Seravalli: Gerard Gallant ‘too expensive, not a candidate’ for Calgary Flames

The dominoes are beginning to topple in the National Hockey League’s coaching world, with John Hynes out in Nashville in favour of Andrew Brunette and Spencer Carbery hired on in Washington. On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen discussed which job gets filled next.

Servalli thinks it’ll be the Calgary Flames’ coaching vacancy… but he doesn’t think it’ll be Gerard Gallant.

Here’s Seravalli:

Gallant parted ways with the Rangers two years into what was reported to be a four-year contract by many sources and worth $3.5 million per season (per CapFriendly). Additionally, the Flames are paying fired head coach Darryl Sutter for two more seasons as well – at a salary reportedly worth north of $4 million – so you can probably understand why they wouldn’t exactly be falling over themselves to write Gallant a big cheque.

(An aside: My understanding is that typically, a fired head coach would be guaranteed to get paid what they’re owed by the team that fired them for the remainder of their contract. So if the Flames were to hire Gallant and offer him $2 million per season, the Rangers would make up the difference and he would get paid $3.5 million total per season. It doesn’t provide Gallant with a ton of incentive to rush out to find a new gig, though, which Seravalli mentions in the segment.)

So what’s Seravalli’s prediction regarding who the Flames end up hiring as their next head coach? Mitch Love, two-time AHL coach of the year and current bench boss of the Calgary Wranglers.