Looking at 25 potential targets for the Flames in unrestricted free agency

It’s time!

The NHL’s annual unrestricted free agency period opens at 10 a.m. MT today. This year is a big one for the market, with a lot of RFAs set to test the waters after not receiving qualifying offers from their cap-strapped former teams.

The Flames will likely be very active today. They’ve been attached to top targets Jacob Markstrom, Alex Pietrangelo, and Taylor Hall via various sources, but they have also never shied away from pursuing mid-tier guys and reclamation projects in the past. After a down year for the team, expect GM Brad Treliving to make some changes.

With TJ Brodie, Cam Talbot, Erik Gustafsson, and others all potentially out the door, let’s take a look at 25 players who might fit the bill to join the Flames. (These players are not sorted or ranked in any way).

Hall has a lot going for him and will likely command a hefty contract today. He won the Hart Trophy with the Devils in 2018 and still managed to score at a pretty good clip on a defense-first Coyotes team this year. Hall grew up in Calgary and the Flames reportedly made a push to acquire him back in November. With Johnny Gaudreau and Taylor Hall both superstar-level talents for the Flames on the left side, it’s a little tricky to see where Hall might fit in the lineup; his signing could be a precursor to a Gaudreau trade.

Duclair is just 25 but it looks like he’ll join his sixth team this UFA period. He had a great year for Ottawa this season and even played in the All-Star game. Now, a few months later, he’s representing himself in contract negotiations and found himself without a qualifying offer from the Sens on Wednesday. There are many valid questions about Duclair’s defense but he can clearly give a team a boost on the power play. A third (23) of his 79 career goals have come on the man-advantage.

Wennberg is a really solid two-way centre who netted a huge contract from Columbus after scoring 59 points in 2016–17. He scored 82 points over the next three seasons, combined, and Columbus placed him on waivers for buyout purposes on Thursday. Wennberg kills penalties effectively and played with Elias Lindholm on two Swedish World Junior teams in 2013 and 2014. He’s also a great playmaker who lacks execution with his shot.

Brad Treliving and Don Maloney know Turris well: as higher-ups with the Phoenix Coyotes, they drafted him third overall in 2007. Turris fell off the map with a low-scoring Nashville team over the last two seasons, but he checks off a lot of boxes as a potential Flames target. He’s a right-handed shot who will probably come cheap after being bought out. He was a very effective producer for Ottawa and Nashville between 2013 and 2018, scoring 50 points four times in five seasons during that span.

Smith has extremely strong analytics and has been a consistent scorer for Nashville over the last seven years. Scoring 144 goals in seven seasons, an average of 21 goals per year, is no small feat. Unlike Turris, however, Smith looks like he’ll get a pretty sizeable contract on the market and, despite his strong metrics, it’s possible that a long-term deal for him could start to resemble the Troy Brouwer or James Neal contracts in a couple of years. At roughly 20 goals and 20 assists per year, Smith’s offensive ceiling isn’t very high and he’s never been more than a complementary player for the Predators. In terms of value, Smith’s mileage will vary depending on the contract he gets.

Remember when Alex Galchenyuk was a Montreal Canadien? It feels like an eternity ago but, really, it was just in the summer of 2018 when he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for Max Domi. He had a decent year in Arizona but was soon shipped off again, this time to Pittsburgh in the Phil Kessel trade. Then, at the 2020 trade deadline, Galchenyuk was traded again, becoming a member of the Minnesota Wild as part of the Jason Zucker trade. Galchenyuk scored 105 goals in five seasons between 2014 and 2019, including a 30-goal year in 2015–16, but he’s lost a lot of value lately and could be a sneaky good low-cost add on the UFA market.

Another Nashville guy! The Preds shipped Kevin Fiala off to Minnesota to acquire Granlund in a move that hasn’t panned out for GM David Poile nearly as expected. Fiala is blossoming into a star with the Wild while Granlund is set to walk as a UFA. As mentioned, nobody in Nashville is scoring as of late. Granlund was a pretty good player in Minnesota for a pretty long time and even flirted with 70 points for a couple years. He can play any forward position. And his brother used to play here!

No, not Wal-Mart. Lucas Wallmark is a solid young Swedish centre who progressed into the Hurricanes’ ranks right as Elias Lindholm left. He can play on both special teams and has decent size. Florida did not issue him a qualifying offer after acquiring him from the ‘Canes as part of the Vincent Trocheck trade at the deadline in February. At 25, he still has room to grow and become a more dependable presence at both ends of the ice.

Ennis was a great pickup for the Senators in last year’s UFA session. Signed for just $800,000, Ennis scored at a very good rate in Ottawa’s top-six before being dealt to the Oilers at the deadline, becoming a part of their unsuccessful playoff push. It probably wouldn’t be wise to give Ennis too much term (he’s been bought out before), but a short-term deal at around $1.5-2 million per season would probably be enough to make him happy — and keep him hungry.

Namestnikov enjoyed a rare successful three-team year in 2019–20. The Rangers dealt him to Ottawa in the season’s opening week, netting a fourth-round pick in return, and Namestnikov responded by putting up solid middle-six production for the Sens while being a key member of their PK. After being traded again at the deadline, this time to Colorado, Namestnikov took another step and became a trusted offensive contributor, scoring eight goals in 18 games after the trade. He will probably command a long-term deal in the UFA market at around $3.5-4 million per season.

It’s a little surprising to see Kahun on this list, but he’s now a pending UFA after not receiving a qualifying offer from the Sabres on Wednesday. Kahun has been an efficient contributor in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and (in a limited sample) Buffalo over the course of his short career and, at his young age, it’s easy to see him taking another step in the right role. He’s not a great two-way player but he’s versatile and can play any forward position. It’s hard to gauge what kind of contract he’ll get on the open market.

Toffoli looks like he’s headed to free agency after a successful stint with the Canucks at the end of last season. A natural goal-scorer with a Stanley Cup ring, Toffoli will probably net a huge contract from a team looking to add a top-six forward. Hey, guess what? The Flames are looking to add a right-handed top-six forward! Toffoli is very familiar with Sean Monahan (the two were teammates on the Ottawa 67s between 2010 and 2012) and the Flames have the cap space to afford him at a moderate price, but it really depends on what else happens with guys like Hall, TJ Brodie, and a couple of other guys listed below.

Pietrangelo is the best UFA to hit the market since John Tavares two years ago and one of the best in the cap era, period. He’s been linked to the Flames, too. With five UFA defensemen potentially on their way out, the Flames definitely need to add some defensive support. As one of the league’s top defenders (and a righty, which the Flames especially need), Pietrangelo would be one heck of an add for any team.

It was a bit odd to see Vancouver not qualify Stecher on Wednesday. He’s a Richmond, B.C. product who played impressive hockey for the Canucks in the bubble. One of the youngest players on the market, it seems likely the Stecher will command huge interest, even in a surprisingly deep UFA class for right-handed defenders. He has experience playing top-four minutes for the Canucks in the past.

Ceci wasn’t great for the Maple Leafs this season. He frequently struggled in his own end but still logged over 20 minutes a night, on average. Ceci has been consistently overplayed by his NHL coaches, having played at least 19 minutes per game every year since 2014–15 but failing to generate positive CF% figures in any of those years. He only managed to get 48 shots on net in his 56 games this year. That said, it’ll be a little intriguing to see if a team picks Ceci up and tries to refine his game in a more sensible bottom-pairing role. Perhaps that team will be Calgary; he’d have to be cheap.

Vancouver’s equivalent of Travis Hamonic might be on his way out after a decade in blue and green. Tanev is a warrior who finally managed to play a full season this year for the first time in his career. He treats every shift like it’s his last, blocking a ton of shots and playing hard minutes against good competition. He’s not exactly an analytical darling, but if his contract comes in at the right dollar figure (and if his body holds up), a Tanev contract could be good value for the Flames to complete their top-four.

Pysyk’s deployment in Florida this year was unusual, to say the least. Coach Joel Quenneville routinely deployed him as a winger, much like how Deryk Engelland was used in Pittsburgh years ago. Pysyk has been a bit of a polarizing player over his career and his analytics have recently dipped from being stellar in Buffalo to mediocre-to-bad in Florida, but his versatility and toughness could be appealing to more than a few NHL GMs. He certainly knows this neck of the woods, hailing from Sherwood Park.

The Flames have been linked to Tyson Barrie for a while, reportedly showing interest in the offensive defender as recently as the 2020 trade deadline. Like Ceci, Barrie didn’t exactly find a comfortable home in Toronto, with his offense drying up a fair amount and his defensive inadequacies becoming fixated upon underneath the YYZ-brand microscope. Still, Barrie was good on the Leafs’ strong power play this year and he’s young, for a UFA.

The Flames apparently came close to acquiring Sami Vatanen as part of the rumoured Taylor Hall deal with New Jersey mentioned above. Vatanen is a pretty one-dimensional player who doesn’t defend all that well. Like Barrie, he depends on the power play for a lot of his offense, with 10 of his 23 points this year coming on the man-advantage. With a defensive-minded partner, Vatanen might be a solid bet. Hey, Mark Giordano might need a new partner…

Benning is sort of a Stecher-lite. He’s never played the minutes that Stecher enjoyed between 2016 and 2019, but he’s still been a solid young defenseman (albeit in a bottom-pairing role) thus far in his career. The nephew of Canucks GM Jim Benning, Matt is another Alberta product who could find a new home three hours down the QEII. With a guy like Stecher available, it’s possible that Benning flies under the radar a bit.

Yes, Mark Borowiecki is the only left-handed defenseman on this list. “Borocop” had a career-best season in Ottawa this year, throwing a ton of hits and even chipping in offensively. He’s not a great player, and he might get overpaid on the market à la Engelland in 2014, but he’s also a high-character presence with strong defensive awareness. As a bottom-pairing option, NHL general managers could do far worse than Borowiecki.

Gudas is one of the league’s most physical players. He doesn’t eat a ton of minutes like other guys on this list, but he’s no stranger to tough matchups and he usually performs pretty well against solid competition. He’s not a guy who should be playing on anybody’s top pairing, but he’s a great bottom-four option with serious shut-down capabilities. He can score the odd goal, too, and his scary/60 is off-the-charts.

Markstrom had a terrific year and was among the Canucks’ MVPs. He finished fourth in Vezina Trophy voting and was one of the top goaltenders in the league in terms of goals saved above expected (GSAx). Along with the Oilers, the Flames are considered to be strong contenders to sign him in free agency, presumably on a long-term deal. It helps that he’s apparently good friends with Elias Lindholm.

San Jose saw many of its players falter enormously in 2019–20; conversely, Dell was solid for the Sharks this year, providing solid goaltending behind an aging, overpaid defense corps. Dell probably isn’t capable of being much more than a tandem goalie in this league, but the Airdrie native has obvious ties to the Calgary area and might make sense as a cheaper option if the Flames manage to snag a big name up front or on the back-end.

Holtby has regressed significantly over the last three years and seems like a prime candidate to be massively overpaid in the UFA market. Sure, it’s definitely possible that he could rebound and start playing like the Vezina-calibre goalie he was between 2012 and 2017. But after Sergei Bobrovsky’s downfall last year after receiving a massive contract in Florida, it’s possible that NHL teams will generally steer clear of Holtby. If that happens, the Flames might be able to bring him in at a more reasonable price. Holtby has shown that he can help lead a team to a Stanley Cup, but, at 31, giving him more than three or four years would likely be a big gamble.