We’re days away from the 2022 National Hockey League trade deadline, friends, and Daily Faceoff’s hockey insider Frank Seravalli chatted with Sportsnet 960 The Fan’s morning show on Tuesday morning to discuss some developments. Among them? Seravalli has added Calgary Flames forward Sean Monahan to the Daily Faceoff trade board.
Here’s how Seravalli explained the Monahan situation:
I don’t think it’s the Calgary Flames’ preference to move Sean Monahan, but I think the Flames are lurking in the weeds in terms of potentially having another significant move in them. And yes, trading Sean Monahan after a second consecutive down season would represent trading him at probably the lowest value he’s been at in his career. But part of this comes down to money. Part of this, when you look at also the Flames and their roster and how things have shaped up, there’s anotehr clear pecking order that exists there and Sean Monahan you could argue could be an ideal third line type centre for a playoff run on a properly constructed team. And that may ultimately end up being the case.
But if you have to move money out, there’s only a limited number of players that really could fit that bill and I think there are teams that would be interested in trying to get their hands on Sean Monahan to see if they can reboot him next season and get him back to the 30-30 guy that he was for a long time in Calgary and did so really consistently.
Originally drafted sixth overall in 2013, Monahan, 27, is currently the Flames’ fourth line centre, lately playing behind Elias Lindholm, Mikael Backlund and Adam Ruzicka in that role. He has a $6.375 million cap hit and has become basically a depth player and power play specialist this season. Once an astonishingly good goal-scoring forward with the ability to drive to the slot and take a beating in order to score goals in an around the net-front area, Monahan’s been hampered over the past few years as injuries and surgeries have taken their toll on him.
The Flames have to extend or replace four key pending free agents this off-season: Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane and Oliver Kylington. (Heck, they’d probably like to keep Erik Gudbranson, too.) But in a flat cap environment, the Flames are currently spending just shy of $14 million of cap space on their fourth line of Monahan ($6.375 million), Milan Lucic ($5.25 million) and Dillon Dube ($2.3 million). Monahan has a 10-team no trade clause in his current deal, which expires following the 2022-23 season.
If they want to keep their key players, tough decisions will have to be made. One of them may be finding a new home for Monahan.
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