Flames stay quiet in free-agency. That should be reassuring
The Calgary Flames have a plan, and they're sticking to it.
Article content
That plan does not involve handing out long-term contracts to veterans. Not in 2023, not in 2024 and not on Tuesday, when the NHL's free-agency market officially opened for 2025.
Article content
Article content
The plan isn't simple, but it's easy enough to explain: The Flames are trying to stay in playoff contention while building through the draft. That's it. That's the plan, or the basic outline of it, at least.
Article content
Article content
They'll keep their cap flexibility until they're ready to make a move. If the right player becomes available, sure, they'll have a go, but when the Los Angeles Kings are handing out sweetheart four year deals that pay Cody Ceci US$4.5-million annually the way they did Tuesday, there just aren't that many bargain deals and short-term contracts out there.
Article content
Article content
And so, the Flames were quiet on Tuesday. They didn't go out and spend money to try to make sure they got a few lucrative playoff pay-days for ownership next spring.
They waved a grateful goodbye to backup goalie Dan Vladar, who signed with the Philadelphia Flyers. They'll need to find a replacement. Maybe that's Calgary Wranglers backstop Devin Cooley, or maybe it's Ivan Prosvetov, who they were heavily linked to on Tuesday.
Article content
Article content
Article content
That was it.
Article content
Underwhelming? Anti-climatic? Maybe, but the Flames stuck to their plan.
Article content
And even people who aren't convinced the plan will work out must at least see that having one and sticking to it is better than the alternative.
Article content
'In free-agency, there is going to come a time when we are going to go out and identify guys and get guys because we're right there,' said Flames GM Craig Conroy. 'To do it right now just for the sake of doing it, because today is free-agency, just doesn't make sense. It's not part of the plan.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
28 minutes ago
- National Post
Trump could crush Canada's softwood exports. Here's how a new crisis could play out
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade relationship has dealt with ups and downs, disputes and resolutions, for decades. Anxiety for Canadian exporters is reaching a fever pitch again as the U.S. threatens to more than double softwood lumber duties and add even steeper tariffs under a national security investigation. Article content Canadian foresters, mills, and governments that enjoy taxes, economic spinoffs and stumpage fees from Crown land will feel the pain if they lose too much access to the massive U.S. market. But larger producers have been preparing for just this kind of contingency and have cleverly hedged their bets, building capacity in the U.S., where they can sell as much as they want to Americans, tariff-free. Article content Article content Canadian firms will soon receive word from the U.S. Commerce Department's Sixth Administrative Review (AR6) of U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports, with the rate expected to jump from around 14 per cent to roughly 34 per cent. For Canfor, the Vancouver-based lumber giant selected as a mandatory respondent in the AR6 review, it will be even worse. Its duties are calculated based on its own shipments and prices, not an industry average, like it is for other companies. Article content Article content Then there's the threat of tariffs from President Donald Trump's ongoing national security investigation of Canadian lumber imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which he ordered in March and is due late this year. Currently, lumber shipments are exempted from Trump's baseline tariffs, because they're covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal (USMCA), but that could soon change based on the findings of the 232 probe. Article content Article content National Post breaks down the position of the two countries, what the impacts could be, and how Canadian producers are trying to mitigate the potential damage of punitive trade barriers. Article content Article content The U.S. Lumber Coalition is playing for keeps. It backs higher anti-dumping duties and tariffs for what it sees as a subsidized domestic industry. It claims Canadian producers don't pay market rates for stumpage because their forests are publicly owned and provincial governments set the stumpage rates, while U.S. producers face higher market rates. But it doesn't stop there: the U.S. coalition also wants to see Canada's U.S. market share significantly chopped. Article content Miller isn't shy about the goals: 'A countrywide quota with no exemptions and no carveouts, and a single-digit market share' for Canadian lumber. Article content Today, Canada has a 25 per cent market share, with exports of 12 billion feet of softwood lumber to the U.S. each year, according to the coalition. Softwood lumber accounts for about 7.5 per cent of Canadian exports; in 2023, the U.S. was the destination for 68 per cent of those forestry products. The whole industry is worth about $33.4 billion in sales annually and employs more than 200,000 workers across Canada, according to a report this year from RBC.
National Post
4 hours ago
- National Post
Toymakers, retailers brace for holiday shopping season disrupted by U.S. tariffs
With summer in full swing in the United States, retail executives are sweating a different season. It's less than 22 weeks before Christmas, a time when businesses that make and sell consumer goods usually nail down their holiday orders and prices. Article content But President Donald Trump's vacillating trade policies, part of his effort to revive the nation's diminished manufacturing base and to reduce the U.S. deficit in exported goods, have complicated those end-of-year plans. Balsam Hill, which sells artificial trees and other decorations online, expects to publish fewer and thinner holiday catalogues because the featured products keep changing with the tariff — import tax — rates the president sets, postpones and revises. Article content Article content 'The uncertainty has led us to spend all our time trying to rejigger what we're ordering, where we're bringing it in, when it's going to get here,' Mac Harman, CEO of Balsam Hill parent company Balsam Brands, said. 'We don't know which items we're going to have to put in the catalogue or not.' Article content Months of confusion over which foreign countries' products may become more expensive to import has left a question mark over the holiday shopping season. U.S. retailers often begin planning for the winter holidays in January and typically finalize the bulk of their orders by the end of June. The seesawing tariffs already have factored into their calculations. Article content Article content The consequences for consumers? Stores may not have the specific gift items customers want come November and December. Some retail suppliers and buyers scaled back their holiday lines rather than risking a hefty tax bill or expensive imports going unsold. Businesses still are setting prices but say shoppers can expect many things to cost more, though by how much depends partly on whether Trump's latest round of 'reciprocal' tariffs kicks in next month. Article content Article content The lack of clarity has been especially disruptive for the U.S. toy industry, which sources nearly 80 per cent of its products from China. American toy makers usually ramp up production in April, a process delayed until late May this year after the president put a 145 per cent tariff on Chinese goods, according to Greg Ahearn, president and CEO of the Toy Association, an industry trade group. Article content Article content The U.S. tariff rate may have dropped significantly from its spring high — a truce in the U.S.-China trade war is set to expire on Aug. 12 — but continues to shape the forthcoming holiday period. Manufacturing activity is way down from a year ago for small- and medium-sized U.S. toy companies, Ahearn said.
Globe and Mail
6 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
These Stocks Are Skyrocketing and Are Still Solid Long-Term Buys
Key Points Nvidia stock is surging following news that it can resume chip sales to China. Microsoft can benefit tremendously from artificial intelligence (AI) integration across its products. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › Great businesses pursuing massive growth opportunities will see their share prices continuously hit new highs over the long term. This is why investors shouldn't be afraid to buy quality growth stocks at a new high. What matters is understanding the momentum in the business itself, and how long that growth can last. Some analysts have questioned whether the best days of the " Magnificent Seven" are over, yet Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) continue to hit new highs following strong earnings results this year. Here's why these high-flying tech stocks are still solid buys for at least the next five years. 1. Nvidia Shares of Nvidia are sitting close to new highs after the company just received welcome news. Following a meeting between CEO Jensen Huang and President Donald Trump, the U.S. government will allow Nvidia to resume sales of its H20 chip in China, unlocking billions in quarterly revenue. That said, Nvidia would have been just fine without revenue from China. Even including the China restrictions, analysts were expecting Nvidia to report $200 billion in revenue this year, for an increase of 53% over fiscal 2025 (ending in January). But resuming sales of the H20 should cause analysts to raise their near-term revenue and earnings estimates, likely sending the stock higher. The H20 is basically a watered-down version of the company's more capable H200 data center chip. Sales to China totaled $17 billion last year, or 13% of Nvidia's revenue. The H20 generated $4.6 billion in revenue in fiscal Q1 before it had to cancel shipments due to new licensing requirements for sales to China. The $2.5 billion of revenue that Nvidia left on the table in fiscal Q1 will likely be realized in fiscal Q3, adding more upside to analysts' current $45 billion revenue estimate for fiscal Q2. Nvidia's China business could grow significantly as a percentage of its total revenue over the next year. During the last earnings call with analysts, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company had planned for $8 billion of H20 orders in fiscal Q2 before the restrictions took effect. This just adds more fuel to the fire for Nvidia's near-term momentum. Strong demand for its Blackwell chip should benefit Nvidia's margins and earnings in the second half of the year. Current analyst estimates call for quarterly adjusted non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings growth to accelerate to 47% year over year in fiscal Q2, before growing 44% in fiscal Q3, and 50% in fiscal Q4. However, these estimates likely exclude additional H20 sales, since this news just broke in the last week. While there is a lot of noise around competition with custom chipmakers, Nvidia can grow at high rates for several years. The investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure is a gigantic opportunity, large enough for multiple suppliers to do well. Nvidia is already preparing to launch the next-generation Vera Rubin chip next year, which should keep its momentum going. Looking out to fiscal 2030, analysts expect Nvidia's revenue to grow at an annualized rate of 21%, reaching $342 billion. Earnings are expected to grow slightly faster, at 23%. This lines up with Huang's expectation that Nvidia will capture a large portion of the $1 trillion in annual data center spending projected in the next four years. The stock could climb at similar rates as earnings, which makes Nvidia an excellent growth stock to buy and hold for the long term, even at its current price around $170 a share. 2. Microsoft Microsoft reported better-than-expected demand for AI services in its enterprise cloud business last quarter. As a leader in productivity software, Microsoft can benefit tremendously over the long term from AI integration across its products. It's for these reasons that the stock has skyrocketed to new highs since its fiscal Q3 earnings report in late April. Microsoft Azure is the second-leading enterprise cloud provider that continues to gain share of a growing $348 billion market, according to Synergy Research. Azure revenue grew 33% year over year last quarter, but what got investors' attention was that 16 percentage points of Azure's growth was driven by AI services. It seems every industry is embracing this revolutionary technology and doubling down on it. Microsoft sent a strong signal that the ramp in AI investment is just getting started. CEO Satya Nadella noted that the company is expanding its data center capacity, opening 10 new data centers across 10 countries. The company's AI-powered assistant, Microsoft Copilot, has attracted hundreds of thousands of corporate customers, up three times year over year in the last quarter. It is winning bigger deals for Copilot in the enterprise market, and existing customers are returning to buy more seats for their employees. Microsoft is even prepared for the next major advancement in cloud services with its range of software and development tools for quantum computing. The Azure Quantum platform has multiple leaders providing simulators and other tools for customers, including IonQ and Rigetti. Microsoft 's AI investments and leadership in software put it in a great position, which is reflected in analysts' growth estimates. Current estimates call for Microsoft to report $279 billion for fiscal 2025 ending in June, and that is expected to grow at an annualized rate of 13% over the next four years. Earnings should grow marginally faster, at a 15% annualized rate. This is enough growth to double the stock by 2029. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,056,790!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025
