It’s trade deadline week across the National Hockey League, folks, and so there’s going to be a veritable fire hose of trade-related chatter out there over the next few days. Over at Sportsnet, our pal Elliotte Friedman put out a podcast with Jeff Marek and his 32 Thoughts column at the Sportsnet site.
Among the topics discussed: what happened with Jacob Markstrom, and how things are looking with Noah Hanifin.
The biggest story in Calgary this past week was Miikka Kiprusoff’s number retirement ceremony – which Friedman praised both on the podcast and in his column. The second-biggest story: some rather pointed comments by netminder Jacob Markstrom on Friday regarding the possibility of a trade, criticizing how it was handled “up top.”
Here’s what Friedman said on the podcast about why Markstrom is upset:
Markstrom, his issue… On one hand he’s upset ‘cause it’s not the same team he signed with, but on the other hand I think he’s more upset because he feels that he should never have been told he could be traded to New Jersey. I think that’s what this is all about. If it wasn’t going to happen he feels he should never have been told about it and he didn’t want to know about it.
A little later, Friedman offered some clarity about potentially why the Flames decided not to trade Markstrom. While Friedman’s explanation doesn’t preclude the cost of salary retention factoring in, he also offered an alternative explanation.
I’ll also say this: I know a lot of people, including myself, have believed the deal fell apart over retention or what Calgary considered the proper price for retention. On Saturday, someone else said to me that they heard that it wasn’t even that so much as Calgary just saw how Markstrom was going and how the team was starting to go and just said ‘look, we could make the playoffs and we’re not doing this.’ So there’s a second reason that this may have fallen apart.
So whether it was haggling over the price of retaining several million dollars of Markstrom’s compensation over the remaining two seasons, the team believing they could be playoff-bound, or both, the result was the same: Markstrom wasn’t traded, and he seems nonplussed about how it was handled.
In the written Thoughts, Friedman added some notes on the Chris Tanev trade to Dallas:
- “…the Flames valued a slightly older prospect than a 2024 first-rounder, basically choosing two seconds and a conditional pick, rather than a first for Tanev.”
- “…if Edmonton, Toronto or Vancouver was going to get Tanev, they were going to have to blow Dallas out of the water.”
- “The Oilers were the team that I believe put a first-rounder on the table, but included a contract Calgary didn’t wish to take.”
Friedman also pondered, when discussing the New York Rangers’ fourth line and “depth players they know”, about Kevin Rooney, currently on the Flames’ fourth line.
Finally, here’s the latest Friedman update on Hanifin:
What’s next? Noah Hanifin is locked-in on Tampa Bay, but if that was so easy to do, it would be done already. I don’t believe that’s the only team he’d sign with, but does Calgary get to a point where it says enough is enough and does what it can without his approval? Markstrom’s disappointment is that he felt he should never have been approached about the possibility of a trade if the Flames were going to change their minds and keep him. What shouldn’t be ignored is despite all of the noise, the team is playing hard — including Markstrom. They just beat Winnipeg, Boston, Edmonton, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Ryan Huska deserves a lot of credit for getting buy-in after going from assistant coach to head coach on the same team. That’s very, very hard to do. And Oliver Kylington played 20:31 against the Penguins, his highest since returning. Excellent to see.
The trade deadline is Friday at 1 p.m. MT. Stay tuned to FlamesNation and Daily Faceoff for all your trade deadline coverage needs.
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