Flames Notes: Ferland, Bennett, Iginla
Micheal Ferland re-signed this Thursday with Calgary, and apparently he’s slotted for big things this year. Adam Gretz of NBC Sports reports that Ferland will play on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. Ferland will be playing as the third wheel to the talented duo, but should be a productive member. Ferland has yet to cement himself as a consistent offensive producer, so this vote of confidence should be taken as a sign of his internally perceived value. With only 25 points last season, he’ll need to find a bit more of a knack for playmaking in tight spaces. As Gretz mentioned, he has posted a positive Corsi (52%) in the minutes he paired with the Gaudreau-Monahan duo. If nothing else, he’ll open up room for the line with his heavy forechecking style and if he stays with those two long-term, look for his next contract to be a good deal more expensive.
- Sam Bennett is the only major RFA the Flames have yet to sign. He’s also a bit of a confusing commodity. He really regressed offensively in a manner no one was anticipating last season, and it’s hard to ascertain how much that will impact his upcoming deal. The Flames would likely like to lock him up for some of his UFA years, but Bennett seems to think he can prove his value in the immediate future. He remarked to the National Post’s Al Charest after their first round series that he’s “just getting started”, and it’s easy to believe him. He has incredible hands and seems more well-rounded than when he entered the league, even if he struggled to produce in 2016-17. His Corsi only went down slightly (.6%) while his Fenwick went up, and he did face a tougher quality of competition. Odds are that Bennett bounces back and earns a heftier long-term contract down the road. For now, somewhere around $3 MM seems a safe bet.
- The two parties haven’t been linked, but at this late date might Calgary show an interest in reuniting with Jarome Iginla? Iginla has wanted a place on a contender for the last half-decade, and Calgary has shown that they could compete in the immediate future. Adding Mike Smith in net, adding Travis Hamonic and re-signing Michael Stone on the back-end, and with the youngsters another year older, they could do some damage come spring. One of Alex Chiasson or Kris Versteeg might need to slot down a healthy lineup on occasion if it were to happen, but Iginla would provide some invaluable leadership for the young core on a dirt-cheap deal. They have the cap room to make it happen if they so desire.
Early Expansion Protection News: Capitals, Kings, Flames, Predators, And More
The 2017 NHL Expansion Draft is an exciting process. If you’re too riled up to wait until the lists are officially submitted in the morning, you’re in luck. As could be expected, information leaks are flooding in on who was and wasn’t protected by their teams ahead of the deadline this afternoon. This list will be updated all night long as more news comes in:
- Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post was the first reputable source to release her team’s protection list, as she confirmed the Washington Capitals’ names not long after the 5:00 PM ET deadline. The lists includes the expected names: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky, Marcus Johansson, Lars Eller, Tom Wilson, Matt Niskanen, John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, and Braden Holtby. While not surprising, the list does not include long-time Jay Beagle, promising young players Nate Schmidt and Brett Connolly, and a oft-rumored target of the Golden Knights, backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer.
- L.A.-based hockey writer John Hoven got the list of protected players for the Los Angeles Kings, which confirms that they will indeed protect eight-skaters, including four defenseman, rather than the 7/3 protection scheme. Among the safe are Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson, Drew Doughty, Jake Muzzin, Alec Martinez, and the key decision, Derek Forbort. Star goalie Jonathan Quick was also obviously protected. While the Kings succeeded in protecting the most valuable players on the roster, they still have left defenseman Brayden McNabb and a large assortment of forwards including Trevor Lewis, Nic Dowd, and Nick Shore open to selection.
- Sportsnet’s Eric Francis, who covers the Calgary Flames, has some key names for his team as well. Francis confirmed that the Flames did not protect 2016 free agent acquisition Troy Brouwer, but did opt to save younger assets like Sam Bennett, Micheal Ferland, and Curtis Lazar. Although Francis stops there, the rest of Calgary’s list is somewhat self explanatory with newly-acquired goalie Mike Smith, defensive core of Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, and Dougie Hamilton, and cornerstone forwards Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Michael Frolik, and Mikael Backlund as obvious choices.
- One not so obvious choice has been made in Nashville. Adam Vingan of The Tennessean answered a question on the minds of many, reporting that the Predators did in fact protect forward Calle Jarnkrok. With the rest of the eight-skater list all but set in stone with goalie Pekka Rinne, defensemen Roman Josi, P.K. Subban, Ryan Ellis, and Mattias Ekholm, and star forwards Filip Forsberg, Ryan Johansen, and Viktor Arvidsson, the final forward spot came down to Jarnkrok, signed long-term, or James Neal, an elite scorer with just one year remaining on his contract. It seems that Neal will be open for selection, alongside names like Colton Sissons, Colin Wilson, and Craig Smith. Vignan adds that no deal has been struck between Vegas and the Predators to protect any of those players, with Nashville especially liking to retain Neal and Sissons.
- Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that, interestingly enough, young Detroit Red Wings defenseman Xavier Ouellet was not protected by his team. This is the first real surprise of the expansion process and the first protection news that doesn’t match up with PHR’s Expansion Primer projections. The 23-year-old skated in 66 games this season for Detroit, third most among defenseman, and his 12 points tied that of top-pair man Danny DeKeyser. Yet, Ouellett will not join DeKeyser and Mike Green in protection, instead beaten out by another teammate. GM Ken Holland, who has gotten the reputation of perhaps being too loyal, possibly chose aging veteran Niklas Kronwall over Ouellet. Hopefully that doesn’t come back to bite the rebuilding Red Wings.
- Another name confirmed to be unprotected is young Vancouver Canucks center Brendan Gaunce. Vancouver sports anchor Rick Dhaliwal was told that that Gaunce, a 2012 first-round pick, did not make the protection list for the Canucks, expected to be a 7/3 format, meaning that the team saw him as outside the top seven forwards on the team. The 23-year-old two-way specialist has upside, but after registering just five points in 57 games last season, no one will blame Vancouver for that choice.
Offseason Keys: Calgary Flames
While the expansion draft is set to headline a busy NHL offseason, there are still several other storylines for each team in the months ahead. Here is a closer look at what lies ahead for the Calgary Flames.
After the team took some steps back in 2015-16, the Flames rebounded this season and got themselves back into the playoff picture. That was the good news. The bad news is that they were ousted about as quickly as they got there as Calgary was swept in the first round at the hand of the Ducks. As a result, it’s likely that GM Brad Treliving will be looking to make some tweaks to the team this summer. Here are a few things he’ll be trying to address.
New Goaltending
After a deal fell through with the Lightning for Ben Bishop last summer, the Flames turned to their next goalie on the list, acquiring Brian Elliott from St. Louis. Elliott had played five strong seasons with the Blues but that success didn’t translate to Calgary as inconsistency and soft goals were problematic. As a result, he lost the starting job at one point during the season and then did not play well against Anaheim in the playoffs. As a pending unrestricted free agent, it’s not looking too likely that he’ll be back.
Chad Johnson had a statistically similar season to Elliott which, for someone who was signed to be the backup, wasn’t that bad. However, he didn’t show that he’s capable of handling the number one role for more than a few games so he’s not the long-term solution either. Like Elliott, Johnson is also heading for unrestricted free agency but if he’s open to a similar contract to the one he played under this season ($1.7MM), he could be back in a number two role once again.
Between free agency and the trade market which is likely to be buoyed by the expansion draft next month, the Flames should have plenty of options to choose from to give them help in the short-term to bridge the gap to some of their intriguing prospects including Jon Gillies and Tyler Parsons. Supply should outweigh demand which should work in Treliving’s favor as well. They had a new goalie tandem in 2016-17 and that could very well be the case again next year.
Bridge Or Long-Term Deal For Bennett?
Sam Bennett is only three years removed from being the fourth overall pick in the draft but he has yet to consistently perform as a top six forward after being selected as a potential top line center of the future. After a 36 point season in 2015-16, his production actually took a dip to 26 points this past season while he started to drop down the lineup as well.
Bennett’s entry-level contract is up and he is eligible for restricted free agency this summer. In recent years, teams have largely shied away from giving bridge contracts to their high draft picks but this could certainly be a situation where this goes against the grain. The short-term deals off entry-level pacts are often viewed as ‘show me’ contracts and after taking a step back this season, it’s likely that the Flames will be challenging Bennett to show them that he can still be a top liner down the road.
Figuring out a long-term deal now would be tricky. Bennett hasn’t shown enough to command the greater than $6MM contracts that both Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan inked last summer. However, if the team went much lower than that, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Bennett to sign as if he believed in his ability to bounce back, he’d be better off taking the bridge deal with the expectation that a much bigger pay day would soon await. Given that narrow scope to work with, a short-term deal is by far the likeliest outcome.
Retool The Blueline
Last year, the Flames spent over $30MM on their back end (including Ladislav Smid’s $3.5MM on LTIR). It’s likely that they’ll want to allocate some of that towards their goaltending while trying to add some help up front.
Calgary has a trio of defensemen set to hit unrestricted free agency in Deryk Engelland, Michael Stone, and Dennis Wideman. Combined, the trio carried a cap hit of over $10MM last season (after factoring in the 50% retention on Stone’s contract by Arizona) so Treliving will have some money at his disposal as he looks to reshape Calgary’s back end.
Wideman isn’t expected to return while Engelland would likely have to take a pay cut from from the $2.9MM cap hit he carried. Stone is coming off a down year but the soon-to-be 27 year old will still garner plenty of interest around the league this summer and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Flames in the mix.
As things stand, Calgary has more than $17MM tied up in their top three defenders in Mark Giordano, Dougie Hamilton, and T.J. Brodie. That leaves room for one more notable signing (Stone or someone similar) but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the bottom spots filled by depth players such as Matt Bartkowski or prospects like Rasmus Andersson and Brett Kulak.
With the number of players and money off the books this summer, if there was ever a time for Treliving to give the defense corps a new look, this is it.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Snapshots: Granlund, Red Wings, MacKenzie, Bennett
A big part of the reason that Wild forward Mikael Granlund is having a breakout season has been the decision to play him almost exclusively on the wing, writes Michael Russo of the Star Tribune. Minnesota experimented with him on that side late last year under former interim head coach John Torchetti and new bench boss Bruce Boudreau decided to keep the duo of Granlund with Mikko Koivu at center together.
The call to keep them together has certainly worked out for the Wild. Granlund has 36 points already this season (just eight shy of matching his career best from last year) while Koivu is on pace for a 60 point campaign, a mark he hasn’t reached since 2010-11. Meanwhile, Minnesota leads the Western Conference in goals scored, something we’re not used to seeing from a club that had a long-time reputation as a defense-first squad.
Other notes from around the league:
- In what appears to be merely a procedural move, the Red Wings will transfer goalie Jimmy Howard onto LTIR, reports Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press. There’s no indication of a setback for the netminder, who has been skating in recent days. However, doing so will allow the team to activate Darren Helm off of LTIR without requiring any further roster moves as he is close to returning and could suit up tomorrow. Helm has been out of the lineup since November 15th due to a dislocated shoulder. If he is activated, center Steve Ott is expected to be placed on injured reserve with a shoulder injury to open a spot on the active 23-man roster.
- Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie reached a rare milestone yesterday. By suiting up in his 500th career NHL game last night, he became just the eighth player to play in 500 games at both the NHL and AHL levels, via the AHL’s Communications Department (Twitter link).
- The Flames announced that center Sam Bennett will be a healthy scratch for the first time this season. The fourth overall pick in 2014 has been mired in a major slump lately, scoring just three goals without any assists in his last 19 games. Calgary also received some good news on the injury front today as winger Micheal Ferland is set to return from a lower body injury that caused him to miss the last three games.