NHL Rumors: Calgary Flames, Utah, and Short-Term with High AAVs

The Calgary Flames have some money they can spend … Defensemen going short-term with higher AAV?

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show talking about the Calgary Flames and how they may be willing to go a higher AAV for a shorter term. Utah could be thinking the same.

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Marek: “One of the one of the sidebars here, not really a sidebar because it’s kind of front and center for Calgary Flames fans and for Craig Conroy is, they have a lot of cap space now.

You know I was on with George Rusic this morning in Calgary and one of the conversations we had was, like if you’re Craig Conroy here, the teams going through a rebuild. You have a lot of cap space, room, to room to maneuver here.

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Do you just go mercenary and turn into the team that’ll take bad contracts and exchange for prospects and picks? Like what do you do now with all of this money?”

Friedman: “Well, I think the, one of the things that I’ve heard in Calgary is kind of indicated is when it comes to free agency, they’re gonna try to be very careful about term.”

Marek: “Yeah.”

Friedman: “Now what you can do, like I have heard that some of these, so someone told me a couple days ago that some of these UFA D out there are getting like (Dmitry) Orlov offers.

Like you’ll remember, yes, like Orlov, well, I guess technically, legally, I’m not supposed to admit that but I heard that it’s kind of out there. Orlov, Orlov for Carolina”

Marek: “This is tampering you speak of.”

Friedman: “Yeah. Two times $7.5 (million).”

Marek: “Yeah.”

Friedman: “And I’ve heard that that’s been out there for a few of these UFA guys.

Now I’m not saying Calgary is the one doing that. Cause I don’t know. But, But I do think that Calgary is looking at it like, ‘we’re not crazy about term but we may up the AAV a bit as someone if that can get us some players.”

Marek: “That’s Utah. That’s, that’s exactly Utah, Elliotte.  That’s exactly Utah.”

Friedman: “Are you accusing Utah of tampering?”

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Marek: “I’m … Are you admitting to tampering exists in the NHL. Gambling here at Casablanca? What?”

No, but that seems like that’s the MO for me. Listen, I had Bill Armstrong on the program last week, and I said ‘Is it, is it, is it fair …”

Friedman: “and he told you they were tampering?”

Marek: “No, he didn’t say they’re tampering. But I said listen. You’re trying to get me in trouble.

But what I said was, is it safe to say that you’re looking for veteran players on short-term deals until you’re (Logan) Cooley’s and (Dylan) Guenther’s are ready. He said yeah, that’s exactly what we’re looking for.”

Friedman: “Yeah, I think there’s a couple of teams that are doing that and, I’ve heard that about the Flames. :ike they are willing to, they are willing to do some things out there on free agency, but I heard they prefer not to do crazy term, and they’re willing to do high AAV for a bit of shorter term.”