What is the future of the Flames’ defence?

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.

On the other hand, that means the Flames are going to have to make some tough decisions to fill out the bottom half of their…