5 Calgary Flames players featured on ESPN’s trade tiers

We’re in the National Hockey League’s annual holiday trade freeze, friends, designed so that players’ Christmas dinners aren’t interrupted by them getting traded to Buffalo or Winnipeg. The freeze offers a bit of time to ruminate on potential future trades for some of our media friends.

Over at ESPN, our pal Greg Wyshynski offered up his first stab at looking at the league-wide trade tiers. And it’s no shock to learn that five Flames players are on his list.

Three of the six players in the “Elite pending free agent Tier” are Flames: Noah Hanifin, Chris Tanev and Elias Lindholm. We’ve discussed this before – and we will again in the future – but all three are players on expiring, reasonable contracts that offer qualities that teams hoping for long playoff runs would covet: Hanifin has a $4.95 million cap hit, Tanev $4.5 million, and Lindholm $4.85 million. Hanifin and Tanev have limited no-trade clauses that would need to be navigated, while Lindholm’s deal has no such restrictions.

Regarding Lindholm, Wyshinski cited some recent chatter: “It’s been widely speculated that the Colorado Avalanche are after the 29-year-old center to play on their second line behind Nathan MacKinnon. The Boston Bruins have shown interest in the past.”

Dan Vladar appears on “The Goalie Tier,” while A.J. Greer appears on the “Bargain Beauty Contracts Tier.” Vladar has a year remaining on a contract that counts $2.2 million against the cap, while Greer is on a deal that counts $762,500 against the cap – it’s below the $775,000 league minimum this season because he signed a multi-year league-minimum deal a year ago that brought the average annual value down a bit.

The NHL’s trade freeze lasts until Dec. 28. The NHL’s trade deadline is on March 8 (2024).