Flames and Andersson another reminder that players and NHL teams can outgrow each other

When a young player is drafted or acquired by a National Hockey League club, both sides usually have shared visions of future greatness.

The NHL team will grow into a perennial powerhouse! The young player will blossom into a top-flight NHL star. Sure, the player will probably be compensated accordingly – getting “that bag,” as the kids say – but because of how well things are going for both sides, the team will be more than happy to pay them their worth.

The relationship between a player and team is often symbiotic, and when a team’s ambitions align with a star player’s, you can see very fruitful long-term relationships that can last for an entire playing career.

However, because of how the NHL can often operate, sometimes these shared ambitions don’t come to fruition. And simply put, when that happens, sometimes players and teams can out-grow each other. There are times when a player’s ambition surpasses their team’s ability to achieve it, or when the market value of that player out-kicks what the team can, or should, pay them given the current circumstances.

In the 1990s, the Calgary Flames experienced two big examples of this phenomenon.

In the early part of the decade, after the exodus of several members of the contending 1980s teams, Joe Nieuwendyk emerged as the team’s best player. He led the team in scoring, he was their captain, and he was pretty much a tailor-made home-grown success story as a draftee that became a pillar of the franchise. As salaries league-wide increased, it became challenging for the Flames to shell out the bucks needed to compensate Nieuwendyk equally to his peers. (And the Flames were also finding it increasingly challenging to offer an opportunity to win another championship.) Nieuwendyk held out to begin the 1995-96 season as the two sides remained far apart on a contract restructuring, and he was traded to Dallas in exchange for Corey Millen and prospect Jarome Iginla in December 1995.

In the later part of the decade, the cycle repeated itself with Theoren Fleury. With a leaner supporting cast that Nieuwendyk had, Fleury was the pace-setter for the Flames in all facets of their game, leading the team in scoring, briefly serving as captain, and generally being one of the few reasons to watch the team during some lean years. But, again, Fleury’s elevated performance led to elevated salary expectations that the Flames couldn’t meet, and so Fleury was traded prior to the 1999 trade deadline to Colorado in exchange for a package that included prospect Robyn Regehr.

Flash forward to the early 2010s, and once again, the Flames were at a point where they simply weren’t able to contend. Their best player, longtime captain Jarome Iginla, was running out of time in his career to capture a championship. And so the two sides shook hands and agreed to find their star a new home, resulting in Iginla moving to Pittsburgh prior to the 2013 trade deadline.

And that brings us to Rasmus Andersson, who’s in the final year of his current contract with the Flames.

Is Andersson an unabashed drafting and development success story? Definitely. Has Andersson been a really good Flame? Definitely. Has his performance dictated that he gets a raise on his next deal? Definitely. Based on where the Flames are in their contention cycle, should the Flames be spending what it would cost to keep Andersson? …probably not. At this point of their progression, Andersson may be a luxury they can’t really afford.

The Flames are in a retooling process and are probably still a few years away from being a contending team. A contending team can definitely justify paying Andersson what it would take to have Andersson on their team – probably in excess of $8 million per season. But the Flames aren’t really in a spot where spending that sort of dough on Andersson would be optimal use of their money or his time.

On last Monday’s edition of Flames Talk on Sportsnet 960 The Fan, Pat Steinberg and Wes Gilbertson had a great discussion of the various nuances of Andersson’s situation.