comes back from his hip surgery<\/a>). I don\u2019t think Mikael Backlund is going anywhere, but depending on what happens regarding trade discussions with those three aforementioned guys, you might be sitting on two or three players from that core in the lineup next year.<\/p>\nThe Flames are losing a lot of their veteran core, so it makes sense to keep at least a few of those guys around<\/p>\n
The underlying message here is that the Flames should be listening to pretty much everything on their roster, besides Zayne Parekh. It hasn\u2019t worked with this core group of players for four straight seasons, so it\u2019s time to rip off the Band-Aid and draft and develop a new core. You shouldn\u2019t be keeping guys on the roster because of their intangibles \u2013 with the exception of Lomberg. If someone comes knocking and offers you a 2nd round pick or higher for Lomberg, I think you jump on that. But I doubt that happens. He is much more valuable to the Flames organization than the 4th or 5th round pick you could get back.<\/p>\n
Lomberg brings speed and atmosphere to a group that doesn\u2019t feature much of either<\/p>\n
One other point on Lomberg \u2013 he\u2019s also the fastest Flame this year according to NHL Edge data. He ranks in the 83rd percentile for max skating speed of 36.81 km\/h. For a team that has consistently looked slow for years and has plans to get faster, maybe he can be a guy who helps in that department. He\u2019s not going to get on the scoresheet much (unless he\u2019s playing the Oilers, where he two goals in four games), but that\u2019s not what you\u2019re paying him for. He\u2019s going to defend his teammates when needed, fire his teammates up with some haymakers from time-to-time, and hype up guys from the bench. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a coincidence we saw the morale of the team increase in 2024\u201325 when he joined the locker room compared to 2023\u201324.<\/p>\n
For a guy who is the only one who can make the Scotiabank Saddledome noisy on most nights, I think the decision to give him another contract extension makes total sense. I don\u2019t see the harm in giving him another one or two-year extension at around the money he\u2019s making now. The Flames aren\u2019t hard-pressed for cap space at all, and won\u2019t be for several years. And it\u2019s not like he\u2019s a guy who is going to be blocking guys from coming into the lineup. He\u2019s playing under nine minutes a night on any given night on the fourth line. He can sub out as a 13th\/14th forward if need be. He\u2019s not there to score goals, but rather provide physicality and lighten up the mood. Every team needs a guy like this, and it makes total sense for the Flames to keep him around during this transition.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After trading Rasmus Andersson, the Flames have one remaining pending unrestricted free agent in Ryan Lomberg (Jake Bean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,4769,105,896,5,54860,4,19641,8156],"class_list":["post-452374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-calgary-flames","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-flames","tag-calgaryflames","tag-contract-extension","tag-culture","tag-flames","tag-hockey","tag-lomberg","tag-nhl","tag-re-sign","tag-ryan-lomberg"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116042049294169497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770661032_227_image.png\")
<\/p>\n