Friends, we’re less than three weeks from the NHL’s annual trade deadline. As we approach, the Calgary Flames are attempting to balance a few different needs. Most prominently, they would really like to make the playoff – in both the NHL and the American Hockey League – while juggling some expiring contracts at the NHL level.
As such, the Flames have a few different plates they’re trying to keep spinning.
Here’s roughly where the NHL and AHL clubs sit relative to their respective playoff races:
The Flames have an uphill battle to claw their way in. The Wranglers merely need to maintain a steady pace to qualify.
So with the NHL and AHL races in mind, here are the rules the Flames and Wranglers need to work within:
The other factor the Flames would need to try to balance is, of course, waivers. Of the 23 players on the active roster (as of Monday morning), the vast majority would require waivers to go to the AHL. Exempt all season are Connor Zary and Jakob Pelletier. Players who have cleared waivers and are within their 30-days (on NHL roster) exemption window after clearing are Kevin Rooney, Walker Duehr and Dryden Hunt. However, unless they’re sent down to the AHL between now and the trade deadline, Rooney and Duehr will both be waiver eligible again by March 8. (Hunt will remain exempt.)
If it were up to us – and it’s not, mind you – we’d probably keep Zary on the NHL roster and float Pelletier down and back from the AHL. And the reasoning is pretty simple: Zary has established himself as an NHL player, while Pelletier has not (yet).
Zary’s carved out a really good niche for himself in the Flames’ top nine and, to be quite honest, has played enough and played well enough that he’s probably earned some time off whenever the Flames’ season ends. Heck, there’s a decent chance that Zary shows up on a few Calder Trophy ballots and he could potentially be on the year-end All-Rookie Team. Given all of that, a good argument could be made that he’s outgrown the AHL and shouldn’t go back.
Pelletier, meanwhile, is a good player who needs to keep playing games in order to keep pushing for a regular NHL role. He was injured in the pre-season and didn’t play his first game this season until late January. Between the Flames and the Wranglers, he’s played eight games so far. (Zary, on the other hand, has played 51.) If the point of the AHL is to help develop prospects into NHL players, there’s still runway this season to use the Wranglers to help Pelletier (and use Pelletier to help them).
Beyond Pelletier, perhaps maybe sneaking Dryden Hunt down and back to keep him eligible for the AHL’s playoffs, we’re not anticipating a whole lot of recall or waiver shenanigans between now and when it’s pencils down at 1 p.m. MT on March 8.
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