The Flames are looking at every option to keep Mark Giordano from the Seattkle Kraken
The Calgary Flames don’t want to lose Mark Giordano in the upcoming Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft. How far will they go to ensure it doesn’t happen?
According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the Flames are “looking at every single scenario” to keep their captain in Calgary, including making a side deal with the Kraken to ensure he isn’t selected…
My sense from talking to other sources around the league about the Flames over the last couple of days is, they are looking at every single scenario. They don’t want to lose Mark Giordano to Seattle, but it’s also probably a stretch to suggest that a leading option would be to protect four defensemen in an eight-skater format instead of going 7-3-1, because now you’re exposing some forwards, potentially, that you don’t want to lose. So, what I’m hearing is that, over the last two or three days, there have been renewed discussions between Seattle and Calgary about what the price would be for the Kraken not to take Mark Giordano and, frankly, given what I’m hearing from other teams around the league, I suspect that price is just too high right now, on Wednesday.
The Flames have three younger defencemen they would like to protect instead of the 38-year-old Giordano: @Noah Hanifin, @Rasmus Andersson, and @Chris Tanev. Also, they aren’t in a position to use the eight-skater protection scheme, because that would leave a quality forward such as @Mikael Backlund exposed.
Giordano has one more year left on his contract with a $6,750,000 cap hit. He’s played his entire 949-game NHL career with the Flames to this point.