Seravalli: Tyler Pitlick is ‘expected’ to be traded to Flames
By Ryan Pike
2 years agoThe Calgary Flames seem poised to add a player to their roster from the Seattle Kraken. According to a report from Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, the Flames and Kraken are expected to consummate a trade that would send forward Tyler Pitlick to Calgary.
Here’s Frank’s report:
However, the Kraken are believed to have at least one trade in the hopper for when the NHL’s league-wide trade freeze and signing moratorium opens on Thursday afternoon at 1 o’clock p.m. ET. Forward Tyler Pitlick is expected to be flipped to the Calgary Flames. The return is unconfirmed but Seattle could receive a mid-round pick in exchange. Does the extra third-round pick the Flames acquired from Edmonton in the Milan Lucic trade for James Neal make sense?
The Flames have picks in the 2021 NHL Draft in the first, second, third (x2), fifth, sixth and seventh rounds. In the 2022 NHL Draft, they own first, second (x2), third (x3), fourth, fifth and seventh rounds. With a decent amount of picks, this could allow Flames general manager to fill out the roster a little bit.
Already signed for 2020-21 (or RFAs that seem locks for roster spots) are:
- Forwards (9): Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Mikael Backlund, Milan Lucic, Elias Lindholm, Andrew Mangiapane, Brett Ritchie and Dillon Dube (RFA)
- Defensemen (4): Rasmus Andersson, Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Juuso Valimaki (RFA)
- Goaltenders (1): Jacob Markstrom
With Derek Ryan and Joakim Nordstrom likely departing, the Flames have a need for bottom six forwards and the right-shooting Pitlick could suit a lot of their needs. He’s got one season left on a deal that pays him $1.75 million against the salary cap, which would make him a fairly cost-effective depth option for the club.
Pitlick had six goals and 11 points in 38 games for Arizona in 2020-21. He was 10th among forwards in even strength ice-time, seventh in power play time and fifth in penalty kill time, so he was used as a utility forward. His possession numbers were basically at Arizona’s team average last season – his CorsiRel was +0.94% and his ExpectedGoalsRel was +1.39% – and he was basically a slightly above average possession forward on a fairly non-descript possession team. He doesn’t seem likely to drive play to any significant degree, but at least he doesn’t seem likely to drag his teammates down either.
The NHL’s trade freeze ends at 11 a.m. MT.
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