What We Learned: Is the writing on the wall for the Calgary Flames?

When the Flames traded Matthew Tkachuk and lost Johnny Gaudreau for nothing this past summer, GM Brad Treliving made the best of a bad situation.

He got Jonathan Huberdeau coming off a career season and locked him in long-term, he got a strong defender in MacKenzie Weegar. And he had to, because a team with a roster like this — older, not exactly overflowing with skill — the choice was either push all-in on a "win now" mode or slide into the kind of irrelevance the Flames faced in the early 2000s and mid-2010s. But now, with the mid-2020s approaching, it seems that the bad times may be coming around again.

They still have a decent enough chance to make the playoffs (30 percent or so after sweeping two non-playoff teams this weekend by too-narrow margins), but no one is going to mistake this