Contract talks with Andrew Mangiapane aren’t progressing
By Ryan Pike
4 years agoThe Calgary Flames’ training camp unofficially kicked off today with the annual golf tournament. General manager Brad Treliving sat down with Dean Molberg and Brent Krahn on the Sportsnet 960 The Fan morning show and provided a few insights on the ongoing restricted free agent standstill. Regarding forward Andrew Mangiapane, it doesn’t sound like things are going terribly well.
Asked about negotiations with Mangiapane, here’s what Treliving had to say:
I don’t usually get surprised in this business but I shouldn’t be. Andrew we think is a terrific young player. And we think there’s a great opportunity for him now to grow within our organization. Again, he has his position and he feels strongly in it and hopefully at some point in time he wants to come back and join us. We haven’t started anything, nobody’s missed any time. We think he’s a real good young player but is now…last year was his first time getting his feet wet in the league.
It’s probably not unfair to assume that the Flames are asking for a deal on the low end of Mangiapane’s market value due to (a) the forward’s relative NHL inexperience and (b) the team’s lack of cap space, though Treliving also discussed the lack of salary cap wiggle room and noted that the team would either “find space” or “make space” to get everything under the $81.5 million salary cap.
Later on, he added, asked by Molberg if there’s an order that contracts need to be figured out in – e.g., does Mangiapane’s deal depend on what they give to Matthew Tkachuk?
Nope. We don;’t have a batting order here. I’m surprised to be perfectly honest that Andrew’s not signed at this particularly point in time. But it has nothing to do with waiting. We feel that we’ve given him a very fair position and we continue to work away at that.
Per our colleagues at Puckpedia, Mangiapane is represented by agent Ritch Winter (who runs his own agency, Wintersports). Winter also represents Flames captain Mark Giordano.
Main camp opens with fitness testing next Thursday.
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