The Calgary Flames’ defence has been a problem all season long – and swapping out Dennis Wideman and Jyrki Jokipakka for Michael Stone and Matt Bartkowski isn’t really a meaningful upgrade. (It’s actually debatable whether you could even call it an upgrade to begin with.)
We all know their top end is great; the only fault you can find in Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, and Dougie Hamilton is that Giordano is on the wrong side of 30. So it’s also a good thing that those three are the only defencemen the Flames have meaningful money committed towards beyond this season.