Draft capital and salary cap space is king for the Calgary Flames going forward. While copious cap space is not a luxury they yet have, the Flames have been adding draft picks in their deals since Craig Conroy took over last summer. Thanks to the pair of swaps with the Vancouver Canucks which sent defenceman Nikita Zadorov and centre Elias Lindholm to the West Coast, the Flames have added a few much-needed choices for the coming 2024 draft. More could be on the way, too, with Chris Tanev likely to be out the door, plus the clock ticking on Noah Hanifin to be re-signed, by the March 8 trade deadline. The wheeling and dealing will continue in earnest in some manner. Will the Flames use all their picks for draft selections in June? Maybe not. Remember how the Canucks last year nabbed a first-round pick by dealing Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders and used it to grab key defenceman Filip Hronek from the Detroit Red Wings? With the biggest quest now to find a potential top-line centre, the Flames have draft capital to use. With that in mind, here is a look at what picks the Flames hold in the 2024 draft, as of now: First-round fun For starters, should Calgary’s own first-round selection end up between 20th and 32nd, the Montreal Canadiens have the option to claim it as part of the Sean Monahan trade. That is not likely to be the case. In fact, the Flames appear headed toward being in the draft lottery. The Calgary Flames made big moves well ahead of the NHL trade deadline, and more are likely be coming Calgary also owns Vancouver’s pick from the Lindholm trade, with no conditions. Likely it will be among the final picks of the round, but where that ends up remains to be seen, depending on where the Canucks finish in the standings and how far they go in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Calgary also currently owns its second-, third- and fourth-round picks. Conditional-pick chaos Here is where things also become a little wild. Calgary also owns a conditional fourth-round pick from the Canucks from the Lindholm deal, which would be the earlier of Vancouver’s or the selection acquired by the Canucks from the New Jersey Devils. However, if the Canucks reach this year’s conference final and Lindholm plays at least half of those playoff games, it becomes Vancouver’s third-round pick, and gives Calgary five picks in the first 100 selections. The Flames will also receive a fifth-round pick from the Canucks from the Zadorov deal, which could either be Chicago’s or Calgary’s — which was dealt away to the Blackhawks for Ryan Carpenter two seasons ago. The Blackhawks must give the Canucks the best of their fifth-rounders, which Vancouver is flipping to Calgary. Barring the Flames dropping below the Blackhawks in the standings, expect this selection to be Chicago’s. The Flames also own their own sixth-round pick, but not a seventh-rounder, having dealt that away to the Seattle Kraken in the deal that brought Calle Jarnkrok to the Flames for an ineffective stint in the final stretch of the 2021-22 season and playoffs.
