{"id":857943,"date":"2026-08-14T15:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857943\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T15:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:20:11","slug":"calgary-flames-offseason-rebuild-jump-started-with-nemec-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857943\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary Flames\u2019 offseason rebuild jump-started with Nemec acquisition\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Calgary Flames<\/a> have been unable to recapture the magic of their 2021-22 season and appear ready to enter a rebuilding phase after missing the playoffs for a fourth-consecutive season.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the Flames finished first in the Pacific Division with 111 points and reached the second round of the playoffs. However, the club lost the services of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> in the same offseason and were unable to adequately replace their production. <\/p>\n

The bottom fell out for the team last season, as they finished with 77 points and a 34-39-9 record, finishing seventh in the Pacific Division and the fourth-worst record in the NHL.<\/p>\n

Calgary moved into sell-mode at the end of last season, trading centre Nazem Kadri<\/a> at the deadline for a package highlighted by a 2028 first-round pick and 19-year-old prospect Maxmilian Curran. The Flames also moved top defenceman Mackenzie Weegar<\/a> to the Utah Mammoth<\/a> for three second-round picks, Jonathan Castagna and Olli Maatta<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Earlier in the year, the Flames moved pending unrestricted free agent defenceman Rasmus Andersson<\/a> to the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> for Zach Whitecloud<\/a>, and first and second-round picks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tough year, of course,\u201d Flames captain Mikael Backlund<\/a> said after the team\u2019s final game of the 2025-26 season. \u201cNot the start we wanted. To lose a lot of good players and people, it was hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be better. We want to be in a different situation than we are today. The way the guys competed and battled \u2014 give a lot of guys credit. No one should be satisfied with anything because we missed the playoffs and we lost more games than we won.\u201d<\/p>\n

The selling continued into the summer as veteran forward Blake Coleman<\/a> and Maatta were moved to the Minnesota Wild<\/a> for Jake Middleton and three draft picks.<\/p>\n

The Flames have several under-25 building blocks on the roster, including Zayne Parekh<\/a>, Matt Coronato<\/a>, Dustin Wolf<\/a>, Connor Zary<\/a>, Samuel Honzek<\/a>, and Matvei Gridin<\/a>. The team also drafted highly-regarded blueliner Carson Carels<\/a> sixth overall at the draft in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go and try to do whatever we can to help the team and make it better, but a lot of it is going to come from within,\u201d general manager Craig Conroy said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be young players taking another step, and the veteran players that are here to have big years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conroy added to the Flames\u2019 young core in a big way, acquiring defenceman Simon Nemec from the New Jersey Devils<\/a> for a package that included two first-round picks he received from the Avs and Golden Knights earlier in the year. The Flames then signed the 22-year-old to a five-year contract with an AAV of $7.25 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know people will say, \u2018Well, you gave up two firsts and a second.\u2019 But the way we look at it is that we\u2019re getting a high-end player that\u2019s 22-years-old, who\u2019s already playing in the NHL, that\u2019s going to come in here and be a big part of this team next year,\u201d Conroy said during draft week. \u201cHe\u2019s really been trending in the right direction. Especially in the last half of last year, his game was taking off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entering their rebuild, the Flames now have a deep blueline core of Nemec, Carels, and Parekh to build around. <\/p>\n

Next up for Conroy, as he said at the start of the off-season, will be to address the team\u2019s scoring woes after they finished last in the league with 2.58 goals per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Calgary Flames have been unable to recapture the magic of their 2021-22 season and appear ready to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[712,49,2798,80260,48,270057],"class_list":["post-857943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-flames-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-20","tag-canada","tag-simon-nemec-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8483495"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}