When the Flames traded Matthew Tkachuk and lost Johnny Gaudreau for nothing this past summer, GM Brad Treliving made the best of a bad situation.
He got Jonathan Huberdeau coming off a career season and locked him in long-term, he got a strong defender in MacKenzie Weegar. And he had to, because a team with a roster like this — older, not exactly overflowing with skill — the choice was either push all-in on a "win now" mode or slide into the kind of irrelevance the Flames faced in the early 2000s and mid-2010s. But now, with the mid-2020s approaching, it seems that the bad times may be coming around again.
They still have a decent enough chance to make the playoffs (30 percent or so after sweeping two non-playoff teams this weekend by too-narrow margins), but no one is going to mistake this