Flames' roster

This offseason, Calgary was a bit disappoionted to see many UFAs that we were interested in, signed mostly elsewhere. Only big fish that we catch is Tomas Plekanec. In him, we bring leadership and experience and great skills for our penalty kills. The other signatures were to complete AHL roster since we have some players that decided to retire or play in the KHL and in Europe.

Since we didn't sign anything for our top 6, we made few trades that considerably powered up our offense. We brought big names such as Anze Kopitar, Mike Hoffman, James Neal in exchange of great defensive players, young rising defenseman Samuel Girard, young sniper Rudolfs Balcers that has a chance to break Ottawa's roster IRL this year and a couple picks for the next draft and in 2020. We also lock up our back up position with Antti Niemi to make the ANTTI duo in the net.

Even if the pre-season isn't over, Calgary Flames has already made up his mind. So here's the roster for the 2018-2019 season:

Forwards

1st Line: Yanni Gourde - Anze Kopitar - James Neal

2nd Line: Mike Hoffman - Evgeny Kutznetsov - Wayne Simmonds

3rd Line: Alex Killhorn - Jordan Staal - Justin Williams

4th Line: Melker Karlsson - Tomas Plekanec - Kyle Okposo

Extra forwards: Tomas Tatar

Defense

1st Pair: P.K. Subban - John Carlson

2nd Pair: Jake Gardiner - Luke Schenn

3rd Pair: Connor Murphy - Clayton Stoner

Goaltenders

Antti Raanta - Antti Niemi

We think that we put a strong and competitive roster on sheet. Now, the players need to avenge the fact that we were not part of the playoffs last year for the first time since GM Michaud is with the team.

Justin Williams will wear the (C) again this year and will be assisted (A) by Tomas Plekanec and Jordan Staal

See you soon on the ice!