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FlamesNation Mailbag: Kicking off September with your questions
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Photo credit: Mike Gould
Ryan Pike
Sep 2, 2024, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 1, 2024, 22:21 EDT
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Folks, it’s been a rough few days in the hockey world following the tragic deaths of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau on Thursday evening. As the calendar flips over to September and we ease into whatever resembles normalcy in the aftermath of such a horrible event, we hope everybody’s taking care of themselves and taking the time to grieve and process.
In this week’s mailbag, we had a few Gaudreau-related questions… and to be honest, not a lot of concrete answers quite yet.
There are three things I feel like I can say definitively right now:
  1. Johnny Gaudreau was downright beloved in the Flames organization, even after his departure in free agency two years ago.
  2. It’s way too early to expect the Flames organization to have any definitive plans for what they want to do to honour the Gaudreaus given how fresh everything is.
  3. I don’t think anybody wears 13 for the Flames ever again.
I have no doubt in my mind that the Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets will each do something really special in the future to honour Johnny and Matthew. But we implore everybody to be patient and understanding over the next few weeks and months as both organizations take the time to grieve and process everything. The lack of immediate announcements doesn’t mean there won’t be future announcements, it just means that they’re working through everything. The Flames visit Columbus in late November and then host them in early December, but it’s hard to say whether that’ll feel too soon to do something in commemoration. Please, give them some time to figure everything out.
I am not a lawyer and I have no clue regarding how things work in the state of New Jersey, so I will respectfully decline to answer the second part of the question because I simply don’t have the expertise to offer anything useful.
In terms of Johnny Gaudreau’s contract, per Article 23.2 (a) of the CBA:
23.2 (a) The Clubs and the NHLPA shall maintain a group life insurance policy in a face policy amount of $1,000,000 U.S. per Player, for all Players who are on an NHL Insured Roster at any point during the season, with coverage commencing as of the first day on the Insured Roster and continuing in effect until November 1st of the following season. The Clubs and the NHLPA shall also maintain a group accidental death policy in a face policy amount of one (1) times the Player’s current season’s annual base salary up to a maximum of $15,000,000 U.S., for all Players who are on an NHL Insured Roster at any point during the season…
In short: Gaudreau’s contract comes off the books but a season’s worth of salary is paid out via insurance. The specifics of it aren’t particularly interesting or important right now, but Johnny’s family should be covered. If you’re looking for a way to help out Matthew’s family, there’s a Go Fund Me benefiting his widow and upcoming child.
I suspect the Flames begin the season with Dan Vladar and Dustin Wolf on the NHL roster… and then they’ll rotate goaltenders depending on who’s playing well at any given time. Heck, a lot of teams in the Flames’ situation roll with a “win and you’re in” goaltending strategy… and that might be something worth considering if you’re the Flames.
In short: I don’t think they’ll be declaring anybody the undisputed starter. They’ll probably wait to see who grabs hold of the gig.
If I’m rebuilding, I focus on finding high-ceiling centres and defencemen and work from there. It helps if your team is able to bottom out, but there are business considerations to take into account – teams have to reach the salary floor, have to field a team during their rebuilding period, and probably don’t want their teams to get used to being lousy or their fans to get used to having a lousy team – so there are some disincentives to completely tanking.
Speaking of…
I don’t think the Flames have an appetite for full-on tanking – general manager Craig Conroy has repeatedly mentioned the importance of the team staying competitive – and they have enough good pieces on their NHL roster right now that they’re probably not going to completely fall off a competitive cliff. Moreover, if Dustin Wolf turns into a reliable NHL goaltender and any of the young players take a step or impress in the next couple of seasons, that probably pushes the Flames a little bit out of James Hagens or Gavin McKenna territory.
That said, the draft lottery can be chaos, so you never know.
Unless you think the Flames as currently constructed can win a Stanley Cup this year, you move your pending unrestricted free agents at the deadline and stick to your plan to build and become a very good hockey club. If you can sell and still make it in, like they did in 2015, that’s a bonus, but you’ve got to stick to your plan.
MacKenzie Weegar has seven years left on his current contract that pays him a very economical $6.25 million through the 2030-31 season. He also has no-trade and modified no-trade clauses the whole way through of various types. Suffice it to say, the Flames really, really like him, and it makes sense that other teams would look at what Weegar did on a team in transition last year and go “Oh man, he’s really good.”
Yeah, he is really good, and he’s probably a Flame until he doesn’t want to be a Flame anymore. Based on Weegar’s comments during exit interviews, he seems pretty jazzed about building something in Calgary, so we wouldn’t expect to see him moving elsewhere anytime soon.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/X at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan [at] TheNationNetwork.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)

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