The Calgary Flames are not expected to retain the services of pending unrestricted free agents Anthony Mantha and Tyson Barrie for next season, Daily Faceoff‘s Anthony Di Marco reported Wednesday.

The two veterans signed one-year contracts with the Flames as UFAs prior to the 2024-25 season, but both players ended up spending very little time with the team. Mantha sustained a season-ending knee injury just 13 games into his Flames tenure; Barrie also skated in 13 games before being sent to the AHL.

Mantha and Barrie are two of 11 Flames players set to hit the open market on July 1. The others are Justin Kirkland, Kevin Rooney, Dryden Hunt, Clark Bishop, Martin Frk, Joel Hanley, Jarred Tinordi, Jonathan Aspirot, and Dan Vladar.

Mantha, 30, joined the Flames on a one-year, “show me” deal with the intent of revitalizing his career alongside another French-Canadian in Jonathan Huberdeau. Instead, he earned $3.5 million to watch nearly the entire season from the sidelines. He may have to accept a professional tryout to latch on with another team in 2025-26.

Case in point: Barrie, 33, did need a PTO to earn a full-fledged contract with the Flames in 2024-25. But he just couldn’t separate himself from the pack in Calgary and ended up being waived and demoted in favour of players like Hanley, Daniil Miromanov, and Jake Bean. This may end up being the end of his long and impressive NHL journey.

The odds of Mantha and Barrie being re-signed were against them from the start. If there’s anything these Flames don’t need, it’s another left-shooting winger — or a right-handed offensive defenceman, for that matter. The numbers were simply against both of them, even with all of Calgary’s cap space.

Beyond their UFAs, the Flames also have nine restricted free agents to deal with this summer: Morgan Frost, Connor Zary, Rory Kerins, Sam Morton, Kevin Bahl, Yan Kuznetsov, Jeremie Poirier, Connor Murphy, and Waltteri Ignatjew.

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