Flames not letting chance to compete slip away

Brad Treliving has now invested five draft picks into the Calgary's stretch run after the Flames sent three selections to the Seattle Kraken for Calle Jarnkrok.

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: They sent a second, a third, and a seventh to the Seattle Kraken, who are finally trying to cash in on some of their assets for Calle Jarnkrok, the [? boy ?] [? boy ?] Calle. Now, that's a steep price for a middle six plug-and-play guy, a second, a third, and a seventh, but what else are you to do if you're the Calgary Flames, and you look around the Western Conference, and you only see one team, maybe two, that can really hang with you, right? It's Colorado, it's Calgary, it's maybe St. Louis, and then who else really has a chance in the Western Conference?

Calgary should be aggressive. This is aggressive move, and they should be aggressive. This is a spot for them. They've got guys like Johnny Gaudreau coming up in free agency. They've got one of the best teams they've had in a long time. They've got Darryl Sutter, who's going to win the coach of the year. Literally everything is working for the Calgary Flames, too. So to let this opportunity pass would be a mistake.

So you go out and get Calle Jarnkrok. You fill a hole. You went out and got Tyler Toffoli earlier. That cost a lot as well. Five draft picks were sent out of Calgary, so a significant investment in the season, but what else are you going to do when you look around, and you think only one team could beat you?

A cool thing about Calle Jarnkrok going to Calgary is that Elias Lindholm and Jacob Markstrom, along with Calle Jarnkrok, are from a small town in Sweden, Gavle. They work out together in the summer. There's only 75,000 people from that town, three of them, at least, in the NHL, those three on the same team now.

I mean, there's a special thing, perhaps, happening in Calgary. And I think this only adds to the mystique and the togetherness and the cohesiveness and the reason why the Calgary Flames have taken a step forward, because they're not just playing for themselves, they're playing for each other. It seems pretty evident that Calgary is a unified group, and they only get stronger by adding Calle Jarnkrok, even though it was a pretty expensive deal.