Lindholm traded to Canucks by Flames for Kuzmenko

Elias Lindholm was traded to the Vancouver Canucks by the Calgary Flames for Andrei Kuzmenko on Wednesday.

Calgary also received Vancouver’s first-round pick and a conditional fourth-round selection in the 2024 NHL Draft, and defenseman prospects Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo.

Lindholm had 32 points (nine goals, 23 assists) in 49 games for the Flames this season, his sixth with Calgary. He’ll become the sixth Vancouver player at the 2024 Honda (U.S.)/Rogers (Canada) NHL All-Star Game in Toronto on Saturday (3 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, CBC, TVAS), joining forwards Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson, defenseman Quinn Hughes, and goalie Thatcher Demko. It will be the first All-Star Game for Lindholm.

The 29-year-old center has 545 points (212 goals, 333 assists) in 792 regular-season games with the Flames and Carolina Hurricanes, and 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in 27 Stanley Cup Playoff games.

Lindholm, who can become an unrestricted free agent after this season, was selected by the Hurricanes with the No. 5 pick in the 2013 NHL Draft.

“Obviously I’ve been communicating with teams all year, but probably after Saturday morning, I talked to Patrik and they came with an offer,” Calgary general manager Craig Conroy said. “I think I talked to a lot of teams and it was more, ‘What are you looking for?’ and ‘What are you thinking about?’ conversations. They threw a real offer at me, and I circled back with all the other teams just to kind of work through to see where we were at.

“[We] went back to Vancouver, we added things. We went back and forth, the negotiation process, trying to get more to see what deal worked for both sides. Probably today we got right down to the end. I circled back with all the other teams and they put their best offers forward, and this deal just made the most sense to me.”