The Calgary Flames are in a rare spot this summer: they can listen, they can negotiate, and they can wait.
That’s the luxury Craig Conroy has created after a busy offseason that already saw Calgary reshape a big chunk of its roster. Rival teams are still calling, though, and the names coming up most often are Morgan Frost and Zach Whitecloud.
David Pagnotta said the interest hasn’t gone away.
"Morgan Frost's name still out there. They have others they're willing to listen on.
There are teams interested in Whitecloud still, and so on and so on. So this is going to be an interesting summer."
For Calgary, the key point is simple: there’s no need to force anything.
The Flames have already moved on from Rasmus Andersson to the Vegas Golden Knights, MacKenzie Weegar to the Utah Mammoth, Nazem Kadri to the Colorado Avalanche, and longtime leader Blake Coleman elsewhere. In return, they’ve built up a massive pile of draft capital, including 30 selections over the coming years and two first-round picks in each of the next three drafts.
That gives Conroy plenty of room to stay patient.
Frost is one of the more intriguing pieces in the mix. The 27-year-old is in the final year of his contract after posting a career-high 22 goals and 43 points last season. He’s the kind of center teams always chase, and a productive middle-six forward on an expiring deal is exactly the sort of player that tends to pop up in trade conversations.
His name even surfaced earlier this summer among Avalanche fans as a possible target if Colorado couldn’t bring Kadri back. Once Kadri returned to Denver, that chatter faded fast.
Calgary acquired Frost from the Philadelphia Flyers with Joel Farabee during the 2024-25 season, and he’s settled into the middle six while quietly boosting his value around the league.
Whitecloud is a different kind of asset, but the appeal is just as clear. He has barely had time to get comfortable in Calgary after arriving in the Andersson deal, yet the trade talk followed him almost immediately.
The 29-year-old right-shot defenseman checks a lot of boxes for contenders. He brings a physical, steady game, can handle top-four minutes, and has a Stanley Cup ring from Vegas’ 2023 title run. On top of that, his $2.75 million cap hit runs through the 2027-28 season.
The Anaheim Ducks are among the teams showing real interest, according to The Win Column, as they look for help on the right side of their blue line after the departures of John Carlson, Jacob Trouba, and Radko Gudas.
That’s exactly why Calgary can afford to be selective. Whitecloud is affordable, experienced, and plays a premium position. Unless another club comes in with an offer that clearly beats his value, the Flames can keep him right where he is.
Jonathan Huberdeau has also popped up in trade talk from time to time this offseason, but that feels more like noise than anything else.
He carries a $10.5 million cap hit, is coming off major surgery, and still has a lot of term left on his deal. A move under those conditions would be extremely hard to pull off, which is why a trade at this stage looks highly unlikely.
With the free-agent market thinning out and more teams turning to trades to fill holes, Calgary should keep getting calls all summer long.
The difference is that Conroy doesn’t need to say yes.
The Flames have the draft picks, the flexibility, and the leverage. If another team gets desperate, Calgary is in position to take advantage. If not, they can sit tight and wait for the right deal to come along.
In Other News...
Flames Draft Future Hinges On A Scouting Problem They Still Havent Solved
The 2026 NHL Draft is already forcing teams to rethink how they sort prospects, and Calgarys amateur scouting department is feeling that pressure as much as anyone. The NCAAs decision to let Canadian major junior players compete starting in 2025-26 has changed the way talent flows between college hockey and the CHL, making it harder to compare players who are developing in very different environments and at different ages.
Flames director of amateur scouting Tod Button said the club is still working through how to evaluate that new mix fairly, which means the usual draft board logic is getting a lot more complicated. Calgary is trying to adjust its scouting and analytics process to account for players coming from the SHL, WHL, college hockey and even high school hockey, but the broader problem remains the same: the Flames still have to find a better way to measure all of those paths against one another. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Keep Sending A Clear Message About Life Behind Dustin Wolf
The Calgary Flames have been busy quietly stocking the cupboard in net, and the latest moves around the Calgary Wranglers fit the same pattern. Owen Say is back on an AHL deal, Semyon Konopsky is in on one too, and both add more depth to an organization that has made a point of building out the goalie pipeline rather than leaving the future entirely on Dustin Wolfs shoulders.
That approach has become even clearer over the past year, with management drafting three goalies since May 2023 and spreading them across different development tracks. Kirill Zarubin is staying in Russias MHL, Yegor Yegorov is headed to NCAA hockey, and Tobias Trejbal is set for UMass, giving Calgary multiple layers of long-term insurance while the present still belongs to Wolf. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Just Sparked A Goalie Debate Despite Dustin Wolf Owning Net
The Flames added another goaltending name to the pipeline in the 2026 NHL Draft, taking Tobias Trejbal in the second round even with Dustin Wolf already entrenched as the starter. It was the kind of pick that says as much about planning as it does about the player himself, with Calgary clearly looking beyond the present and into a future where netminding depth matters just as much as a proven No. 1.
Trejbal is headed to the University of Massachusetts, where the expectation is that he will take time to develop before he is anywhere near NHL-ready. For Calgary, the appeal is obvious: Wolf gives them stability now, while Trejbal gives them a possible answer later if the goalie picture shifts, which is exactly the sort of contingency teams are increasingly building into their roster plans. [Read more 🡒]