Welcome to the silly season of unrestricted free agency
By Ryan Pike
4 years agoThe National Hockey League has flipped over to 2019-20 and, as part of it, it’s time to enjoy the absolute silliness that is the annual unrestricted free agent frenzy. The Calgary Flames won’t be huge participants in free agency due to their cap situation, but they’re still going to make some moves after free agency officially opens at 10 a.m. MT.
Contracts
Right now, the Flames have 34 players under contract and another seven restricted free agents under team control. That means that functionally 40 of their 50 contract spots are spoken for – Spencer Foo won’t be signed, so he won’t count as part of that limit.
Goalies
- Signed [4]: Jon Gillies, Artyom Zagidulin, Tyler Parsons, Nick Schneider
- RFAs [1]: David Rittich
Defensemen
- Signed [11]: Norris Trophy winner Mark Giordano, TJ Brodie, Travis Hamonic, Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson, Michael Stone, Juuso Valimaki, Oliver Kylington, Carl-Johan Lerby, Andrew Nielsen, Alexander Yelesin
- RFAs [1]: Rinat Valiev
Forwards
- Signed [19]: Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, James Neal, Mikael Backlund, Elias Lindholm, Michael Frolik, Derek Ryan, Mark Jankowski, Austin Czarnik, Dillon Dube, Alan Quine, Luke Philp, Eetu Tuulola, Adam Ruzicka, Martin Pospisil, Dmitry Zavgorodniy, Glenn Gawdin, Matthew Phillips, Buddy Robinson
- RFAs [5]: Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane, Sam Bennett, Spencer Foo*, Ryan Lomberg [Foo has signed in the KHL, but the Flames retain his rights.]
Cap space
Focusing only on players who are contractually considered locks to be on the NHL roster, the Flames have $16.1 million in cap space for the 2019-20 season. That cap space has to cover new deals for Tkachuk, Mangiapane, Bennett, Rittich, a second goalie, and an extra defenseman and two extra forwards.
In short, it’ll be challenging.
Rumours
Many sources are reporting that Flames and Cam Talbot have agreed to a contract.
Beyond the Talbot signing, the big moves for the Flames could be potential trades. Given their cap situation, they need to open up some space. Elliotte Friedman linked Frolik to the New Jersey Devils recently, while Pierre LeBrun noted that the Montreal Canadiens checked in on TJ Brodie’s availability and price.
In terms of big signings: don’t expect many. Even if the Flames can move some cap space around, they simply don’t have spots on their roster for big money players and need the cap space to fill out the rest of their 2019-20 roster.
We’ll be down at the Saddledome all day waiting for news, so stay tuned to the site and our social media channels for updates.
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