The future of defenseman Rasmus Andersson with the Flames has been a subject of much debate this offseason. While Calgary isn’t looking to rebuild and thus doesn’t necessarily want to move him, Andersson doesn’t appear to be ready to sign a long-term extension with them either, fueling trade speculation.
Earlier this summer, TSN’s Darren Dreger suggested that Los Angeles had a deal in place to acquire Andersson but that the blueliner indicated that he didn’t want to play there. Speaking with Expressen’s David Carlsson and Mikael Ljungberg, the 28-year-old acknowledged he had been approached about a move somewhere but declined to confirm that it was indeed the Kings. But he wasn’t comfortable about moving his family and signing a long-term deal right away, scuttling those talks. Andersson also continues to vehemently deny earlier reports that the only team he’d sign with right away is Vegas.
With trade talks seemingly at a stalemate for now, it would be logical to think that the two sides might resume contract discussions. However, Andersson noted that since the draft-day trade fell apart, there has been zero communication with the team.
Andersson has been an all-situations player for the last several years in Calgary while reaching at least 30 points in each of the last four campaigns. That has him in line to land a sizable raise on his current $4.55MM AAV, even though he’s coming off a quieter year offensively where he has 10 goals and 21 assists in 81 games while averaging 23:59 per night of playing time. Even with the reduced point total, AFP Analytics pegged an Andersson extension to cost around $8.4MM per season on a seven-year deal.
While it’s believed there were at least initial discussions about a new deal this offseason, the belief is that there’s still a big gap to bridge and clearly, neither side appears to be in a rush to try to reduce the difference. GM Craig Conroy has stated multiple times that he’s comfortable with Andersson coming to camp without an extension in place and based on the lack of contact between the two sides, that appears to be the likeliest outcome as things stand.