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It was a busy first of July for many, and while most of us had the day off, NHL GM’s were hard at work signing UFA’s and making a few trades in order to improve their rosters for the upcoming season.
The final tally of players signed and or exchanged up until this morning, is currently just over $524M between 179 different players. Not a bad opening day of free agency, where some players were given second chances to prove their worth, and others cashed in from previous seasons.
With that said, the Calgary Flames were busy themselves signing three new UFA’s and allowing 13 former players hit the market. The Flames did not extend qualifying offers to Olivier Roy, Chris Breen, James Martin, Paul Byron, David Eddy, and TJ Galiardi, in order to retain their rights.
Of these players, I was a little shocked that the team didn’t at least extend an offer to Byron as he worked very hard to earn his keep during the 2013-14 NHL season. Some fans were a little upset with not qualifying Galiardi, but quite frankly the team has a few younger/less experienced players who can and will step up to fill the void if need be. One player who the Flames were said to have made significant offers to was veteran forward Mike Cammalleri. Whether or not the forward would return to the Flames club for the 2014-15 NHL season has been a debate which we’ve had for quite some time now. As I maintained, the organization was in fact very interested in keeping Cammalleri around to help mold their young team and remain competitive, however it appears that he wasn’t on the same page and wanted a chance to compete elsewhere. Mike signed a 5 year, $25M contract with the New Jersey Devils and should find some success playing with newly acquired Martin Havlat.
Now, with respect to what the Flames (did) do.
Calgary signed a rather experienced netminder in Jonas Hiller to a 2yr, $9M contract. Hiller has a lot of experience playing in the Western Conference and has proven his high level of compete while playing with the Anaheim Ducks for the past seven seasons.
The 32 year old tender will have the chance to battle for the starting position with current netminder Karri Ramo who had a respectful season of his own last year. Most recently, Hiller has put up some strong numbers and has looked good despite many feeling that he continues to suffer from vertigo issues which he experienced in 2011.
Analysts claim that he hasn’t really been himself since, however I have personally felt that Hiller has looked great over the past 2-3 seasons and could be a huge pickup for the Flames organization.
Next up, the Flames picked up an Albertan in Mason Raymond after the Toronto Maple Leafs let the forward walk, but don’t let that discourage you. The Leafs did not extend Mason an offer to stick around, not because he didn’t earn one or that they would have liked to keep him around, but rather because they didn’t have the cap space to do so.
Raymond was given a one year, $1M contract from the Leafs last season to prove his worth, and well he did just that scoring 19 goals and 26 assists in 82 games, while jumping between the 2nd and 3rd line for Toronto. Mason is a very smooth skating, hardworking forward who adds constant forchecking pressure on the opposition’s defense.
While he’s not really considered a “Burke type player… by any means, the notion that he was a player who often “flops around the ice… was not something he was criticized for while playing in Toronto.
With Cammalleri now gone, Raymond will be looked at to help provide added scoring, and while he certainly has the skill set to score more goals, fans shouldn’t really expect anything more than a 20 goal season, give or take a few goals. The Flames are likely going to look at other UFA and or trade options to make up for some lost offense with Cammalleri’s departure.
Last but not least with respect to the signings is defenseman Deryk Engelland. Let’s get it out of the way – Engelland made out like a bandit with a three year, $8.7M deal which was a 514% increase from his previous contract. Yeah, that’s a little high…even for the Flames.
That being said, it was well documented that Calgary needed to reach the cap floor and they felt that a guy like Deryk was being undervalued and underutilized in Pittsburgh, so Brad Treliving made a perhaps risky move in locking him up for three years at $2.9M per. As Treliving explains, they felt that Deryk would be a “stop gap… of sorts, and help mold/develop the blue line while their rookies and prospects continue to develop.
"The price tag on Deryk, obviously it's going to get talked about understandably," Treliving said. "We have work to do on the blue-line. We have work to do in terms adding to our reserve list on the blue-line.
"As much as we like what Deryk's going to bring to us, it's also buying time until we can go out and acquire those players, draft those players, procure those players in some manner.
"Ours was not the only call to Deryk Engelland. Based on our situation, based on the flexibility we had, we felt it's a very fair price and a price worth paying, knowing the type of person we're getting."
I’m really not going to sit here and try and put icing on this ugly cake by pointing out any of Engelland’s potential “highlights… to his game. There really aren’t a whole lot, all things considered. Engelland is a big bodied, physical but not fast by any means, defenseman who the Penguins no longer had any need for.
Come to think of it, he’s essentially a slight upgrade over Shane O’Brien who the Flames just bought out, but not $1M better…or $1.7M better, given that the Flames are paying $733k for the next two years for O’Brien’s buyout. That said, I’m not sure I can provide a proper analysis or “value… when it comes to acquiring Brandon Bollig and Deryk Engelland in one week.
This team should be damn entertaining to watch next year, and with a few extra rookies expecting to make the step up, they should feel comfortated in knowing that one of McGrattan, Bollig, Engelland, and Stajan…wink wink….will come to their rescue. With three UFA signings so far, the team, I argue, has slightly been improved from last season with respect to acquiring Jonas Hiller and Mason Raymond. Engelland for me is a wash because, at the end of the day, it's not my money and he could make the Flames a little harder to play against.
The team remains young, they are going to be competitive once again next year, and little by little should improve upon each passing season to get back to where they were, if not better, a few short years ago.
That said, I expect at the very least one more signing and one trade from Calgary before the season kicks off, so hang tight because it doesn't seem like Treliving and Burke are done just yet.
How would you rate their moves so far?
That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading!