaltending. They’ve won just a single game in their last five.
The time is now for a rally. We’ll see how the group responds.
The Flames play host to the Montreal Canadiens tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. MST.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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