The Utah Mammoth played their first season in Salt Lake City, and it went okay.
Late in the 2023-24 season, it was announced that the Arizona Coyotes would relocate to Salt Lake City after 27 seasons in the desert. The Mammoth, known as the “Utah Hockey Club” in 2024-25, are technically a new franchise as they don’t carry on the Coyotes’ history – and why would they?
Let’s take a look at how the Mammoth’s first season went, how their second off-season has gone, as well as what the team will look like heading into the 2025-26 season.
How the season went
Unlike the Coyotes in 2023-24, the Mammoth were battling for a wild card spot as late as March last season. By the end of the season, the Mammoth had a 38-31-13 record, a significant improvement over the 77 points the Coyotes finished with.
The Mammoth’s play tailed off by the end of the season, as they missed the post-season by seven points. Still, there’s a lot to look forward to, as the Mammoth have a young core with plenty of help coming down the pipeline.
Leading the team in both goals and points in 2024-25 was 27-year-old Clayton Keller, who scored 30 goals and 90 points. Two of their younger players, Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther, both finished in the top five in scoring, as Cooley had 25 goals and 65 points in 75 games, while Guenther had 27 goals and 60 points in 70 games.
Another youngster, Barrett Hayton, scored 20 goals and 46 points in 82 games. Additionally, Jack McBain scored 13 goals and 27 points in 82 games last season.
There’s a solid veteran presence on the Mammoth as well. Nick Schmaltz finished with 20 goals and 63 points, third on the team in the latter category. Alex Kerfoot scored 11 goals and 28 points, while Kevin Stenlund scored 14 goals and 28 points. Long-time Coyote Lawson Crouse scored 12 goals and 18 points in 81 games.
Acquired during the 2024 draft, one of the first moves the Mammoth made, Mikhail Sergachev led their defencemen in both goals and points, scoring 15 goals and 53 points. Selected late in the first round of the 2022 draft, Maveric Lamoureux made his National Hockey League debut due to numerous injuries, playing 15 games with a goal and three points. He’ll likely be a factor for the Mammoth in 2025-26.
Both Sean Durzi and John Marino missed significant time, with Durzi playing 30 games and Marino playing 35 games. If they remained healthy, there is a legitimate case that the Mammoth could’ve made the playoffs.
In net, Karel Vejmelka posted a .904 save percentage and 2.58 goals against average in 58 games, with a 26-22-8 record. For the foreseeable future, he’ll be the top goalie for the Mammoth.
Drafted players
The Mammoth also got incredibly lucky in the draft lottery, ending up with the fourth overall pick. With that pick, they selected Moncton Wildcats centre Caleb Desnoyers, a teammate of Calgary Flames’ prospect Étienne Morin.
In the second round, the Mammoth selected Portland Winterhawks defenceman Max Psenicka, followed by Stepan Hoch in the third round. With the 110th overall pick, the Mammoth turned to Russian winger Yegor Borikov and picked another Russian prospect in the fifth round, selecting netminder Ivan Tkach-Tachenko.
They also had two sixth-round picks, using them to select two defenceman. Ludvig Johnson was selected 174th overall, and Reko Alanko was selected 182nd overall.
Trades
The Mammoth also made one of the biggest trades in the off-season, sending Josh Doan and Michael Kesselring to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for J.J. Peterka. While losing Kesselring and Doan hurts, Peterka is a legitimate top-six forward who scored 27 goals and 68 points in 77 games last season. He’ll only make them that much more dangerous.
They also traded a young forward, moving Matias Maccelli to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a third-round pick in the 2027 draft. Maccelli scored 17 goals and 57 points in 82 games with the Coyotes in 2023-24, but his production dropped to just eight goals and 18 points in 55 games last season.
Free agent signings
As for their free agent signings, the Mammoth were able to sign Peterka to a five-year extension worth $7.7 million annually. They also re-signed Kailer Yamamoto, while bringing in unrestricted free agents Brandon Tanev (three-year, $2.5 million AAV), Nate Schmidt (three-year, $3.5 million AAV), and Vítek Vaněček (one-year, $1.5 million AAV).
On Jul. 7, the Mammoth extended Jack McBain, agreeing to a five-year deal worth $4.25 million annually. They also re-signed Michael Carcone on a one-year deal worth the league minimum.
Departures
There were some losses as well. Kesselring is a top-four defender who scored seven goals and 29 points in 82 games last season. Doan, son of Coyotes legend Shane, scored seven goals and 19 points in 51 games last season.
The only free agent to depart the Mammoth was Nick Bjugstad, who scored eight goals and 19 points in 66 games last season. In 2023-24, Bjugstad scored 22 goals and 45 points, one of the best seasons of his career.
Funnily enough, Bjugstad and Kesselring were involved in the same trade before the 2023 deadline, as the Coyotes sent Bjugstad to the Oilers for Kesselring and a prospect. Ouch.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
There’s plenty of young talent in the Mammoth’s top six next season. Cooley and Hayton will likely play centre, while Keller, Guenther, Schmaltz, and Peterka line up on the wings. In the bottom-six, McBain and Stenlund are the centres, while Crouse, Tanev, Kerfoot, and Liam O’Brien will be on the wings.
On the blue line, Sergachev spearheads the defence. Olli Määttä and Schmidt fill out the left side, while Marino, Durzi, and Ian Cole make up the right side. Between the pipes, the Mammoth will have two Czech goalies: Vejmelka and Vaněček.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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The Nashville Predators won the 2024 off-season.
They didn’t do so well in the season, as their new signings regressed quite a bit, and the team ended up toward the bottom of the league. Was it just a season where everything went wrong, or precursor to what the next few seasons could look like?
In this season, we’ll look at how the Predators’ 2024-25 season went, what they’ve done in the 2025 off-season, as well as how they line up in 2025-26.
How the season went
A big reason why the Predators snuck into the 2024 post-season is thanks to a run of 18 games where they got at least one point. This streak included an eight-game and six-game win streak, setting up an opening round showdown against the Vancouver Canucks. In the end, the Predators went home in six games, but there was optimism for the future.
There was even more optimism when the Predators “won” the off-season, signing Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei. Both Stamkos and Marchessault were coming off 40+ goal seasons and it was believed they were going to bring some offence.
That wasn’t the case though, as the 2024-25 season didn’t start great. By the time Dec. 10 rolled around, the Predators had a 7-16-6 record, with their 20 points being the fewest in the league. They eventually snapped what was an eight-game losing skid, but two more six-game losing streaks sunk their season, finishing with a 30-44-8 record. Their 68 points were the second-fewest, only ahead of the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks.
Neither Stamkos nor Marchessault were the reason for their struggles, but they regressed from the season before. After scoring 40 goals and 81 points in 2023-24, Stamkos scored just 27 goals and 53 points in his first season with the Predators. Marchessault went from 42 goals and 69 points in 2023-24 to just 21 goals and 56 points last season.
Skjei didn’t drop off like the other two players, finishing the season with 10 goals and 33 points. Their other notable defenceman, Roman Josi, had nine goals and 38 points in 53 games, but his season ended due to a concussion.
Filip Forsberg led the team in both goals and points, scoring 31 goals and 76 points in 82 games. Ryan O’Reilly had another strong campaign, scoring 21 goals and 53 points in 79 games. Youngster Luke Evangelista scored 10 goals and 32 points in 68 games. Other intriguing players who haven’t hit their prime yet are Zachary L’Heureux and Fedor Svechkov.
Acquired before the trade deadline, Michael Bunting scored five goals and nine points in 18 games. And in net, Juuse Saros struggled, mainly because of the defence in front of him, as he had an .896 save percentage and 2.97 goals against average in 58 games.
Drafted players
Although the Predators finished with the third-fewest points, they dropped down two spots in the draft. With the fifth overall pick, they selected Brady Martin from the Soo Greyhounds. They had two additional firsts, selecting defenceman Cameron Reid 21st overall and winger Ryker Lee 26th overall.
With two second-round picks, the Predators selected defenceman Jacob Rombach 35th overall and netminder Jack Ivankovic 58th overall. The Predators stayed in North America with their fourth-round pick, using the 122nd overall pick to select defenceman Alex Huang.
Their final pick saw them select defenceman Daniel Nieminen with the 163rd overall pick in the sixth round.
Trades
The Predators already had plenty of veterans in the locker room in 2024-25, but they added another one early in the off-season, trading 22-year-old defenceman and a 2025 fourth-round pick to the New Jersey Devils for Erik Haula.
Their other trade this off-season had more significance, as the Predators traded Jérémy Lauzon and Colton Sissons to the Vegas Golden Knights for defenceman Nicolas Hague and a 2027 third-round pick.
Hague is a solid defensive defenceman, but this trade paved the way for the biggest off-season transaction, as the Toronto Maple Leafs sent Mitch Marner to the Golden Knights.
Free agent signings
The Predators focused on revamping their defence in the 2025 off-season. Hague, a then-restricted free agent, signed a four-year deal with an annual cap hit of $5.5 million. Their other notable signing saw them sign defenceman Nicklaus Perbix to a two-year deal worth $2.75 million.
Their first draft selection, Brady Martin, also agreed to an entry-level contract. There’s an outside chance he could make the Predators’ roster out of pre-season.
Departures
Their lone departures came in the Hague trade. Lauzon missed most of last season, playing just 28 games with an assist. He’s one of the hardest hitters in the league, so his presence on the blue line was sorely missed by the Predators.
Sissons was one of the longest-tenured Predators and one of just four players remaining from their Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2017 – Saros, Forsberg, and Josi are the three others. Last season, Sissons scored seven goals and 21 points in 72 games, a drop off from his career-high of 15 goals and 35 points in the 2023-24 season.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
So, how do the Predators look heading into the 2025-26 season? Well, most post-season teams have a strong centre core, but not the Predators. O’Reilly is pencilled in as their top-line centre, followed by Svechkov, Haula, and Michael McCarron, not particularly strong. On the wing, they have Forsberg, Marchessault, Stamkos, and Bunting in their top six, which is a bit better.
Wingers who could fit in the bottom-six are Joakim Kemell, Evangelista, Cole Smith, and L’Heurex. Their wing core is definitely one of their strong points, as is their defence. With the addition of Hauge and Perbix, their top four consists of those two on top of Josi and Skjei. Their bottom pair may feature Adam Wilsby and Justin Barron.
In net, Saros is set to start, while Justus Annunen will back up. If the Predators want any type of success in 2025-26, Saros will have to return to his career norm.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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The rebuild of the Chicago Blackhawks chugs along.
Once again, the Blackhawks sat in the basement of the National Hockey League. The position they are in is a far cry from their dynasty years in the 2010s. Although the 2024-25 season was a struggle, they have the pieces to be a Stanley Cup-contending team at some point in the future.
Let’s take a look at how the Blackhawks’ 2024-25 season went, what they’ve done so far this off-season, and how their team shapes up come October.
How the season went
Heading into the 2024-25 season, the Blackhawks finished with the third-fewest or second-fewest points in the league the past two seasons. They were lucky to land the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, selecting Connor Bedard.
It was much of the same for the Blackhawks last season. They finished with a 25-46-11 record, with their 61 points being the second-fewest in the league. Only the San Jose Sharks had fewer points than the Blackhawks last season.
What’s worse is that Bedard had a worse season than the 2023-24 season, at least on a point-per-game basis. His rookie season saw him score 22 goals and 61 points in 68 games, but he followed that up with just 23 goals and 67 points in 82 games.
Other notable young players on the team are Frank Nazar, Lukas Reichel, and Alex Vlasic. Nazar was the other notable young player on the team, as he scored 12 goals and 26 points in 53 games last season. Reichel scored eight goals and 22 points in 70 games, while Vlasic scored four goals and 30 points in 82 games, not bad from a defenceman.
Most of the Blackhawks’ scoring came from veterans. Ryan Donato scored a team-leading 31 goals with 62 points, with Teuvo Teravinen’s 58 points second on the team, Tyler Bertuzzi’s 46 points were third, Nick Foligno had 35 points, and Ilya Mikheyev had 34 points.
Between the pipes, Arvid Söderblom played the majority of the games, posting an .898 save percentage and 3.18 goals against average in 36 games. Spencer Knight was acquired in a mid-season trade for Seth Jones, and he had an .896 save percentage and 3.12 goals against average.
Drafted players
Thanks to finishing second-last in the league, the Blackhawks had another high overall pick, dropping to the third overall pick. With that selection, they drafted Swedish centre Anton Frondell, who could play NHL games in 2025-26.
They had two more first-round picks, using the 25th overall to select winger Vaclav Nestrasil and the 29th overall pick to select centre Mason West. In the third round, the Blackhawks selected winger Nathan Behm, followed by centre (and Étienne Morin’s teammate) Julius Sumpf.
The Blackhawks had another fourth-rounder, using the 107th overall pick to select Parker Holmes, another forward. Finally, they drafted a defenceman, using their sixth-round pick to draft Ashton Cumby. The only netminder they selected was Ilya Kanarsky in the seventh round. Flames’ prospect Kirill Zarubin served as Kanarsky’s backup with Mikhailov Academy.
Trades
The Blackhawks have made a handful of trades since the beginning of the off-season.. On Jun. 13, they traded Victor Söderström to the Boston Bruins for Ryan Mast and a 2025 seventh-round pick.
A bigger move came just over a week later on Jun. 21, sending Joe Veleno to the Seattle Kraken for two-time Stanley Cup winner, André Burakovsky. His production waned in the past two seasons, scoring seven goals and 16 points in 49 games in 2023-24 and 10 goals and 37 points in 79 games last season. At his best, Burakovsky scored around 20 goals a season.
They also sent Ilya Safonov to the Vancouver Canucks for future considerations. The Blackhawks’ other trade saw them reacquire Sam Lafferty from the Buffalo Sabres for a 2026 sixth-round pick.
Free agent signings
The Blackhawks didn’t do anything of note on the free agent front, at least with bringing in new players. On Jun. 18, they re-signed Donato to a four-year deal worth $4 million annually. They signed Frondell to his entry-level contract, while extending both Nazar and Söderblom.
Nazar has only played 56 career games, but the Blackhawks are betting big on him with a seven-year deal worth $6.6 million annually. Söderblom will split the crease with Knight, and he signed a two-year deal worth $2.75 million.
Departures
There were three notable departures from the Blackhawks in the off-season. Philipp Kurashev wasn’t given a qualifying offer and signed with the Sharks. Although the Swiss forward only scored seven goals and 14 points in 51 games last season, he had 18 goals and 54 points in 75 games back in 2023-24.
Their other two departures were because of retirement. Pat Maroon retired after 14 NHL seasons with 126 goals and 323 points in 848 games. He won back-to-back-to-back Stanley Cups from 2019 to 2021. Alec Martinez also retired, playing 16 seasons with 862 games, scoring 88 goals and 289 points. Like Maroon, Martinez is a three-time Stanley Cup champion.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
So what does the Blackhawks roster look like heading into 2025-26? Bedard, Nazar, Jason Dickinson, and Lafferty will play down the middle, with Frondell potentially making the NHL next season. Their area of strength is on the wings though, as they have Donato, Bertuzzi, Foligno, and Reichel on the left side, and Teravainen, Burakovsky, Mikheyev, and Oliver Moore on the right side.
Their forward core is solid, but their defence is an area of concern heading into 2025-26. Vlasic, Wyatt Kaiser, and Kevin Korchinski could feature on the left side, with Sam Rinzel, Connor Murphy, and second overall pick Artyom Levshunov filling in on the right side.
In net, the Blackhawks will run a tandem of Knight and Söderblom, with Laurent Brossoit potentially featuring at some point.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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Gang, we’re about three weeks away from the Calgary Flames returning to the ice for their annual prospects training camp. But because of the new NCAA rules, things are going to be a little bit different than what we’ve seen in the past.
Nothing has been announced quite yet regarding the precise form that prospects camp is going to take. Right now, the expectation is that the Flames will be playing a couple prospect games, probably against Edmonton, as they have in past years when they weren’t participating in the Penticton Young Stars Classic tournament.
In past years, pretty much anybody who participated in development camp in July came back for September’s prospects camp, aside from the handful of players with commitments in college or Europe. But since the number of prospects who will be tied up with school or European obligations is pretty high, this year’s camp will look a bit different.
Usually the Flames bring around 25 players to camp – three goalies, eight blueliners and 14 forwards.
If we’re using the “everyone from development camp who isn’t busy elsewhere” rule, here’s how things would look:
- Goalies Owen Say and Arsenii Sergeev – it also seems reasonable that Medicine Hat’s Jordan Switzer, who attended development camp on a try-out, could also appear
- Defencemen Etienne Morin, Axel Hurtig and Zayne Parekh
- Forwards Andrew Basha, Aydar Suniev, Jacob Battaglia, Carter King, Hunter Laing and Matvei Gridin
So… that’s way fewer players than they would require to put together lineups for a pair of prospects games. So the Flames will probably need to fill our their roster with either additional try-out players, bringing in prospects they didn’t have at development camp, or a mix of both.
While anybody that didn’t spend 50 games on the NHL roster last season would be eligible to bring to this camp, the Flames have historically only brought their youngest prospects to this camp, and when they’ve had to fill camp rosters out they’ve opted to bring players still on their entry-level deals.
There are six players on their ELCs that weren’t at development camp: William Strömgren, Sam Honzek, Lucas Ciona, Parker Bell, Hunter Brzustewicz and Artem Grushnikov. We suspect that some of them may get the call, but we’ll see which ones. Even if they brought everybody on ELCs to prospects camp, they would still need to add some players on try-outs, so we’re bound to see some surprises when the camp roster is announced in early September.
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12 months ago, not many people in hockey had high expectations for the Calgary Flames heading into the 2024-25 season.
The Athletic’s modelling had the Flames finished 28th overall with 78.9 points, and it was not an outlier. The betting markets set their over/under for points at 81.5. Having endured a season that saw the club part ways with Nikita Zadorov, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin, and an off-season that saw Jacob Markstrom and Andrew Mangiapane traded too, most prognosticators gave the Flames a single-digit percentage chance at making the post-season.
82 games later, the Flames lost to the St. Louis Blues on the regulation wins tiebreaker for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Our colleague Ryan Pinder, of the Barn Burner podcast, often used the term “peak pain” to describe the type of season the Flames just had. On one hand, yeah, the Flames did make a lot of people that predicted that they would suck look pretty foolish, finishing with 96 points – between 15 and 20 points more than anybody thought they’d get.
On the other hand: 96 points was not enough to play past Game 82, and they hit the golf course just as early as teams that really struggled like Chicago and San Jose. (And to add insult to injury, they finished well outside of the draft lottery mix… and then had to surrender their first-round pick to Montreal to close out the Sean Monahan trade.)
During their exit interviews with the media following the regular season, the message from pretty much everyone was pretty consistent and had two prongs:
- The Flames were so much better than anyone outside their locker room thought they could be.
- The Flames weren’t quite as good as they thought they could be, since their goal was to make the playoffs.
Through some really good hockey, the Flames put themselves into a position where they would make or miss the playoffs by the narrowest of margins.
They ended up missing by the narrowest of margins.
If we’re going for a simple answer, the Flames lost the regulation wins tiebreaker to St. Louis because they lost to the Blues twice during the same week in January. But if we’re going for a broader discussion, they missed the playoffs because of a lot of smaller pieces of their game that needed to be a little bit better.
So with the Flames about to gather for training camp for the 2025-26 season, and the goal being to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2022, over the next little bit we’re going to be digging into several topics related to the Flames’ on-ice performance and examining how the Flames can potentially be a little bit better in the next 82 games than they were in the prior 82.
Welcome to Chasing 97 Points.
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Since entering the National Hockey League as an expansion team back in 1972, the Calgary Flames have played a lot of hockey in their two home cities.
Since their inception in 1972, they’ve played 2,057 regular season home games. 308 were in Atlanta, all at the Omni. 1,736 have been in Calgary: 120 at the Stampede Corral, 1,615 at the Saddledome and one at McMahon Stadium.
That leaves three home games that were played at neutral sites.
These are their stories.
Did you know that the Flames played a home game in Cincinnati, Ohio’s Riverfront Coliseum on Feb. 16, 1993?
The background
Let’s flash back to 1992. The collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ association had expired prior to the 1991-92 season, and NHL president John Zeigler and new NHLPA head Bob Goodenow attempted to hash out a new deal while the season began without a CBA. Months later, with the league and the players still at odds over several issues, the players voted to strike.
After a three day strike, which lasted Apr. 1-10, 1992, a new, one year CBA was agreed upon. (The regular season games that had been disrupted by the strike were rescheduled, followed by the 1992 playoffs.) As part of the new CBA, the NHL season was expanded from 80 to 84 games starting in 1992-93, with each club playing two games per season in cities without NHL teams in an effort to test out new markets for potential expansion.
And so, the Flames ended up playing a home game against Eric Lindros and the Philadelphia Flyers on Feb. 16, 1993… in Cincinnati, Ohio. It ended as a 4-4 tie, and by all accounts it was a very weird game. (Their neutral site road game in mid-October was in Saskatoon against Minnesota and was said to be a very normal game.)
The game
The Flames got off to a great start. They scored four goals on 13 shots in the first period, with the snipes from Joe Nieuwendyk, Theo Fleury, Ron Stern and Gary Roberts chasing Flyers netminder Dominic Roussel. Eric Lindros and Pelle Eklund responded for the Flyers.
Tommy Soderstrom replaced Roussel in net for the second period and the Flyers spent the remainder of the game trying to chip away at the Flames lead. Rod Brind’Amour scored late in the second period to cut the lead to 3-2, and Brent Fedyk scored a third period power play goal to tie the game at 4-4.
Neither team scored in the five-minute overtime and the game ended as a tie. The outcome got even worse for the Flames after Roberts was hurt in overtime off a collision with Garry Galley.
The Flames played the game with an odd configuration of eight defenders and 10 forwards, and forward Brian Skrudland dressed but barely played after suffering an injury in warm-up.
The game was widely criticized as… bad. The Calgary Herald‘s Eric Duhatschek filed a game story that included the phrases “no-hitter” and “sloppy,” noted that the puck hardly settled down, and reported a 27-minute delay to start the game due to difficulty figuring out how to install the pegs to secure the nets. (His gamer also noted the nets were set a foot too far back at either end.)
In a separate piece by Duhatschek, the way the boards and glass were set up in the arena were called “dangerous” by several players due to the presence of steel plates and protruding bolts holding the glass in place. Oh, and the game was attended by just 7,900 fans.
The aftermath
Roberts missed the next 26 games due to his leg injury. There was no supplemental discipline on the play, in part due to the poor quality of the set-up in Riverfront Coliseum making video review extremely difficult.
Neutral site games returned in 1993-94, but not to Cincinnati.
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The Calgary Flames have added Dave Lowry to Ryan Huska’s staff as an assistant coach, the club announced Tuesday afternoon.
Lowry, 60, returns to the Flames for his second tour of duty as an assistant, having previously served in that capacity with the club from 2009 to 2012 under head coach Brent Sutter. He most recently served as an assistant coach with the Seattle Kraken from 2022 until June 6 of this year.
In a corresponding move, the Flames announced that Brad Larsen will not return for the 2025-26 season as he continues to deal with the family issue that kept him away from the team for much of the 2024-25 campaign.
Rounding out the coaching staff
The #Flames have added Dave Lowry as an assistant coach!
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) September 2, 2025
A former NHL left wing who appeared in 1,084 games during his career, Lowry finished his playing days with the Flames, spending parts of four seasons in Calgary and appearing in 10 games during the team’s improbable run to the 2004 Stanley Cup Final. He hung up his skates immediately after that playoff run and joined the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen as an assistant coach in 2005.
Lowry became head coach of the Hitmen just in time for their tremendous 2008-09 season, in which they went 59-9-3-1 before losing in the championship final. He parlayed that great year into a gig with the Flames, spending three seasons in that capacity before joining the Victoria Royals as head coach for five seasons.
Following stints with the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, Lowry joined his son, Adam, with the Winnipeg Jets in 2020. He worked in Winnipeg for two years and took over from Paul Maurice as head coach on an interim basis to conclude the 2021-22 campaign, but left for Seattle the following summer after being passed over for the full-time job.
Over his 19 seasons in the NHL with the Flames, San Jose Sharks, Florida Panthers, St. Louis Blues, and Vancouver Canucks, Lowry collected 164 goals and 351 points in 1,084 games. The Sudbury, Ontario product added 16 goals and 36 points in 111 playoff contests, reaching the Stanley Cup Final twice (1996, FLA; 2004, CGY).
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Since entering the National Hockey League as an expansion team back in 1972, the Calgary Flames have played a lot of hockey in their two home cities.
Since their inception in 1972, they’ve played 2,057 regular season home games. 308 were in Atlanta, all at the Omni. 1,736 have been in Calgary: 120 at the Stampede Corral, 1,615 at the Saddledome and one at McMahon Stadium.
That leaves three home games that were played at neutral sites.
These are their stories.
Did you know that the Flames played a home game in Phoenix, Arizona’s America West Arena on Jan. 24, 1994?
The background
Let’s flash back to 1993.
Coming out of the 1992 player’s strike, the regular season was expanded from 80 to 84 games starting with the 1992-93 season, with each team playing two neutral site games in locations selected to test out which markets could be good candidates for NHL expansion.
In 1992-93, the Flames played a road game in Saskatoon and a home game in Cincinnati. Meanwhile, arguably the best-received neutral site game was a clash between Montreal and Los Angeles held in Phoenix. In the 1993-94 season, the Flames were scheduled to return to Saskatoon (for another road game) and head to Phoenix for a home game, one of four games to be hosted at America West Arena that season. (The 1992-93 game in Cincinnati was a bit of a mess, and that city never hosted another NHL game during the league’s neutral-site experiments.)
The game
The Flames headed into the game missing six regulars due to injury, including starting netminder Mike Vernon. As a result, their goaltending tandem was Andrei Trefilov, backed up by Trevor Kidd.
After a scoreless first period, the teams basically exchanged goals for the rest of the night.
The Kings headed into the third period with a 2-1 lead off of power play goals in the second period from Luc Robitaille and Wayne Gretzky. Ron Stern had the lone Flames goals.
Theo Fleury tied the game early in the third period with a shorthanded goal, and the Flames took a lead later in the period off a goal from Robert Reichel. But the Kings scored their third power play goal of the game with 3.5 seconds left in regulation, with Chris Dahlquist in the sin bin and Kelly Hrudey on the bench for the extra attacker.
Overtime solved nothing, and the game finished as a tie. Oddly enough, it was the second consecutive tie for the Flames in a neutral site home game.
The aftermath
The 1993-94 season was the final year of the NHL’s neutral site experiment. The NHL released an 84-game schedule for the 1994-95 season, which featured the Flames playing a pair of neutral site games in Phoenix, but that became a moot point when the owners locked the players out at the beginning of October and the schedule was scrapped.
The 1994-95 season eventually went forward after a new CBA was agreed to in January 1995, but only with 48 games and with no neutral site games. Subsequent seasons were reduced to 82 games and the neutral site experiment was abandoned.
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The Calgary Flames will be employing virtually the same team that achieved 96 points last season in their pursuit of 97+ points this season. That said, there inevitably will be some additions and subtractions as the season drags on. One of the largest potential additions is that of blue-chip prospect Zayne Parekh, who is certain to see some NHL playing time this upcoming season: the only question being, how much? And is he good enough to step in and become an NHL regular?
If the answer is yes, then the 19-year-old will represent a heck of a boost for the red team, who will need one if they’re to take that next step and punch their ticket to the postseason, especially with the inevitable departure of Rasmus Andersson.
Parekh has had unprecedented success in the Ontario Hockey League since being selected ninth overall by the Flames in the 2024 NHL Draft. His 107 points last season were the most by an OHL defenceman in over 30 years.
It seems pointless to send Parekh back to his junior team, the Saginaw Spirit, but his AHL ineligibility makes a return to the OHL a serious option.
Calgary will surely prioritize the dynamic defenceman’s development over anything else, and if he can pass the eye test at the NHL level, like he did during his one-game stint last season, they’ll likely keep him around.
Recent history is also on Zayne’s side, with 19 and 20-year-old defencemen having huge impacts in their rookie seasons. Look no further than Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes in 2019-20, and most recently Lane Hutson last season, all of whom eclipsed 0.77 points per game as rookies.
It’s not all that crazy to think that Parekh can replicate a similar level of success in his first campaign. For context, Parekh’s OHL production from last year stacks up really well against Makar, Hughes and Hutson’s college stats in their final seasons.
Using NHLE or NHL Equivalency, we can compare statistics across different leagues in terms of their expected scoring potential in the NHL.
[td width="11.819459%"]Player[/td][td width="11.29259%"]League[/td][td width="13.505444%"]Games Played[/td][td width="8.974359%"]Goals[/td][td width="10.344222%"]Points[/td][td width="8.236741%"]NHLE[/td][td width="11.819459%"]Cale Makar[/td][td width="11.29259%"]Hockey East[/td][td width="13.505444%"]41[/td][td width="8.974359%"]16[/td][td width="10.344222%"]49[/td][td width="8.236741%"]39[/td][td width="11.819459%"]Quinn Hughes[/td][td width="11.29259%"]Big-10[/td][td width="13.505444%"]32[/td][td width="8.974359%"]5[/td][td width="10.344222%"]33[/td][td width="8.236741%"]28[/td][td width="11.819459%"]Lane Hutson[/td][td width="11.29259%"]Hockey East[/td][td width="13.505444%"]38[/td][td width="8.974359%"]15[/td][td width="10.344222%"]49[/td][td width="8.236741%"]42[/td][td width="11.819459%"]Zayne Parekh[/td][td width="11.29259%"]OHL[/td][td width="13.505444%"]61[/td][td width="8.974359%"]33[/td][td width="10.344222%"]107[/td][td width="8.236741%"]46[/td]
By this metric, Parekh’s prolific OHL production is even more impressive than what Makar, Hughes and Hutson were able to accomplish a year prior to their rookie seasons. It’s worth noting that Parekh is a year younger than both Makar and Hutson were when they graduated to the NHL.
Though his stats warrant an NHL roster spot, the Markham, Ontario native will still need to take someone’s job.
If Parekh is to make the team out of training camp, he’ll have to supplant either Jake Bean or Brayden Pachal, and because Zayne occupies the right side, Pachal, who’s also a righty, would be the logical one for one swap on paper. However, after a solid 2024-25 campaign, Pachal’s spot on the blueline is fairly solidified, and it’s instead Bean who’s more likely to cede their position in the lineup. A lefty for righty swap would require either Pachal or Mackenzie Weegar to occupy the left side in order to balance things out, but that’s something they’re both capable of doing.
This discussion is, of course, all trivial if Rasmus Andersson is traded, as he would leave a gaping hole on the defensive depth chart and Parekh would be the favourite to take that vacant roster spot, if he doesn’t already have it.
All things considered, Parekh has a clear path ahead of him to become an NHL regular and play most of the season with the Flames this year, given he can hold his own against professionals.
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The Calgary Flames entered the 2024-25 season with few people outside of their locker room believing that they could make the Stanley Cup playoffs. They ended up missing the post-season only on the basis of the regulation wins tiebreaker.
So suffice it to say, the Flames are trying to find one more point in 2025-26 to get themselves over the cut line and into the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Here are three reasons to be optimistic that the Flames can get back into the post-season.
A special teams bounce-back
The Flames’ special teams units were kinda blah in 2024-25.
The power play scored on 21.0% of their man advantages, 19th-best in the NHL. They were better than they were in 2023-24, but not quite good enough to get the Flames to where they wanted to be. Meanwhile, the penalty kill was pretty bad for much of the season, with the group showcasing pretty solid fundamentals… but when they made mistakes, they were big ones. They were the 25th-best PK in the NHL by percentage.
So why should there be optimism?
Well, after the trade deadline, with Trent Cull having gotten familiar with the PK, they were seventh in the NHL in kill effectiveness. And the Flames could be adding some skill to their blueline that should impact the PP…
Zayne Parekh makes the big jump
So, uh, remember how Dustin Wolf was the best goaltending prospect the Flames had in literally decades and he became a full-time NHLer and nearly dragged an offensively-challenged Flames team to a playoff spot?
Meet Zayne Parekh, the best defensive prospect the Flames have had in literally decades. He’s set to potentially become a full-time NHLer in 2025-26, which will likely involve him playing on the power play and in every game situation that involves the Flames having the puck and trying to score goals.
He might not be at his full powers right away, but Parekh is a big reason to be optimistic for Flames fans.
They know what they are
In a lot of ways, the 2024-25 season was about figuring out the limitations of the current Flames roster and how to work around them. Do they have elite offensive talent? Not exactly. So they play a smart, structured defensive style that supports their goaltender. And while other teams will definitely be prepared for the Flames’ stifling, persistent style of play… the Flames don’t need to spend the first chunk of the season getting everyone on board with playing that way.
The Flames know what they are. And based on last season, they seem entirely on-board with playing a certain way. And with a year of playing that style under their belts, they should be a little bit better at it. That alone could be the difference between playing after Game 82… or playing golf.
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The Calgary Flames are closing in on a three-year contract with restricted free agent forward Connor Zary, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Friday afternoon.
Zary, 23, collected 13 goals and 27 points in 54 games with the Flames during the 2024-25 regular season. The Flames originally selected the 6′ centre/wing in the first round (No. 24 overall) of the 2020 NHL Draft.
Friedman indicated that the new contract, which will take Zary into his final year of RFA status, will carry a cap hit of just under $3.8 million per season. Sportsnet’s Eric Francis later confirmed that the contract is worth $3.775 million a year.
A product of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Zary spent his junior career with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, with whom he spent parts of four seasons. After a nine-game stint immediately after being drafted, Zary turned pro with the AHL’s Stockton Heat on a full-time basis for the 2021-22 season, after which the team relocated and became the Calgary Wranglers.
After emerging as a top-tier offensive player at the AHL level in the 2022-23 season, Zary made his Flames debut early in the 2023-24 campaign and quickly made a name for himself as one of the team’s most exciting young talents, scoring 14 goals and 34 points in 63 games as a first-year NHLer.
Zary showed much of the same flash and dash in his sophomore season with the Flames but missed 28 games while recovering from two scary-looking knee-injuries, the latter of which prematurely ended his season.
Earlier this week, The Fourth Period insider David Pagnotta reported that the Flames and Zary were inching closer to the finish line on a three-year deal, which ultimately became reality on Friday. In 117 career games with the Flames, Zary has collected 27 goals and 61 points.
With Zary now re-upped, the Flames have completed most of their major offseason business, having already re-signed Matt Coronato, Morgan Frost, Martin Pospisil, Joel Hanley, and Justin Kirkland, among others, earlier in the summer. But Flames GM Craig Conroy still has plenty to do going forward, including extending Dustin Wolf and (in all likelihood) finding a new home for Rasmus Andersson.
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They’re back!
After months without Calgary Flames hockey, the club will kick off their annual prospects training camp next weekend! After players report and do their usual fitness check-ins with Flames staff, the meat of the camp will be a pair of games with the Edmonton Oilers prospects! This pair of games replaces the annual Penticton Young Stars tournament, which isn’t being held this season.
They’ll be in Edmonton next Friday (Sept. 12) for a game in Rogers Place (7 p.m. MT start), followed by a Sunday (Sept. 14) rematch at the Scotiabank Saddledome (4 p.m. MT). Tickets for both games are available at Ticketmaster – the game in Edmonton is general admission at $25, while the Calgary game is $10 and you get an assigned seat – and the Flames will be streaming both games on their various platforms for those that can’t be there in-person.
Here’s a snapshot of the 25 players that will be attending prospects training camp!
Goaltenders (3)
No. Player Age 2024-25 Teams(s) 80 Owen Say 24 Notre Dame (NCAA) 40 Arsenii Sergeev 24 Penn State (NCAA) 33 Jordan Switzer (PTO) 18 Medicine Hat (WHL)
Not Here: Daniil Chechehev (TBD), Yegor Yegorov (MHK Dynamo-MAX, MHL), Kirill Zarubin (AKM Tula, MHL)
For the first time in awhile, the Flames will bring three goalies to prospect camp who, combined, have played zero professional games. Say and Sergeev are entering the first year of their entry-level deals, while Switzer is in on a try-out and headed back to the Dub.
Defensemen (9)
No. Player Age Shot 2024-25 Team(s) 71 Colton Alain (PTO) 18 R Vancouver (WHL) 84 Eduard Bondar (PTO) 18 R Val-d’Or (QMJHL) 48 Hunter Brzustewicz 20 R Calgary (NHL)
Calgary (AHL)67 Axel Hurtig 20 L Calgary (WHL)
Sweden (WJC)88 Simon Mack (PTO) 24 R Calgary (AHL)
North Dakota (NCAA)59 Etienne Morin 20 L Moncton (QMJHL) 89 Zayne Parekh 19 R Calgary (NHL)
Saginaw (OHL)91 Mace’o Phillips 18 L U.S. National Dev Team (USHL) 97 Daniil Skvortsov (PTO) 18 L Guelph (OHL)
Not Here: Eric Jamieson (Denver, NCAA), Jakob Leander (HV71, J20), Henry Mews (Michigan, NCAA)
This is a really unique group. It features three of the most highly-regarded prospects in the system in Parekh, Brzustewicz and Morin. There’s also Hurtig, who’s a really unique project in the system based on his size, smarts and defensive acumen. In a bit of a surprise, Phillips’ gap season before college involves attending an NHL camp! And after a good showing at the end of the season on an AHL try-out, Mack is back, at least for this camp.
Alain, Bondar and Skvortsov are in on try-outs. It’s atypical to have nine defenders available for two games, but it does make sense when you consider that Parekh and Brzustewicz could be playing a lot of hockey this season and having some players around to spell them off in the earliest part of training camp could be a good idea.
Forwards (13)
No. Player Age Shot 2024-25 Team(s) 49 Andrew Basha 19 L Medicine Hat (WHL) 60 Jacob Battaglia 19 L Kingston (OHL) 87 Parker Bell 21 L Calgary (AHL) 82 Nathan Brisson (PTO) 18 L Val-d’Or (QMJHL) 51 Matvei Gridin 19 L Shawinigan (QMJHL) 29 Samuel Honzek 20 L Calgary (NHL)
Calgary (AHL)95 Carter King 24 L Calgary (AHL)
Denver (NCAA)53 Hunter Laing 19 R Prince George (WHL)
Saskatoon (WHL)85 Mael Lavigne (PTO) 20 L Victoriaville (QMJHL)
Rimouski (QMJHL)73 Kadon McCann (PTO) 18 L Medicine Hat (WHL) 83 David Silye (AHL) 26 R Calgary (AHL) 36 Aydar Suniev 20 L Calgary (NHL)
UMass (NCAA)96 Carter Wilkie (AHL) 25 R Calgary (AHL)
Penn State (NCAA)
Not Here: Trevor Hoskin (Merrimack College, NCAA), Aidan Lane (Harvard, NCAA), Jaden Lipinski (Maine, NCAA), Cade Littler (North Dakota, NCAA), Yan Matveiko (Krasnaya Armiya Moskva, MHL), Luke Misa (Penn State, NCAA), Cullen Potter (Arizona State, NCAA), Cole Reschny (North Dakota, NCAA), Theo Stockselius (Djurgardens IF, J20), Ethan Wyttenbach (Quinnipiac, NCAA)
The blueline group is star-studded. The forward group arguably is a bit learner on the tippity-top prospects – 2025 first-rounders Reschny and Potter are at school, for instance – but you’ll get to see Basha, Battaglia, Gridin, Honzek, King and Suniev, all of which are prospects you should keep an eye on.
They’re joined by three try-outs in Brisson, Lavigne and McCann. Silye and Wilkie, both signed to AHL deals for this coming season, will also be part of this camp.
All-in-all: a dozen Flames-drafted prospects will be at prospects training camp, with seven of the top 10 prospects from our recent summer rankings in attendance.
Which Flames prospect are you most excited to see in prospect training camp? Let us know in the comments!
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One Eastern Conference team that has taken a big hit this off-season is the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Before the 2024-25 season even began, there was talk that the Leafs were trying to trade Mitch Marner, but he remained with the team and had an alright season. Did the Leafs have a good season? Well, that’s subjective.
Let’s take a look at how the Maple Leafs’ 2024-25 season went, what they’ve done so far this off-season, and how their team will shape up come October.
How the season went
Thanks to a 52-26-4 record, the Maple Leafs finished with 108 points, top in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the entire league. They also had a new opponent in the post-season, as their first round match-up against the Ottawa Senators was the first Battle of Ontario since 2004, the last time the Leafs made the Conference Finals.
After going up 3-0 in the series thanks to back-to-back overtime victories in Games 2 and 3, the Senators showed some fight, finding the overtime winner in Game 4, and then shutting out the Leafs in Game 5 to send the series back to the Nation’s Capital.
The Leafs jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the second period, but captain Brady Tkachuk scored mid-way through the second, and David Perron tied the game with just over seven minutes left. However, the Leafs avoided embarrassment, as Max Pacioretty scored less than two minutes later en route to a 4-2 victory to move to the second round.
That second round is where the embarrassment happened. Facing off against the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Leafs won the first two games and even had a 3-1 lead in Game 3, but fell in overtime, were shut out in Game 4, and were smashed 6-1 in Game 5 to push them to the brink.
The Leafs were able to win their first game in Sunrise in Game 6, a 2-0 victory, to set up a Game 7, where they were once again blasted 6-1 to end their season.
Drafted players
The Leafs were without their first-round pick, used to acquire Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty before the 2023 trade deadline. Instead, their first pick came in the second round, using the 64th overall selection to pick Tinus-Luc Koblar.
In the third round, the Leafs drafted Jacob Battalgia’s teammate, Tyler Hopkins, 86th overall. Will Belle and Harry Nansi went 137th and 153rd, respectively, while their final two picks were Rylan Fellinger and Matthew Hlacar.
Trades
This off-season, the biggest trade belongs to the Maple Leafs, as they signed Marner to an eight-year deal worth $12 million annually, and sent him to the Vegas Golden Knights for Nicolas Roy.
The day before, the Leafs sent a 2027 third-round pick to the Utah Mammoth for 24-year-old Matias Maccelli. They were able to dump some cap, sending Ryan Reaves to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for 24-year-old defenceman Henry Thrun. On Jul. 17, the Leafs acquired some more grit, sending a 2028 fourth-round pick to the Vancouver Canucks for Dakota Joshua.
Free agent signings
The most notable free agent signing the Leafs made was agreeing to a two-year deal with Michael Pezzetta worth $812,500 annually. Instead, the Leafs focused on signing restricted free agent Matthew Knies and former captain John Tavares.
Knies agreed to a six-year deal worth $7.75 million annually, while Tavares came back on a four-year deal worth $4.389 million annually.
Departures
Marner’s departure was by far the most notable, but a few other players left the Leafs this off-season. Pontus Holmberg put up respectable numbers for a fourth liner, and it seems like Pacioretty will depart, albeit he remains an unrestricted free agent. Reaves also left, but that isn’t too big of an issue.
Moreover, Brendan Shanahan is out as the team’s president, a role he had held for over 11 years.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
The big question around the centre of the universe is whether the Leafs did enough to replace Marner’s 27 goals and 102 points. The simple answer is no. They’re still strong down the middle, featuring Auston Matthews, Tavares, Roy, and Scott Laughton, but they have less than ideal firepower on the wing.
Knies and William Nylander are obviously great, but Max Domi finished with just eight goals and 33 points last season. Maccelli, their other winger projected to be in the top six, scored eight goals and 18 points in 55 games last season, but had 17 goals and 57 points in 82 games the season before. It’d be a different story if Easton Cowan makes the team and lives up to his potential.
Bobby McMann, Dakota Joshua, Steven Lorentz, and Calle Jarnkrok are projected to be the bottom-six wingers.
The Leafs’ defence core is also lacking a true superstar. Morgan Rielly is their best defender, with McCabe and Simon Benoit making up their left side. Brandon Carlo, former Calgary Flame Chris Tanev, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson make up the right side.
Between the pipes is one of the strongest suits for the Leafs, as they’ll have Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz as their tandem.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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In July 2022, the Calgary Flames made a blockbuster trade that sent Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers. At the time, much of the discourse regarding the trade centred around Jonathan Huberdeau joining the Flames.
But three seasons after the swap, you can make a case that MacKenzie Weegar, not Huberdeau, was the centrepiece of the trade for the Flames.
That’s not to say that Huberdeau hasn’t been effective for the Flames. But while Huberdeau dealt with an extended adjustment period with the Flames before finding his footing under Ryan Huska, Weegar seemed to figure things out much more quickly. By his own admission, Weegar struggled to find his game after arriving in Calgary and didn’t find his rhythm until the 2023 All-Star Break.
But since that All-Star Break, Weegar has been not just the Flames’ best blueliner, but quietly one of the better ones in the NHL. In that span, he’s tied for 10th in goals and he’s 16th in points, and in the top 25 in even-strength production. And that’s playing on a team that had a fairly so-so power play and generally struggled to score goals.
On the ice, Weegar’s emerged as an all-situations option for Huska; Weegar’s ability to play either side of the ice allows Huska and his coaching staff to mix and match Weegar with different partners for different situations, and Weegar’s played a ton of hockey – and key minutes – because of that versatility. Off the ice, Weegar wears a letter as one of the club’s alternate captains and has emerged as a key leader for the group.
But because Weegar’s numbers are just a smidge below the top blueliners in the league, and because the Flames haven’t made a ton of noise since Weegar’s arrival, you can argue that Weegar remains a bit of a well-kept secret across the NHL. Despite his strong underlying numbers throughout his career, Weegar’s only received Norris Trophy votes twice: during the divisional-play-only 2020-21 season and again in 2021-22.
Rasmus Andersson’s exit from the Flames seems like a foregone conclusion. With Andersson in the fold, you can have a debate about who the Flames’ best blueliner is – it’s probably been Weegar for the past two seasons, but we can have that argument. With Andersson in another jersey, the top Flames defender crown is Weegar’s with no disputes.
Heavy is the head that wears that crown. If the Flames want to return to the post-season, they’ll need Weegar to not just be good… but they need him to find another level to his game. He’s been very good for two seasons with the Flames: can he go from being someone performing and producing near the levels of the league’s best to being one of their peers?
Simply put: can MacKenzie Weegar go from a well-kept secret in the Pacific Division to being firmly in the Norris Trophy conversation?
If he can, we’re probably seeing the Flames playing playoff hockey in the spring.
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For the first time since their double overtime loss in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals, the Ottawa Senators returned to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
After flirting with a post-season spot for the past few seasons, they were finally able to return and were immediately thrown into the fire, as they had a match-up with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Let’s take a look at how the Senators’ 2024-25 season went, what they’ve done so far this off-season, and how their team shapes up come October.
How the season went
The Senators finished pretty comfortably in a post-season spot, as they had a 45-30-7 record for 97 points, sixth-most in the Eastern Conference. They fell just one point shy of the Florida Panthers for third in the Atlantic Division.
On an entertainment level, it’s good they finished in the first wild card spot, as it set up the first Battle of Alberta against the Toronto Maple Leafs for the first time since 2004, as well as the Battle of Florida.
The young Senators were nervous, as they fell 6-2 in Game 1 to go down 1-0 in the series. They played better in Game 2, overcoming a 2-0 deficit, but Max Domi scored an overtime winner for the 3-2 victory.
A team is never truly out of it until they lose at home, which is the fate the Senators suffered in Game 3. Once again, the two Ontarian teams were locked up at two, needing overtime to settle it. This time, Simon Benoit put the Senators away just over a minute into the extra frame.
With their backs against the wall, the Senators jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but a goal with just over five minutes left by the Maple Leafs tied the game at four. This time, it was the Senators who scored the game-winner in overtime, as Jake Sanderson scored his first career post-season goal.
They took Game 5 by a score of 4-0, and tied Game 6 at two with just over seven minutes left in the game, but the Maple Leafs had an answer, as Max Pacioretty scored less than two minutes later. That turned out to be the game-winning goal, as the Senators fell in six games.
Still, there are a lot of lessons the young team can take away from this post-season push.
Drafted players
The Senators didn’t trade their first-round pick in the 2025 draft, using it to select University of Wisconsin defenceman Logan Hensler, a year removed from drafting Carter Yakemchuk. Because they used this pick, their 2026 first-rounder was forfeited due to sanctions related to a failed trade involving Evgenii Dadonov.
With their third-round pick, the Senators selected Blake Vanek 93rd overall. Yes, Blake is the son of long-time NHLer Thomas Vanek. With the 97th overall pick, the Senators drafted netminder Lucas Beckman from the Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
In the late rounds, the Senators selected Russian winger Dmitry Isayev in the fifth round, Bruno Idzan with their sixth round pick, and Russian netminder Andrei Trofimov with their seventh round pick.
Trades
The Senators’ lone trade involving a player came on the second day of the draft, moving a 2025 third-rounder and a 2026 sixth-rounder to the Los Angeles Kings for Jordan Spence. They originally had the 21st overall pick, but moved down two selections and later used the third in the Spence trade.
Moreover, the Senators moved up in the third round, trading the 96th overall pick and a 2027 seventh to the Capitals for the 93rd overall pick.
Free agent signings
In terms of free agency, the Senators agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.25 million with veteran Lars Eller. They also brought in Arthur Kaliyev on a one-year deal worth the league minimum of $775,000.
Before free agency opened, the Senators agreed to terms with veteran Claude Grioux, as the two parties settled on a one-year deal worth $2 million. Restricted free agent Fabian Zetterlund signed a three-year deal worth $4.275 million annually, while the Senators also brought back Nick Cousins.
Departures
The Senators also lost a handful of players, as Adam Gaudette, Travis Hamonic, and Anton Forsberg all signed elsewhere in free agency. Gaudette was the big loss, as he scored a career-best 19 goals last season, with 26 points as well.
Hamonic, a former Calgary Flame, served as a third-pairing defenceman for the Senators for the past four seasons, scoring just one goal and seven points in 59 games last season. As for Forsberg, the netminder signed with the Kings and had a .901 save percentage and 2.72 goals against average in 30 games last season.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
The Senators have a solid centre core of Tim Stützle, Dylan Cozens, Shane Pinto, and Eller. On the left wing, they have Brady Tkachuk, Zetterlund, Ridley Greig, and David Perron, while on the right wing, they have Giroux, Drake Batherson, Michael Amadio, and Cousins. Kailyev could factor into the Senators’ lineup at some point next season as well.
On defence, they’re expected to have Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub on the top pairing. Thomas Chabot and Nick Jensen make up the second pairing, while Tyler Klevan and Jordan Spence make up the third pairing.
Between the pipes, Linus Ullmark is their expected starter, with Leevi Meriläinen projected to back him up.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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Changes are afoot in the National Hockey League for the 2025-26 season, friends.
The new collective bargaining agreement has been reported upon extensively. But while the CBA doesn’t come into force until Sept. 16, 2026… per some reporting from our pals at PuckPedia, several parts of the CBA will come into force for this coming season.
Here is what’s new for 2025-26, and how these changes might impact the Calgary Flames.
Changes to LTIR
A lot of fans – and hockey people, frankly – have been confused and frustrated by long-term injury reserve (LTIR) cap relief over the years. Well, good news, the mechanism is getting simplified.
Teams can still exceed the salary cap by up to the cap hit of the injured player being replaced – we don’t need to get into the specific math here. But for any player that’s expected to return in-season, their LTIR relief is now capped at 2024-25’s average salary ($3,817,923). So, say Jonathan Huberdeau gets injured and is placed on LTIR: the Flames would only receive up to $3,817,923 in LTIR relief during his absence.
Teams can receive more than league-average salary relief, though, but only for players that are out for the remainder of the season – and those players would be ineligible to return for the rest of the season and the playoffs.
The Flames have ample salary cap space right now (just over $15 million, per PuckPedia), so they likely wouldn’t need to delve into LTIR.
Restrictions on double-retention trades
So, remember how the Flames engaged in three-team swaps when they traded Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin in 2024? Well, that won’t fly now. Under the new CBA, retained salary trades impacting a player’s contract can only be done once every 75 regular season days.
So if you were thinking “Oh man, the Flames could use a double-retention trade to get Rasmus Andersson’s cap hit down to $1.14 million!”… Well, not anymore. It could be a bit of a minor hindrance for teams, like the Flames, looking to sell off expiring assets and trying to maximize their returns by getting their cap hits down, but it’s probably not the end of the world.
No more “paper transactions”
For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a “paper transaction” is when a team sends a player down to their AHL affiliate but maybe a day or two, then brings them back up immediately.
Teams tend to use paper transactions for two main reasons:
- They have very little cap space and are trying to save it up on days they don’t play games.
- They have players that require waivers and are trying to maximize their 30-day exemption window.
The Flames have trended towards the second category lately. They have the Wranglers playing in the same building, and so they can swap players down the hall to the AHL pretty easily, and they’ve done so as recently as last season with players like Jakob Pelletier, Walker Duehr and Adam Klapka.
The new rule is that if a player is sent down from the NHL to the AHL, they have to play a game before they’re eligible to be called back up to the NHL. (There’s an exception for situations where a team would be short a goaltender without calling one up.) The impact on the Flames could be fairly subtle: when last season the Flames kept swapping Klapka up and down from the Wranglers, this coming season they might just rotate a pair of players up and down so they always have a few players eligible to be brought back up.
Four recall rule becomes five recall rule
The old CBA limited teams to four non-emergency call-ups after the trade deadline (subject to the usual salary cap limitations), in an effort to prevent teams that were out of the playoff hunt from just bringing up their entire AHL roster. The four recall limit is now a five recall limit, with teams limited to having four players on their roster at any one time on non-emergency recalls.
(If your team would otherwise be short bodies for a game, you’re still allowed to call up players after the trade deadline on an emergency basis without it counting against your non-emergency limit.)
Playoff salary cap
Good news, there’s a salary cap in the playoffs now!
Here’s how it works: on game days, teams submit a 20-player game lineup (two goalies, 18 skaters). The base cap hits of that game lineup, plus all other regular season cap obligations (buyouts, burials, and retained cap hits). Injured or inactive players on the NHL roster would not count against that playoff salary cap, just the players on that daily lineup. For salaries retained during the current season, cap hits are proportional to the full season cap hit, not pro-rated.
So if the Flames, hypothetically, trade Andersson to another team at 50% cap hit retained, they would carry that $2.275 million cap hit in the playoffs, even if the trade wasn’t made until the trade deadline.
The Flames would absolutely love to have to worry about the playoff salary cap.
No 19-year-olds CHLers in AHL (yet)
Finally, while the various parties are discussing allowing 19-year-olds to play in the AHL, all indications are that won’t be something that happens this season. So for Zayne Parekh and Jacob Battaglia, their playing options are NHL or OHL for the coming season.
What do you think of the new CBA changes? Do you think they’ll impact the Flames very much? Let us know in the comments!
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The Montréal Canadiens just snuck into the post-season in 2024-25.
After trading for Patrik Laine before the season, the Canadiens were able to be competitive for the first time in a while, finishing in a wild card spot. They’ll look to improve their standing in the Eastern Conference in 2025-26.
Let’s take a look at how the Canadiens’ 2024-25 season went, what they’ve done so far this off-season, and how their team shapes up come October.
How the season went
Thanks to the pandemic, the Montréal Canadiens had an easy pathway to the Conference Finals, defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in seven games, then sweeping the Winnipeg Jets. In just six games, they were able to knock off the Vegas Golden Knights, making the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since they won it all in 1993. However, they fell in five games to the Tampa Bay Lightning, kick-starting a three-year rebuild.
Well, that rebuild ended in 2024-25, as the Canadiens finished with a 40-31-11 record with 91 points, just barely making the postseason on the final day. They had a tough opponent in the first round, taking on the team with the most points in the Eastern Conference, the Washington Capitals.
Unlike the 2010 post-season, there was no big upset for the Canadiens this time. Alexander Ovechkin scored his first career overtime winner in Game 1, the Capitals also took Game 2, before the Canadiens doubled up the Capitals by a score of 6-3 in Game 3. It was all the Capitals from there, though, as they defeated the Canadiens 5-2 in Game 4 and 4-1 in Game 5.
Drafted players
The Canadiens had the 16th and 17th overall picks in the draft, but those were moved – more on that later. Their first pick was in the second round, as they selected Russian winger Alexander Zharovsky with the 34th overall pick.
In the third round, the Canadiens had three picks, using them to select centre Hayden Paupanekis 69th overall, defenceman Bryce Pickford 81st overall, and Russian netminder Arseny Radkov 82nd overall. Then, they selected centre L.J. Mooney with the 145th overall pick. With the 145th overall pick, the Canadiens selected their second netminder, Alexis Cournoyer from the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League’s Cape Breton Eagles.
Their final three picks were in the sixth or seventh round. With the 177th overall pick, the selected defenceman Carlos Handel, followed by another defenceman, Andrew MacNiel, 189th overall. In the seventh round, the Canadiens drafted Max Vig.
Trades
So what happened to those two first-round picks? Well, the Canadiens sent them and former Calgary Flame Emil Heineman to the New York Islanders for the rights to restricted free agent Noah Dobson.
After some trades at the draft involving picks, the Canadiens sent netminder Cayden Primeau to the Carolina Hurricanes for a 2026 seventh-rounder. To make room on the right side of their defence, the Canadiens traded Logan Mailloux to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Zack Bolduc, their final move of the off-season (so far).
The Canadiens also traded the injured Carey Price (and a fifth-round pick) to San Jose in exchange for Gannon Laroque, in an effort to get themselves out of LTIR this coming season.
Free agent signings
The trade for Dobson included an eight-year contract extension for the right-shot defenceman, worth $9.5 million annually. They brought in netminder Kaapo Kähkönen, Sammy Blais, and Joseph Veleno, all three of whom could contend for depth spots on the Canadiens next season.
Moreover, the Canadiens extended defenceman Jaden Struble, signing him to a two-year deal worth $1.413 million annually, as well as netminder Jakub Dobeš to a two-year deal worth $965,000 annually.
Departures
While the Canadiens were busy adding players, a few players ended up departing this off-season. Right-shot defenceman David Savard retired, Christian Dvorak signed a one-year deal with the Philadelphia Flyers, and Joel Armia departed for the Los Angeles Kings.
Last season, Dvorak scored 12 goals and 33 points in 82 games, while Armia scored 11 goals and 29 points in 81 games, playing a crucial role on their penalty kill. Former Calgary Flames’ prospect Emil Heineman was involved in the Dobson deal before the draft.
What the team looks like heading into 2025-26
So how do the Canadiens shape up heading into the 2025-26 season? Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, and Jake Evans are their four centres, a rather weak centre core. They make up for it on the wing, as their first line is projected to have Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovský. Their second line is projected to have Laine and Ivan Demidov, another strong line.
On the third line’s wing, Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher are expected to go between Newhook, while Veleno and Bolduc will be the wingers on the fourth line.
Their first pair on defence may feature Kaiden Guhle and reigning Calder Trophy winner, Lane Hutson. Dobson will take a role on the second pairing alongside Mike Matheson, while Alexandre Carrier is expected to form a partnership with Arber Xhekaj.
In net, Sam Montembeault is their probable starter, with Dobeš backing him up.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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