The Calgary Flames project to go into the 2025-26 season with a forward group very similar to last season, but persistent trade rumours surrounding defenceman Rasmus Andersson and the arrival of a handful of new defensive prospects suggest that the team’s blue line could look very different come September.
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Andersson is one of the hottest names on the trade market right now, and everything suggests that the Flames are actively shopping him. That being said, just because it’s suggested doesn’t mean it’s immediate; sometimes trade rumours will spring up in the summer, and a player won’t be traded until the deadline, if he ends up being traded at all. That could happen here. In the meantime, let’s look at some projected defensive pairs for the upcoming season, in scenarios where the Flames end up trading Andersson and ones where they don’t.
Weegar Stays Number One
Last season, Flames fans and management flip-flopped between two candidates for their true number-one defenceman. In the final battle, MacKenzie Weegar ended up narrowly winning. Weegar finished with significantly more points (47 to Andersson’s 31, although Andersson scored three more goals), in part a reward for being the quarterback for the Flames’ first power play unit; he also had more time on ice per game, running an average of 24:09 in comparison to Andersson’s 23:59.
That’s not a big difference, and allowed the two a similarly large sample size of ice-time; Weegar performed much better in every category. The two rarely played as a pair, so it’s straightforward to assume that without Andersson on the team, Weegar will perform similarly well.
As another point in Weegar’s merit, he’s capable of playing both sides. Andersson is a right-handed defenceman on a team with many, many right-handed defencemen — Weegar is too, but he played half his minutes last season on the left side to right-handed Daniil Miromanov. His other partner was the lefty Joel Hanley, who was recently re-signed to a two-year extension with an average annual value of $1.75 million. Although he was well above water with both partners, he performed better on his natural right side with Hanley; let’s pencil the two of them in as our first pair.
| Joel Hanley | MacKenzie Weegar |
| Kevin Bahl | Zayne Parekh |
| Jake Bean | Daniil Miromanov |
| Brayden Pachal, Hunter Brzustewicz |
The freeing of Andersson from the depth chart allows Flames’ brightest prospect Zayne Parekh to assume a second-pair role on the right side. Parekh is 19 and ineligible to play in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Wranglers this season, which means he has to either carve himself out a role in the NHL or head back to the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).
After dominating in the OHL for the past two years and earning himself an NHL debut in the final game of last season, it’s odds-on that Parekh will at least begin the season with the Flames. In this scenario, the trustworthy Kevin Bahl makes the most sense as his partner. Bahl is a pure shutdown defender who offers little in the way of offence, and Parekh is an extremely offensively volatile defender who is occasionally prone to rookie defensive slip-ups.
The third pair is more tentative than either of the other two. Jake Bean is the last left-handed defender left, and Miromanov is the right-hander with the most experience (and best results) compared with the other two. In this scenario, Brayden Pachal is the seventh defenceman — Hunter Brzustewicz, another prospect, is 20 and AHL eligible (although he, too, made his NHL debut last season) and would likely begin the season with the Wranglers, where he can get more playing time. Brzustewicz should be the first call-up in case of injury, even to a left-handed defenceman — Weegar would have to move to the left side in order to balance the pairings again.
Flames Are Better On Paper With Andersson
Andersson remaining in the lineup creates a different story for the Flames’ defensive pairs. While his presence might create more of a backup on the right side, it also allows Weegar to move to the left, making a right-heavy lineup into a much more balanced defensive core.
| Kevin Bahl | Rasmus Andersson |
| MacKenzie Weegar | Zayne Parekh |
| Joel Hanley | Daniil Miromanov |
| Jake Bean | Brayden Pachal |
For much of last season, except the ten combined games both were out of the lineup, Andersson and Bahl played as a pair. While Weegar beat Andersson in the ice-time rate (barely), Weegar’s various partners usually played significantly fewer minutes than he did, while Bahl and Andersson were much more closely matched. Andersson’s relative offensive strengths compared to Bahl offer a stable, if not mind-blowing, pair.
Now the third defenceman — on this chart, if nowhere else — Weegar should play with the best defender available of the Flames’ remaining depth. That defender is Parekh.
Moving Hanley down to the third pair from the first pair may seem like a bit of a head-scratcher, but it makes sense — the first pair is too high for Hanley anyway, and at his age, he would benefit from less ice time a game. Dropping him on the depth chart also means that the whole left side is now more trustworthy than it is in the scenario where Andersson is traded before the season; Bean is not as strong defensively and offers less in the way of almost everything else. Miromanov stays in that third spot, and Bean and Pachal stay the seventh and eighth defencemen.
Does This Mean the Flames Shouldn’t Trade Andersson?
The team might be better right now with Andersson on it. But that doesn’t mean it’s better in the long run. Andersson probably won’t decide to extend with Calgary after his contract expires after this season, so if the Flames can recoup assets for him now that can help them in the future, they should. Making the playoffs this season is distinctly within the realm of possibility, and Andersson helps them accomplish that, but there’s a difference between making the playoffs and being a Cup contender, and the latter is a few years away, well out of his purview.
