Expansion draft CBA quirk prevented the Flames from reacquiring Mark Giordano

The hockey world was abuzz on Sunday afternoon as the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired former Calgary Flames captain Mark Giordano from the Seattle Kraken. According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun on Insider Trading, the Flames were interested in getting Giordano back but an expansion draft and CBA rules quirk prevented them from doing so.

According to LeBrun, the Flames weren’t close on reacquiring Giordano. The main reason was cap space. Specifically, there was a rule attached to the Seattle expansion process: the Kraken weren’t allowed to trade a claimed player back to their original team with retained salary for a full calendar year – even with a third team being used as a broker. (They were able to make trades back to the original teams without retained salary, though.)

As such, the Flames simply didn’t have enough cap room to accommodate Giordano’s full $6.75 million cap hit and so he’s off to Toronto with retained salary. LeBrun also noted that the Flames were heavily involved in negotiations with Anaheim for Hampus Lindholm and Montreal for Ben Chiarot before those defenders were traded to Boston and Florida, respectively.

The 2022 trade deadline is on Monday at 1 p.m. MT.

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