Calgary Flames sign Stanley Cup champion Ryan Lomberg to two year deal ($2 million AAV)

He began his National Hockey League career in Calgary, and he’s coming home.

Per multiple reports, the Calgary Flames have inked forward Ryan Lomberg to a two year deal with a $2 million cap hit.

A product of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Lomberg is a 29-year-old left shot winger. He’s listed at 5’9″ and 187 pounds, but he plays an up-tempo, physical style of game.

Lomberg’s signing is a homecoming of sorts for him. He played his junior hockey with the United States Hockey League’s Muskegon Lumberjacks and Youngstown Phantoms, and a couple years of college with the University of Maine, but his pro journey began when he was inked to an American Hockey League deal with the Flames’ farm team, the Stockton Heat, way back in 2015. (Craig Conroy was part of the management team that identified and signed him.)

Lomberg played well enough on a pair of one year AHL deals that he signed an entry-level deal with the Flames in 2017, which led to him pushing for NHL work. He wasn’t able to carve out a role on the big club in Calgary, playing seven games over two seasons on a few call-ups, but he landed in Florida and fit like a glove in Sunrise. He spent four seasons as a bottom-six fixture for the Fancy Cats. While his offensive peak was 12 goals and 20 points in 2022-23, Lomberg is somebody who his Panthers’ teammates reportedly adored, and his role was as much about vibes as it was about forechecking or defending.

Suffice it to say that returning to the Flames as a Stanley Cup champion after the Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in the Cup Final will have Flames fans amped up – at least to start.

Is $2 million per season a bit hefty for a player who’s primarily a bottom-six winger and penalty kill? It does feel like that if you judge the contract entirely on point production. But if the Flames are comfortable with the deal, it means that at least in this case, they’re looking at different methodologies of valuing the player.