Andrew Mangiapane’s agent wants his client to seek a short-term deal with the Flames
The Calgary Flames have a lot of decisions to make this summer.
Eight different players on their roster, including Johnny Gaudreau, are set to become unrestricted free agents. Matthew Tkachuk, who many have suggested will become the team’s next captain, is a restricted free agent with only one more year of team control before he can hit the open market.
And then there’s also Andrew Mangiapane, who will ride a breakout season into negotiations as a restricted free agent.
Ritch Winter, Mangiapane’s agent, spoke very candidly on Sportsnet 960 in Calgary on Monday about the approach he’ll be taking when it comes to his client’s next contract. Rather than locking into a long-term contract, Winter is suggesting that Mangiapane is best looking for something short-term that walks him to free agency.
“Well, I think more than anything if I was to sum it up in one word, I would suggest ‘patience.’ There’s an awful lot of variables going on around him. Like is Johnny staying? Is Chucky staying? What’s happening around you on the team? But more importantly, what other opportunities are there out there? You’re a year away from being an unrestricted free agent at 27 years of age, really in the heart of the best-producing years of your career.
My advice to him would be let’s do a short-term deal, by way of arbitration or negotiation, negotiation ideally, and then let’s wait and take a look at the landscape. Because as a young player you want to be the best you can be, you want to be challenged in Stanley cup type environments. These are the kinds of decisions Marian Hossa made around his trip to Detroit and then to Chicago.”
The Flames selected Mangiapane in the sixth round of the 2015 Draft and he became a full-time NHL player with the club in 2019-20. Mangiapane scored 32 points in back-to-back seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21 and is on pace to shatter that total this season, where he has 18 goals and 21 points in 33 games.
Taking a one-year deal with the Flames and putting together another productive season in 2022-23 would take Mangiapane into unrestricted free agency with the potential to cash in wherever he’d like.