Don’t expect the Flames to qualify all their restricted free agents

The Calgary Flames have 13 pending restricted free agents on their reserve list. They have until 3 p.m. MT on Tuesday afternoon to tender qualifying offers, but don’t expect them to hand out offers to every pending RFA they have.

None of these four players should be a big surprise.

Matthew Tkachuk ($874,000 one-way offer) is going to get a hefty contract extension this off-season, potentially boosting him to the biggest cap hit on the team.

Sam Bennett ($1.95 million one-way offer) hasn’t set the world on fire yet, but he’s been a consistently effective and occasionally really good winger. He has arbitration rights.

David Rittich ($840,000 offer) became the team’s de facto starting goalie last season when Mike Smith struggled, only giving that gig up when he suffered a knee injury and the team rode Smith the rest of the way. He has arbitration rights.

Andrew Mangiapane ($715,000 offer) became a fixture on the team’s fourth line down the stretch, scoring the game-winning goal in the Flames’ only playoff win.

Rinat Valiev ($715,000) is one of the few defenders the Flames have in their system that has a decent amount of AHL experience. Given the influx of Russians into the organization – it’s anticipated that Artyom Zagidulin and Alexander Yelesin will be playing in Stockton – it makes sense to have Valiev for his experience and for continuity.

Kerby Rychel ($761,000), Alan Quine ($735,000) and Ryan Lomberg ($715,000) are more toss-ups. All three are useful AHL depth players that can come up onto the NHL roster and help out in a pinch. Quine was very useful at times for the Flames, but probably isn’t in their long-term plans.

All four of these players have arbitration rights. None of them have particularly strong cases for significant raises so the risk of the Flames qualifying them isn’t terribly large.

Spencer Foo has reportedly signed with the KHL for two seasons. The Flames could qualify him ($874,000) to retain his NHL rights, but they would expire when his KHL deal does so there wouldn’t be much of a point. Then again, they qualified Linden Vey in a similar situation years back so they may try to hold onto the asset one way or another.

Curtis Lazar would get a $1.05 million qualifying offer. If he gets offered that, he would be nuts to turn it down. He likely won’t get offered that. Lazar has arbitration rights.

Josh Healey ($874,000), Mason McDonald ($874,000) and Brett Pollock ($735,000) are coming out of entry level deals that didn’t see them move the needle at all in terms of pushing for NHL jobs. The clock has run out on them making an impression.