Calgary Flames: Three Potential Trades Involving 1st Round Pick

The Calgary Flames haven’t been scared to deal first round picks in the past. Will they do it again?

The Calgary Flames have not been worried about trading away their first round pick in the past. In 2015, the traded their first round pick to the Boston Bruins, along with a couple of second rounders for defenceman Dougie Hamilton.

Two years later, at the 2017 NHL Draft, general manager Brad Treliving was wheeling and dealing once again. He traded his 2018 first round pick as part of a package to the New York Islanders for Travis Hamonic.

The pick that went to Boston turned into Zach Senyshyn while the first rounder that went to Long Island ended up being Noah Dobson.

You win some, you lose some I suppose. But that won’t stop Treliving from trying to upgrade his roster once again in the future. The NHL Draft is fast approaching with the first round taking place on October 5 and the remainder being held the next day. Could we see the Flames move thier first round pick once again?

They currently hold the 19th overall selection. Based on prospects rankings and lists, there could be some intriguing names available with that pick. Some high scoring CHL forwards like Dawson Mercer, Hendrix Lapierre and Jacob Perreault could fall to 19th. But do the Flames want to be patient and pick someone who will help in a couple years?

Or do they want to make a trade and find someone who can help them right now.

If they do swing a deal, they have a couple of lineup holes they could look to fill. Cam Talbot is a free agent and the team could look to find more of a number one goalie, rather than a platoon guy like Talbot.

Calgary is about to lose T.J. Brodie and Travis Hamonic to free agency as well and could use a right defenceman to slot in next to Noah Hanifin on the second pairing.

They could also use a big, scoring right winger to jump into the top six with Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau.

So, if the Flames do want to move their first round pick, who could they target to acquire via trade?

Frederik Andersen

Freddie Andersen was traded from the Anaheim Ducks to the Toronto Maple Leafs three years ago. It was rumoured at that time that the Flames were interested and it would make sense if they were still interested in the netminder.

Andersen has been remarkably consistent in his career. In his rookie season of 2013-14, he had a .923 save percentage. For the next five seasons, Andersen was as busy as any goaltender in the league and his save percentage stayed steady between .914 and .919 each year. That is crazy consistency for an NHL goaltender.

This season, it dropped a bit to .909 but he was excellent in the postseason, with a 1.84 GAA and a .936 SV%. He has been asked to handle a heavy load for the Maple Leafs the past four years, starting 60 games or more for three straight seasons before stepping into the crease 52 times this season.

Not only did he play a lot of games but the Maple Leafs defence allowed a ridiculous number of shots and chances against in those games. Luckily, they had a reliable goaltender to keep them out of trouble time and time again.

Andersen has one year left on his contract at $5 million. He will be looking for a raise after that, but the Flames would be able to bring him in for next season and work out an extension that fits with their budget.

The Leafs likely won’t be able to fit him in after the 20-21 season. With a lot of options in free agency this year, perhaps the Maple Leafs move on from Andersen and get a first round pick in return, then look to sign someone like Braden Holtby or trade for Darcy Kuemper.

Andersen has looked great behind a suspect defence in Toronto. He could look even better behind a solid group of defenders in Calgary.

Yanni Gourde

I was going to suggest Kyle Palmieri here but we have had talked about enough players who came up with the Anaheim Ducks before being dealt, haven’t we?

The Tampa Bay Lightning have a tremendously deep team, but the salary cap staying flat is going to force them to move someone out that they would prefer to keep. The trouble there is, many of their big earners also have no-trade clauses built into their contracts.

That will make it difficult to move a players like Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov but why would they want to anyway? Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn and Yanni Gourde also have no-trade clauses, but convincing Gourde to move him might not be as difficult as the others, and the reason for that is playing time and opportunity.

The 28 year old only had 30 points in 70 games this season. So why would the Flames want to give up a first round pick for him? Well, it’s basically the same reason he would want to waive his no-trade clause. Opportunity.

Gourde was 9th among Lightning forwards in ice time this season. He played some second unit power play minutes, but averaged only 0:42 per game of ice time with the man advantage this season. His most frequent linemates this season were Pat Maroon and Cedric Paquette. After those two, he most often played with Carter Verhaege and Mitchell Stephens.

30 points in 70 games is starting to sound a lot better. Especially when you look at his past. When he actually played with Brayden Point or Steven Stamkos in his first two seasons, Gourde scored 25 goals and 68 points in 2017-18 and followed that up with 22 goals and 48 points the next year.

Gourde is under contract for five more years at a cap hit of $5.16 million per season. He would be an awful lot closer to his best season than his worst if he was put on a line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. The chance to play with two offensive players again might be enough to entice him into waiving that no-trade clause.

If it is, there is no question five years of Gourde would be worth a first round pick.