Seravalli: Flames trade demands rescinded following Darryl Sutter’s departure
By Ryan Pike
1 year agoIn case you hadn’t heard, the Calgary Flames fired Darryl Sutter on Monday. On Tuesday, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli joined Pat Steinberg on Flames Talk on Sportsnet 960 The Fan to discuss the aftermath.
An interesting tidbit from Seravalli: it sounds like any talk of players wanting out of Calgary has cooled off since Sutter’s departure was announced.
Here’s Seravalli:
“In talking to various people around the league that have connections to Calgary, the sentiment was any trade requests that were out there, or demands so to speak, have been rescinded now that there’s been a coaching change. So that, I think, opens the door for some players who might have been hesitating to eventually re-sign… that’ll of course be the call of whoever’s the next general manager.. that’s part of the reason why it was so important from a competitive standpoint. It doesn’t really make sense to throw away an $83.5 million roster, whatever next season ends up being, on the basis of a $4 million coach.”
You may recall that on locker clean-out day a few weeks ago, several Flames players hesitated to proclaim their willingness to re-up with the team when their contracts expired. Heck, alternate captain and all-around excellent Flame Mikael Backlund said this:
“I’m 34 years old. I want to win the Stanley Cup. I don’t know, this summer, what’s going to happen… I might want to see what this group could do before I make a decision.”
Well, what’s happened so far this off-season is that their general manager declined a contract extension, an arena deal was announced, and their head coach was fired. A lot has happened just two weeks into the off-season, and the club still has to fill their GM and coaching vacancies.
But at the very least, it seems that players that might have been headed out the door – or looking for the door – might now want to see what else unfolds this off-season before making decisions on their Flames futures.
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