Calgary Flames: Grading the Off-Season Moves Up Until Now

The Calgary Flames have been one of the loudest teams in the NHL this off-season. Let’s grade their off-season moves they’ve made until this point.

Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving has been one of the busiest GM’s in the league this off-season. Moves after moves after moves, it’s like the Flames breaking news never stopped. From rumors to contract extensions to bold trades, the Flames have done it all this summer.

Now, some moves are better than others. And many times, fans definitely have a lot to say about moves their GM’s make. Now, for the most part, most of the moves made have been good. Of course, there are some that weren’t the best, as always.

But nonetheless, let’s evaluate them on a standard letter grading scale (A+ being the best, F being a fail). This will also go in a random order because I couldn’t decide what order to do this in. I’m a Libra, what can I say.

All of the contract details were found from Cap Friendly.

Mike Smith Trade: C-

I think it’s quite obvious why this is a C-. While Mike Smith isn’t a bad goalie, he’s very inconsistent. Something the Calgary Flames have been dealing with in their crease since Miikka Kiprusoff, basically. I mean, to be fair, he has been playing behind one of the worst teams in the league for the last few seasons. But his numbers still aren’t great.

Related Story: Mike Smith Top Five Best Moments

While the Flames didn’t quite give up a whole lot (rights to Chad Johnson, a prospect, and a conditional 3rd-round pick in 2018), his contract still isn’t the best. The Flames will be giving him $4.25 million for the next two years. Definitely more expensive than other options out there (Antti Raanta and Phillip Grubauer) and definitely older than other options (Smith is 35 years old). Given, he does have more experience, but there were still some other options to choose from.

Everything about this so far seems negative, however one of our writers, Tomas, looked at the positives. Over the last two seasons, he’s eighth among goalies who have played at least 80 GP in even-strength sv%. What’s dragging him down is his short-handed save percentage. This and the fact that he brings tons of experience are the reason this didn’t get a D grade. Also, the Flames now have a Mike in every position, so we got to give them that.

Kris Versteeg Re-Signing: A+

Kris Versteeg already gets an A+ in my books for choosing the Calgary Flames over the Edmonton Oilers last season. He had a PTO with the Oilers, but at the last minute, basically was like “Bye guys” and signed with the Flames for virtually the same price ($950,000). The Oilers were also one of the only teams interested in the two-time Cup winner.

Blackhawk Up

He was definitely the best third line option at that price available. He had 37 points and was also able to play at that top unit when needed. And compared to other third-liners on the team, he was the best for his price. A couple other third-liners:

• Troy Brouwer: 25 points in 74 games, $4.5 million avg. salary
• Matt Stajan: 23 points in 81 games, $3.125 million avg. salary
• Lance Bouma: 7 points in 61 games, $2.2 million avg. salary

But boy, how things change in a year. After one off-season of having barely any teams interested, this off-season, he had a dozen offers from different teams. And he only signed at $1.75 million, which is a big discount he took to stay with the Flames. Versteeg also said that last season playing with the Flames revived his love for the game of hockey, so understandable why he’d want to stay in YYC.

I mean, he also grew up a Flames fans. So sticking to your roots is always a good bet.

Versteeg said earlier in the season that if he’s in Switzerland by September, his agent is getting fired. So looks like his agent still has a job for now.

An awesome third-line option with an incredible amount of playoff experience (that showed in this year’s playoffs), who’s versatile, a cheap option, and took a hit in pay to play with his childhood team? Yeah, this signing is going to get an A+. Good job Treliving.

Michael Stone Re-Signing: C

After the Travis Hamonic trade, I was quite adamant on not re-signing Michael Stone. He was going to be a little pricey and the top-four was already set. The Calgary Flames didn’t need another Dennis Wideman mishap.

But they signed him. They agreed on a three-year contract with an average salary of $3.5 million. A little pricey for a bottom-two defenceman which is why this is a lower grade. However, why it isn’t lower is because now the Flames are stacked in their blue-line. They have arguably one of the best blue-lines in the entire league. And the Flames after this signing still had a decent amount of cap space left to sign their RFAs and maybe sign one more UFA. And for that, this will be getting an average grade of a C.

Curtis Lazar Re-Signing: B

Re-signing Curtis Lazar was inevitable. The Calgary Flames traded for the youngster on a trade-deadline day trade, so they were of course going to protect him in the expansion draft (which they did). So re-signing him was probably going to happen (and again, it did).

The Flames managed to grab him at a great price as well, $950,000 AAV for two years. Again, this would normally be higher of a grade, but the reason it isn’t is that he hasn’t quite proved himself. While he does have a lot of potential and he’s still young so he’s still somewhat malleable, he has still under-performed compared to expectations.

Related Story: Two Big RFAs Down, One More to Go

This past season with the Ottawa Senators, he had just one assist in 33 games before being traded. When he was with the Flames, he had three points in four regular season games. A big improvement, of course, but you still have to be worried.

The Flames aren’t exactly losing that much signing him, so it’s a good signing. But we’ll just have to wait and see how he performs this upcoming season.

Lance Bouma Buyout: B

Lance Bouma was signed in 2015 on a three-year contract with an AAV of $2.2 million. It was a decent pay because he was coming off the season with 34 points in 78 games. However since that, he’s completely underperformed. He has just 14 points in 105 games in the last two seasons. Way too pricey for a guy who’s only getting seven points a season.

Calgary Flames

And something the Flames don’t do often is buyout players. So the fact that they were finally confident enough to place Bouma on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a buyout before he headed into the final season of his contract was huge. Mainly because the Flames are now basically paying him to not play for their team. That way they can make room for other players. Maybe cheaper players coming from the Flames’ farm team.

This got a B grade because they’re still losing money, but it’ll only be for one year, so it isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Spencer Foo Signing: B+

Like Kris Versteeg, Spencer Foo gets an A+ just for choosing the Flames over Edmonton. This one was especially nice because Foo grew up cheering for the Edmonton Oilers, and was offered a deal with Edmonton as well, but chose Calgary.

But Foo was one of the most highly rated college prospects. An undrafted player who has been playing with Union College and was recently a finalist for the Hober Baker Trophy.

Per Calgaryflames.com:

Foo, a native of Edmonton, Alberta, just completed his junior year at Union College where he put up 26 goals and 36 assists for 62 points in 38 games and was a finalist for the 2016-17 Hobey Baker Memorial Award. He topped the 100 career points mark this season and had a program-record 21-game point streak in addition to tying for the ECAC scoring title; while leading the league in assists (25), multi-point games (14) and plus-minus (+20).

Related Story: Spencer Foo Picks the Flames over the Oilers

I’m somewhat hoping he turns into sort of a Johnny Gaudreau type of thing with how Gaudreau wasn’t taken until the fourth round and now everyone knows his name. He’s also a right-wing, something the Flames needed to have more depth in, so looks like they’re fixing that problem. The Flames signed Foo on a two-year two-way contract with an AAV of $1.775 million. A little weird that it’s the same price as Micheal Ferland (given this is included bonuses), which is why this isn’t higher graded.

But we’ll just wait and see. Hey, maybe he will pull a Johnny Gaudreau and have a 60-point rookie season.

Drafting Juuso Valimaki at 16th overall: B+

Defenceman Juuso Valimaki was an excited kid on June 23rd when picked by the Calgary Flames. He also put up a respectable amount of points in the WHL with the Tri-City Americans, 61 points in 60 games. He was seventh among all defencemen in points (61), eight among all defencemen in powerplay assists (22), and fourth on the team in points.

Valimaki is a safe pick and doesn’t quite raise any red flags in his playing style. He’s not flashy at all and is a highly dependable two-way player with good puck movement. The reason this didn’t get a higher grade is for two reasons. I believed the if D Timothy Liljegren wasn’t available at that 16th overall pick, the Flames would have gone with a forward instead. And there were still many great forward prospects to choose from still available when the Flames had their pick (Kailer Yamamoto, Eeli Tolvanen, Kristian Vesalainen). But nonetheless, they went with a D.

However, Liljegren was still available, and the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted him at that 17th overall pick. Liljegren has been compared several times to Erik Karlsson (definitely someone you’d want to be compared to). However, I can see why the Flames would have skipped him. He was sick for a couple months and he’s a bit more flashy than Valimaki. Valimaki is more of a safe pick. So this decision got a B+.

Eddie Lack Trade: A-

This was an AWESOME trade. The Calgary Flames acquired G Eddie lack from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for basically nothing. They got Eddie Lack, D Ryan Murphy (who was then put on unconditional waivers), and a 2019 7th round pick for prospect D Keegan Kanzig and a 2019 6th round pick. Oh, and Carolina retained half of Lack’s salary, so the Flames are only paying him $1.375 million. He also only has a year left on his contract, so if things don’t work out, they could not re-sign him.

While Eddie Lack hasn’t been the best, the Flames managed to actually make something out of Keegan Kanzig and they got a backup goalie. And they got it at a good price without giving up a lot. This gets an A-.

Next: Mike Smith Top Five Best Moments

As long as there’s no Dennis Wideman type of signing, the overall off-season grade gets a solid B+ grade. Good job Treliving. Now let’s bring in Jaromir Jagr and call it a successful off-season…