Last week, Calgary Flames president Don Maloney gave a pair of shocking interviews. The front office veteran pushed a shameless sales pitch on the league’s 31st-ranked team, shot down the idea of drafting elite talent, and called valuable but aging assets untouchable. In the days following the disastrous interviews, Calgary media rushed to defend the Flames president, suggesting that fans don’t understand how an NHL team operates and that the interviews were just a smokescreen to increase trade value.

Once again, the Flames seem to operate in a fantasy land while other NHL teams go about their business.

Are the Flames really creating a smokescreen?

One of the most common terms we tend to hear around Calgary when ownership and management refuse to admit they’re rebuilding is “smokescreen”. It seems to be the media’s go-to when they need to defend an organization that refuses to choose the correct path towards success. This was once again front and centre following Maloney’s interviews last week.

The Flames president refused to admit that the team wasn’t in a good spot and continued to push the idea that they were a playoff team. Maloney even suggested the team’s veterans were untouchable and not up for grabs in a trade. As mentioned, the media was quick to push the idea that no one should be surprised by Maloney’s words, and this was all part of a bargaining tactic to increase trade value for the teams’ key veterans.

“What did you expect him to say? He reiterated what we already knew, that the brass at the Saddledome believed this bunch would compete for a playoff berth. While many fans would have been delighted to hear Maloney hint that a total teardown was coming, remember it doesn’t do the Flames any good to be publicly writing off their current crew with 60 games to go.

What’s important is what Maloney, Craig Conroy & Co. are saying behind the scenes, and what they’re telling rival execs when the phone rings.”

-Wes Gilbertston for Calgary Herald

The quote above ignores the reason for fans’ outrage and instead seeks to conjure up reasons to support the organization. “It’s the fans who are wrong, not Maloney,” reads the above quote. Why would fans of a team that hasn’t made a conference final in 21 years believe they are doing the right thing behind the scenes when they’re saying the wrong things publicly?

Calgary operates in a fantasy land

How come it seems to be only in Calgary that you’re not allowed to say you’re rebuilding or selling publicly, and that you can never admit you’re not a great hockey team? The media would love for fans to believe the Flames are secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes and manipulating the trade market to boost the trade value for their veteran players.

Why would fans believe this to be the case when it’s never been how the organization operates? Does the organization and its media arm think fans will just buy anything they sell? This is a team that begged and pleaded for veterans like Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm to stay in town. An organization that held onto Jarome Iginla for two years longer than they should’ve and ended up trading the greatest Flame in history for peanuts, all to avoid the dreaded rebuild.

Yet we’re supposed to believe the Flames are putting on some elaborate smokescreen to distract other teams and gain bargaining power in trade talks? It’s tough to believe that’s the case. Case in point, the league’s most connected insider reported that whatever Maloney is saying publicly is what the ownership group in Calgary is also thinking.

“Would it be foolish to think that in reading in listening to the things Don Maloney had to say over the past week that they would not echo similar feelings to how ownership feels about all of this?

Don Maloney is at all the board of governors meetings with Murray Edwards. Like he knows exactly what they think.”

Publicly stating their intent to stick with the current core

Just a smokescreen, though, right? For months, the insiders around the NHL have stated the organization is reluctant to rebuild. Darren Dreger even reported Flames owner Murray Edwards had no interest in trading Nazem Kadri. Maloney then echoed this exact statement a couple of weeks later in his public interview, stating the NHL veteran was untouchable. And yet, the media in Calgary tries to push the idea that fans don’t understand how an NHL team operates, and of course, they’d never admit they’re selling.

Well, it’s not just the insiders saying it anymore; it’s the President himself. Are we as fans supposed to believe everyone from Dreger to Maloney himself is lying just to increase Kadri’s trade value? No one is buying it.

The rest of the NHL knows when to sell

So, we’ve established that the media wants us to believe the Flames are simply operating as all teams do, and no team would ever disclose that they are open to a rebuild and fire sale.

Chris Johnston on TCJS: “The Predators have made it known they are open for business…I think they are anxious to start selling soon”

— NHL Watcher (@NHL_Watcher) November 20, 2025

Oops! While the media suggests you’re crazy to think an NHL team would openly admit they’re a seller, fellow bottom feeders like the Nashville Predators and the Vancouver Canucks do just that and admit that they’re open for business.

Teams have written full-on letters to their fan bases, admitting that they’re rebuilding and entering a transitional period. There are obvious rebuilders and sellers every single season in the NHL. Do you think the 2022–23 Chicago Blackhawks were secretly selling and not telling anyone? Or that the 2023–24 San Jose Sharks kept their true intentions under wraps? Did the 2015–16 Toronto Maple Leafs tell everyone they’re a playoff team and have zero interest in drafting Auston Matthews, to increase the trade value of their veterans? They didn’t, because it’s not how NHL teams operate.

A complete lack of accountability

The Flames have been plagued for decades by a poor ownership that values nothing but the bottom line, and a media base that enables their every move. Despite what we’ve been told over the past week, the reality is the Flames aren’t selling, and they never will be. It just isn’t how they operate.

The media will try to push the narrative that the Flames are operating with some grand, genius trade tactic in mind. In reality, they continue to deflect negative attention from the organization and attempt to make it seem like fans just don’t understand how NHL teams operate.

Maloney’s interview and the media shield that followed once again underscored the clear indication that things run differently in Calgary than the rest of the NHL. Despite the media’s best efforts to suggest otherwise, they aren’t fooling anyone.

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