What’s left for the Flames this season?

With the Calgary Flames all but mathematically eliminated from the post-season, the team won’t have to worry about wins and losses down the stretch. Instead, the organization will have some other priorities to focus on as the rebuild deepens.

Here’s what to watch for after the Olympic break if you’re a Flames fan…

Who else gets traded?

The Rasmus Andersson deal will likely be the biggest trade Craig Conroy pulls off this year, but it’s unlikely to be the only one.

Nazem Kadri remains a player of interest around the league, despite his scoring touch drying up for the better part of a month. With Calgary moving deeper into rebuild territory, the 35-year-old may want to be traded to a contender so he can have one more shot at the cup.

Kadri’s $7 million per year cap hit runs through the end of 2029 and that will be the main obstacle for any interested trade partner. The Flames will no doubt have to retain on his salary to get something done.

Blake Coleman and Zach Whitecloud will also be highly coveted at the trade deadline. Both guys are battle-tested veterans with Stanley Cup experience. In Coleman’s case, the 34-year old was putting together a Selke-calibre season for the Flames next to Mikael Backlund before going down with injury.

Whitecloud is a guy who can play up and down the rotation. The right-handed 29-year-old could be considered one of the best defenders available by the time March 7 rolls around.

Both players have term left on their deals and the organization no doubt likes having them in the dressing room. That means it will take a very strong offer to get the club to part with either (or both).

If the front office chooses not to make another big splash, Calgary will still likely make at least another small move, if only to clear up the logjam on the back-end.

One of Pachal or Hanley should be moved out at the deadline to make room for Zayne Parekh (who cannot be sent down to the farm or the OHL at this point). The Flames may also opt to shop pending unrestricted free agents role players Justin Kirkland, Ryan Lomberg, or Daniil Miromanov.

Play the kids

With another Cinderella dash to the playoffs off the table, development and information gathering should take centre stage on the ice. Especially if a few more bodies get moved out.

Aside from guys like Parekh, Hunter Brzustewicz, Yan Kuznetsov, and Matvei Gridin, who will almost certainly continue to get reps in the show, Calgary has elder prospects like Rory Kerins and William Stromgren over-ripening with the Wranglers.

Kerins leads the team in scoring for a second straight year and turns 24 in April. He has had a few cups of coffee in the NHL, but nothing sustained enough to get a real read on the player. Stromgren was recently called up for a three-game stint, but was only used sparingly for about eight minutes a night before being demoted. He turns 23 in June.

Neither guy is a guarantee to be a legit NHLer, but both are at the point in their careers where the organization needs to understand what they have in each. The team needs prospects to start progressing up or out as new waves of kids from the last couple of drafts start turning pro, so they might as well give them some big league reps.

This will also be an opportunity to give more ice time and responsibility to the under-23’s like Parekh, Gridin, and Brzustewicz. Rookie mistakes won’t matter much through the rest of the year, so the risk in playing them more is negligible. The upside is real time development at the NHL level when the stakes are low for players who could become mainstays of the next era.

Prepare for the draft

Calgary is no doubt going to pick in the top-10 in June, if not the top 5. While a top-2 pick will give them a shot at a potential superstar forward (one of Ivar Stenberg or Gavin McKenna), the choices after that are more complicated.

The top 10 this year is cluttered with a bunch of high-end defenders, including Keaton Verhoeff, Chase Reid, Albert Smits, Daxon Rudolph, Ryan Lin, and Carson Carels. Many of the forwards (after the top two guys mentioned) are more of the “strong two way” variety, including Tynan Lawrence and Caleb Malhotra.

Meaning, if the Flames don’t get a chance at Stenberg or McKenna, it’s likely the best player available will be a defenseman. Unfortunately, the blueline is where the team is relatively strong. Instead, it might be tempting to pick a center like Lawrence or Malhotra, since that is an area of desperate need internally.

Calgary won’t be battling for a playoff spot after the break. And losses will be more useful than wins in the short term. But they still have some attractive trade assets to offer and more than a few kids to both develop (and assess) before the regular season ends.