As the calendar flips over into Canada Day, the free agency courting period turns into the free agency signing period players are beginning to make decisions. The Calgary Flames have reportedly come to terms with two forwards this evening. Per Sportsnet‘s Elliotte Friedman, the Flames have inked center Derek Ryan to a three-year contract and winger Austin Czarnik to a two-year contract.
Cap hits for the two deals aren’t currently available, which makes it a bit of a challenge to judge the moves as of yet.
Word is CAL closing in on Derek Ryan (three-year deal) and Austin Czarnik (two-year deal)
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 1, 2018
In terms of fit, though, it’s hard to argue against either move.
Ryan, 31, broke into the NHL in Carolina under Bill Peters and it’s hard to argue against the fit. He’s a right shot center, something the Flames do not have, and effectively replaces Nick Shore (who replaced Matt Stajan briefly) as the fourth line pivot. A three-year deal brings him until he’s 34. Bob Stauffer tweeted that the cap hit is north of $3 million, but TSN’s Frank Seravalli noted that Ryan left money on the table – it’s a very thin free agent class at center.
Czarnik, 25, is a right-shot winger who broke into the NHL with the Boston Bruins but hasn’t really cemented himself as a regular yet. He had 17 points in 59 NHL games, but at the very least has established himself as a very good AHLer with 155 points over 157 AHL games. We don’t even have idle media speculation about cap hits for him yet.
Update: Cap hits!
Hearing Ryan deal is approx 3×3.125 and Czarnik 2×1.25 in CAL; word out of VAN is Beagle is 4×3 and Roussel 4×3.25
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 1, 2018
The Flames needed right-shot forward options. Lads and ladies, Brad Treliving has seemingly found right-shot forward options.
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Peters influence: Lindholm, Hanifin, Ryan
Gulutzan’s influence: Bartkowski, Vey, Glass
Clear difference. I don’t mind these recent acquisitions, they fill needs.
Don’t forget mason raymond and his buddy Brouwer .
Raymond was signed and gone before gg was here.
Austin Czarnik.
5 foot 9.
160.
Must be the Reaves backup plan….
WW
Happy we didn’t go for him. Mcphee saved us from ourselves. 2.8 million for a guy who doesn’t produce anything point wise and has a “physical presence”. NHL is moving away from that anyway, and we don’t need anymore plugs in our lineup anyway.
George McPhee must be some kinda stoopid. What’s he ever done recently?? An 11-1 cheers/trash ratio. You guys slay me sometimes.
Seven points made in your post, disagree with all of them. Not being combative, others seem to agree with you. In the box thinking is a beautiful thing.
Fleury wasn’t bigger and would have taken Reaves … and gone for a victory slide.
Lomberg would fight Reaves just to tell his grandkids one day. He’d be smiling during the fight, and smiling retelling the story.
Or the Phillips development plan.
Ryan Reaves would have help out swimmingly in year 2 of his contract if Phillips ever makes the show.
#couldahadreaves
Stajan becomes Ryan? I’ll take it!!
And I know I don’t like raiding an old coach’s team for players but dammit… it looks all right this time.
(Don’t get hyped, don’t get hyped, remember what happened last year…)
Yup; last year we had a horrendous coach…..
WW
Jury is still out on Peters.
Peters will get consideration for coach of the year.
Happy Canada Day to my friends in the great white north! The Flames clearly needed a shake up and Tre has informally said he questioned the character on the team, so the changes were necessary. I’m looking forward to seeing a quicker, higher skilled, albeit smaller team.
Thanks MontanaMan.
Agree with what you wrote about the team as well.
I like the right handed shots but 3 years for Derek Ryan north of $3million for a 4th line C seems like an overpayment. Older than Shore younger than Stajan but provide much more offense. I’m more intrigued by 25 year old Czarnik. Austin scored 25 goals in 69 games with Providence. Maybe he didn’t enough of an opportunity in Beantown.
He’s not going to be a fourth liner. Either a 3rd line center of 3rd line RW with that kind of money…
Tell that to Brouwer .
31 teams all got 4 mil extra to slosh around. Thats 124 million extra. All todays contracts will be inflated. Thankfully Calgary is not “in on” guys like Van Reimsdyk or Neal. Those will be silly deals but teams like the Islanders will need to overpay just to get to the floor if they loose Tavares.
This. Fans have to stop expecting to get quality bottom 6 players for cheap 1M AAV. Those days are gone, and you really do get what you pay for. Every one was complaining about lack of quality players in the bottom 6, and now that the team got them, every one is complaining about the cap hit. You can’t have it both ways.
Yessum. Treliving knows how to manage a cap, he’s getting good at it. Except for one tiny, massive, hiccup. Not talking Troy Brouwer either.
You can get good bottom six players for cheap by drafting them and develop them yourself.
Nothing official yet. He may not be north of 3 mill
God I hope he isn’t north of 3 at 3 years.
Well, this id the guy a lot of us wanted (Ryan). $3.125 X 3 is a bit more than we wanted to spend, but it’s July 1…it is absolutely no shock that the dollars and term are just a little more than hoped for. Congrats to Ryan, you’ve set up a financial future for your family.
How about that JVR contract with Philadelphia? $7million X 5. That one is going to hurt. Comparing that to Ryan…Tre did pretty good.
Free agents get more money than they are worth that is just the way it is at least it doesn’t cost assets.
JVR had one less goal than Tavares last season there is some value there. Over 3 million for a guy that turns 32 and is at best a third liner, this is a lot like the Brouwer contract. Not sure raiding players from a losing organization is the way to go.
Tell me how paying JVR a second overall pick who has had 3 20 goal seasons and 2 30 goal seasons at $7 million is going to hurt a team when he’s 28 years old?
Frankly that’s only $3.5 more than what we got Ryan and mr 5.9 for. And frankly trade Stone and it pays for itself.
JVR is maybe $1 million a year over paid but getting him for nothing more than justifies that.
JVR played what, 3rd line in TO? That plus PP.
$7 million is first line dollars in CGY.
I believe that Philadelphia will soon regret this signing.
You believe otherwise.
Time will tell.
I’d want Ryan as 3RW
Benett-Janko-Ryan is pretty decent
I think Bennett gets bumped up to the 2nd line and Frolik to the third. Otherwise, totally agree with you here.
who’s the 4c?
I’d still go after Shore tbh
Dube/Lazar, with Hathaway and Klimchuk/Mangiapanne
Ryan puts up decent points considering he plays a bottom six role but more complementary to the Flames will be his right shot and ability to win a FO on a consistent basis. Treliving probably overpayed but it’s that time of year.
This forward group is really very very really very small.
Whoa, settle down, Monahan, Jankowski, Brouwer, Bennett, Tkachuk, Lindholm, Hathaway, Lazar all over 6′ and Backlund and Frolik are 6 even. Its a couple of guys and 1 of them small guys is a top 10 scorer so the team isn’t that smal!
Size is not end all be all. Look at TB, the have Palat, Point, Johnson, Kuch and more. If they can play hockey, and if they play hockey well, I don’t care if theyre midgets
TB lost to a bigger, harder hitting team, one that also had talent.
And Winnipeg lost to a smaller team… point is, the game is changing. But in the end, you need a blend.
I can live with Ryan
but
I still want Duclair
Czernick could be really good on a low 2 way contract.
We now have 7 centres making up our forward group lol
Lindholm…
Kind of nonsense. They are working to utilize everything they have as insight, as a management team, which I like. You could just as easily infer Ward was the final insight needed on Dougie Hamilton, since he coached DH in Boston before he got traded the first time.
Well at least we can dress Prout against the Oilers and Lucic. Both Prout and Lucic will be behind the play due to foot speed so at least we get a fight. And now Tree will demand Peters dresses Prout for Vegas. I’d bonus Prout for every punch he lands on Reaves.
I’d take Prout as an extra forward over Brouwer. At least Prout brings one skill set to the table
And one of those players makes 5 mill more
You could dress 7 defensemen in those games…
With $20m+ on the table BT has plenty of room to get his own business done and still add another body or two later in the summer. Happy Canada Day.
Agreed. A player who should get 2 mil and 2 years will today get 3 mil and 3 years. It’s fine and good for the 28-34 year old who scores a bonus. Sometimes it even works out well. Remember the moaning and groaning when Calgary signed Engelland for 2.9 and 3 years? Lots of fans wish we still had him. As long as you stay out of the 5-6-7 year high buck stuff today. Trade for that if you need “Star Power”.