Calgary Flames Are Retooling Instead of Rebuilding

Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio Morning Skate with Scoutt Laughlin and Gord Stellick on Monday. He was asked what if the Calgary Flames could keep this up and said the Flames are trying to retool on the fly not fully rebuild.

NHLRumors.com Transcriptions

How Deep Should the Calgary Flames Rebuild Go?

Scott Laughlin: “We talk about the 3-0 team too, the one that beat Edmonton last night, the first edition of the Battle of Alberta. The Calgary Flames are 3-0, Dave. And that surprises I think a lot of people. Jonathan Huberdeau does have a little bit of a resurgence here to start.

MacKenzie Weegar, of course, on the present. And he has let it be known. Look, I don’t want to leave here. I want to be a part of the solution to get this team back to the playoffs and to keep this franchise afloat, so to speak, in terms of annual playoff conversations.

What have you made of Calgary? And deep down, is it still just a question of goaltending, like, if they get Vladar and or Dustin Wolf to supply it, maybe this Calgary team can stick around a lot longer than anybody could have anticipated.”

NHL Rumors: The Calgary Flames are Still Open for Business

Dave Pagnotta: “Yes, it’s entirely possible. I mean they certainly I think going into the season this team needs a lot of things to go right for them throughout the year, and  for those rights to be consistent throughout the board. So you’re right, you need, you need to have stable goaltending. Need to have continued performances by guys like Huberdeau and Kuzmenko got in the board, Mantha’s had a solid, very solid start in his first three games.

You know, Weegar. They had, they had teams inquire about Weegar for a good chunk of, at least the beginning part of the off of the offseason. Now a lot of teams that were knocking on the door, St Louis, a few others that were trying to get their hands on him. Craig Conway wasn’t just willing to give him away, clearly, and he’s rebounding.

What Mode Are the Calgary Flames in a Rebuild or Retool?

He was you’re right, he said, If he wants to turn this around, they don’t want to go through a full-on rebuild. They want to go through moderate retool on the fly, so to speak. And they at least for now, this is, this is good to see it even for Huberdeau.

It’s been a rough couple of seasons after he got traded from from Florida to Calgary. It’s nice to see him get off to a hot start, just regain a little bit of confidence out of the gate. But there’s certainly talent here. It’s just a matter of how consistent is this talent ultimately going to be down the stretch.

I’m not anticipating this type of performance in the first start of the season. Forget about the win, just the overall performance to remain throughout the year. But how close can they keep it at that level to keep the season going.”