Wilson: Elias Lindholm is the first domino to fall for the Calgary Flames with blockbuster trade

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When the Flames lost four of their final five games heading into the all-star break, the possibility of the club making the playoffs sank, spiking their interest in initiating the inevitable free-agent sell-off.

The only question that remained was who would get traded first.

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Elias Lindholm was roundly considered the best rental forward available, so it’s hardly a surprise that he would be the first to go before the March 8 deadline.

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What is surprising, though, is the impressive return Craig Conroy was able to extract from Patrik Alvin of the Vancouver Canucks.

In addition to a first-round pick and a conditional fourth-round pick, Calgary also garnered Andrei Kuzmenko and defensive prospects Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo.

Although the focus for most sellers at the deadline is first-round picks, the keys to this deal may well be Kuzmenko and Brzustewicz.

The former is an undrafted 27-year-old NHL sophomore who spent his formative seasons scoring in the KHL before being signed by the Canucks. He gathered an astonishing 39 goals in his rookie season last year, co-leading the team with Elias Pettersson.

This year, however, his uncanny shooting percentage fell from 27 per cent to 12 per cemt and, with it, his goal total down from 39 to just eight through 43 games. With a $5.5-million cap hit that follows through next year, Kuzmenko suddenly became a cap-dump candidate despite nearly marking 40 goals less than 12 months ago.

Kuzmenko is a somewhat-flawed, one-dimensional (but talented) offensive player. His skating isn’t very good and he probably will never replicate the 27% shooting rate that propelled his early success.

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Nevertheless, he is both a short-term, stopgap player for next year as well as a buy-low, sell-high opportunity for Calgary as they enter a rebuild.

If Ryan Huska can rehabilitate Kuzmenko’s reputation and get him back to a 20+ goal-scoring pace next season, the club may be able to “double-dip” on the Lindholm trade by flipping Kuzmenko at the deadline in 2025.

The most intriguing player in the package, though, is right-handed OHL defender Brzustewicz.

A third-round pick by Vancouver in 2023, the American-born 19-year-old is having one of the most impressive offensive seasons by a junior blueliner in recent memory. Through 47 games with the Kitchener Rangers, Brzustewicz has scored eight goals and 69 points to lead his team (and, in fact, all CHL defencemen) in scoring.

The most recent Flames defensive prospect to produce at similar level was Adam Fox, who was a better-than-point-per-game college for Harvard.

Fox famously refused to sign with the Flames and was dealt as part of the Dougie Hamilton trade that saw Lindholm and Noah Hanifin come to Calgary. Fox instantly stepped into the NHL as a top-pairing player straight out of college and has since established himself as a star in the league.

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There is no guarantee something like that will happen again, of course, but Brzustewicz instantly becomes one of Calgary’s best prospects given his level of production. He joins other defensive puck movers Jeremie Poirier and Etienne Morin in the Flames system as the organization begins to stockpile future assets during this transitional period.

The opportunity to move Kuzmenko next year means the team could extract up to three premium assets from the Lindholm rental when you count Brzustewicz and Vancouver’s first-rounder.

Perhaps more importantly, moving early on the trade deadline has allowed the Flames to get ahead of the frenzy and set the market.

Rather than reacting late in the season and then scrambling to simultaneously parlay all of his trade assets at once, Conroy’s early strike will help to unfreeze the trade gridlock while giving him the better part of a month to establish a competitive auction for guys like Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin, and (maybe) Jacob Markstrom.

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Vancouver aggressively striking the first blow amongst the ambitious Cup contenders could increase the perceived urgency to improve. And the Flames still possess some of the top trade targets in the league, with plenty of time and opportunity to maximize the return for each.

Calgary’s playoff aspirations for this season may be gone, but the Lindholm trade indicates the team is not shy about leveraging their pending free agents.

It remains to be seen if Conroy can duplicate this level of return before the deadline, but this initial effort should give fans hope the Flames will enter the off-season with a bevy of new future assets and a fresh path charted for the organization

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