Dark horses to get Hoffman? No, no they are not. The only way they are dark horses is if they move Gaudreau for pure futures, even then they wont waste cap on him.

As a Flames fan, I'd rather have Lucic and Ryan over Hoffman. The former two are solid bottom six players at 5 on 5 while contributing to special teams; they are also not liabilities when not scoring. Hoffman on the other hand, is essentially a PP specialist that won't see top PP time in Calgary and is a liability 5 on 5 and him on our shutdown line would render them useless defensively.

A team with Sean Monahan as the 1C will never be a true contender

dude cmon. Lucic is one of the worst contracts in the NHL. Hoffman is a 30+ goal guy. Signing Hoffman to a 1 year 5 million deal is a million times better than having Lucic and Ryan. Lucic has negative value and Ryan is pretty worthless. You cant seriously sit here and tell me either of those players are better than Hoffman, then include lucic's horrible contract and Hoffman on a 1 year deal. its not even close

Spoken like someone that doesn't know a thing about the players in question.

You citing Ryan is worthless shows nothing but your ignorance as he is a top end PKer, elite faceoff man and good for 35 points while driving his line, creating energy and being reliable defensively.

Lucic's contract is not great, but with Edmonton paying 12.5% of his cap hit and having already paid the bulk of his contract; the amount of real dollars we are actually paying Lucic isn't much an overpayment, not worth giving up a 1st and a decent prospect to give up. Lucic has been quite good for the Flames, contrary to what people like you want to believe.

Hoffman might score 30 goals on a team like Florida, but on the Flames he would be on the 2nd PP unit and thus his goal production would drop.

So I stand by my point that Hoffman (at 20-25 goals) is not worth losing one of our best PKers and getting easier to play against.

Spoken like someone that doesn't know a thing about the players in question.

You citing Ryan is worthless shows nothing but your ignorance as he is a top end PKer, elite faceoff man and good for 35 points while driving his line, creating energy and being reliable defensively.

Lucic's contract is not great, but with Edmonton paying 12.5% of his cap hit and having already paid the bulk of his contract; the amount of real dollars we are actually paying Lucic isn't much an overpayment, not worth giving up a 1st and a decent prospect to give up. Lucic has been quite good for the Flames, contrary to what people like you want to believe.

Hoffman might score 30 goals on a team like Florida, but on the Flames he would be on the 2nd PP unit and thus his goal production would drop.

So I stand by my point that Hoffman (at 20-25 goals) is not worth losing one of our best PKers and getting easier to play against.

spoken like someone who just reads analytic charts all day and doesn't actually watch hockey.

Ryan may be a solid 3rd liner, but with a flat cap, no team would be paying more than a mid round pick for his services. He may be a solid player, but in terms of trade value, he has little at the moment. A team desperate for a 3rd line centre could sign Haula or Soderberg for less.

Lucic is awful. please do not defend him. He is a massive overpayment even with retention. He had a couple could playoff games sure, but in reality, he is a 4th line player making 5.25 million. In a flat cap world, he has very negative value. In order to dump him it would cost MORE than a first round pick. Lucic hasn't been good for the flames. he hasn't been good since 2016/17. he has a combined 24 goals over the last 3 seasons. That contract is immovable without sending significant pieces the other way.

Hoffman at 25 goals is still infinitely better than Lucic and Ryan. This makes the flames clear cut better. Just dumping Lucic period, makes this team better.

I haven't looked at an analytics chart in my life.

Ryan is worth more to the Flames than other teams, his trade value is irrelevant because we don't want to trade him because he makes this team better. Each of the past two years his line has been one of our best down the stretch.

If you think Lucic was terrible, you obviously never watched him as a Flame. He's not what he was but he doesn't hurt the team defensively, he makes smart plays with the puck, has been great in the room and been a solid net front presence on our 2nd PK unit. No, he's not worth his contract, but he helps the team enough that giving up a 1st plus to dump him is not worth it.

But you know what? It's all moot, Lucic would never waive his NMC to go to a tire fire like Ottawa.

I haven't looked at an analytics chart in my life.

Ryan is worth more to the Flames than other teams, his trade value is irrelevant because we don't want to trade him because he makes this team better. Each of the past two years his line has been one of our best down the stretch.

If you think Lucic was terrible, you obviously never watched him as a Flame. He's not what he was but he doesn't hurt the team defensively, he makes smart plays with the puck, has been great in the room and been a solid net front presence on our 2nd PK unit. No, he's not worth his contract, but he helps the team enough that giving up a 1st plus to dump him is not worth it.

But you know what? It's all moot, Lucic would never waive his NMC to go to a tire fire like Ottawa.