TSN is reporting that Calgary Flames president of hockey operations Don Maloney stated Monday that defenseman Oliver Kylington will re-join the team next season. Maloney made the announcement this afternoon at a Flames press conference and stated that he was excited to see the Swede coming back to Alberta. The former second round pick didn’t play in Calgary this season and wasn’t with the team as he was dealing with a personal matter.
Kylington was very effective for the Flames in 2021-22 as he set career highs with nine goals and 31 points in 73 games playing alongside defensive defenseman Chris Tanev on the second pairing. His breakout season led the Flames to re-sign the Stockholm native to a two year $5MM contract extension in August 2022.
With Kylington returning it could make for an interesting shuffling of the deck chairs on the Flames back end. Calgary is just $1.25MM under the 2023-24 salary cap without accounting for Kylington’s cap hit. His return will most certainly put the Flames over the salary cap and require them to move out a player or two.
Calgary might already be interested in moving out some players given the year the team just had missing the playoffs. The Flames made huge moves last summer and was expected to compete for the Stanley Cup, but instead ending up parting ways with general manager Brad Treliving and firing head coach Darryl Sutter. The Flames have no shortage of tradeable assets and could move a couple of their pending unrestricted free agents this summer should they decide to rebuild or retool their roster.
He didn’t want to play for Sutter no more. It’s ironic he is coming back to the team the same day Sutter gets let go.
Personal issues = Sutter is an old school d*ck who has no ability to connect with this generation