Seravalli: ‘Nothing new’ on Gaudreau talks in Calgary

The Calgary Flames have been one of the best teams in the league this season, and are on fire with a 10 game win streak. A lot of that has to do with the excellent play of Johnny Gaudreau, who is an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

But according to comments from assistant general manager Craig Conroy, the Flames are confident that he will be re-signed. Just how true are those comments? Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna talked about it on today’s Daily Faceoff Show.

Frank Seravalli: “Let’s talk about Johnny Gaudreau and the Calgary Flames. The RED HOT Calgary Flames, they’ve been on an absolute tear. And some really interesting comments from their assistant general manager in Craig Conroy made to Sportsnet Radio. The paraphrase of the quote is ‘That’s a done deal, we’re going to get him re-signed!’ So lots of confidence from the Flames management group, do you buy into that?”

Mike McKenna: “If they’re saying that publicly, they better follow through on it at this point because I can’t imagine the pitchforks that would be coming out if they weren’t able to get Johnny Gaudreau extended. I think a lot of this comes down to the success of the Flames recently, and the belief in Darryl Sutter, and the players on that team to be able to carry towards a Stanley Cup in upcoming seasons.

Now, the hard part here is going to be dollar figures for Gaudreau, there’s not a ton of comparables that fall in line I think for a winger in the NHL. You’ve got Panarin who’s off the charts at $11.6, and then Jamie Benn’s at $9.5, that’s not a great comparison. I think the closest might be Landeskog in Colorado who ended up with $7 million as the target figure, but it also had a lot of trade protection. And that might be something that’ll effect Johnny Gaudreau, and his decision of whether he wants to stay in Calgary is if he gets that. We had a great piece on Daily Faceoff about how much that can make a difference from our own Chris Gear.

There’s a lot of work to be done in Calgary. Tkachuk’s an RFA, Mangiapane’s an RFA, Kylington’s an RFA. So there’s a lot to do, but Gaudreau’s the best player in Calgary. I think it gets done, especially if Craig Conroy says it publicly that emphatically.”

Frank Seravalli: “Yeah, I was very surprised by those comments, I gotta tell you. I checked in the hours or days since those comments were made, and I don’t think there’s anything new there. There have not been substantive conversations that I’m aware of that have taken place recently between Johnny Gaudreau’s camp and the Calgary Flames.

And I think the way this season has gone, how well he’s played, on pace to shatter career numbers, and hit the century mark for the first time in points for him in his career. It’s been very quiet and sort of peaceful on that front, and I think both sides are pretty content to watch this play out, see what Johnny Gaudreau can accomplish, let the numbers fall where they may. And also see what the Calgary Flames can accomplish in the playoffs. We all know with that team that it’s about what happens in the postseason and not the regular season.

So I don’t think there’s anything new there. The confidence is nice, but I don’t know that it’s backed up by any reality at the moment. Although if you’re a Flames fan, I guess you like to hear it.”

You can watch the full episode here.