Flames doing their best to deal with distractions outside of the game

The Calgary Flames made as much news off the ice as they did on it on their recent three-game road trip.

The latest came on Tuesday night when TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that forward Nazem Kadri would like to stay in Calgary but he wants no part of a rebuild.

Kadri signed a seven-year, $49 million contract to join the Flames before last season.

He says he didn’t sign on for a rebuild.

“Obviously at my age you want to win now,” the 33-year-old said.

“I came here to have an opportunity and I feel like we still do," he added.  "I feel like we’ve still got a great team.”

Kadri with a beauty spin move to get the Flames up 1-0! pic.twitter.com/68jNXIgNGs

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 15, 2023

“Obviously we should maybe have a couple of more wins than we do but at the end of the day we’re going to find a way to stack them on top of each other and find ourselves back in the playoff picture," he said.  "Of course it’s early but I haven’t lost belief in this team one bit.”

DISTRACTIONS

While Kadri hasn’t requested a trade, it's possible teammate Nikita Zadorov has.

After the Flames 5-4 shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night, it was reported on "X" that Zadorov has requested a trade.

Distractions like this are tough to deal with when you’re trying to climb back into a playoff race.

Captain Mikael Backlund says the team has already talked about players wanting out.

“We’ve dealt with it within the room and we’ve addressed what we had to address and now we’re ready to focus on hockey and just move on.”

Nikita Zadorov’s #flames teammate and captain Mikael Backlund says he found out about his trade request on Twitter. “Just like everyone else.”

— Salim Nadim Valji (@salimvalji) November 15, 2023

STICKING WITH IT

The Flames came away with three of a possible six points on their three game Eastern Canada road trip.

Head coach Ryan Huska gives his team a lot of credit for sticking to the game plan.

“We came back .500 and that’s something you always look to do,” he said.

“Now it’s up to us to make sure we build off of that.”

#Flames head coach Ryan Huska has been extremely impressed with the play of the rookies recalled from the @AHLWranglers early on this season. pic.twitter.com/i730KqHu3U

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 15, 2023

READY FOR THE CANUCKS

The Flames will once again have to put all of the distractions aside as they face one of the top teams in the league on Thursday night in the Vancouver Canucks.

Goaltender Jacob Markstrom expects it to be a tough battle.

“Good team,” he said.

“You know they’ve got a lot of skilled guys and a few guys that were there when I was there and I’ve seen it first hand what they can do.  We need a really good defensive game and offensive game to come out of this with two points.”