I am generally okay with Treliving’s handling of RFA’s. He has been consistently tough with all of them, especially the ones without arb rights. That said, I think the Flames missed an opportunity to bump up Mangiapnes AAV in exchange for a more medium term deal.
I would not surprised in the slightest if Mangiapane puts up a 15 goal season this year. So while he’ll be a steal this year at 715k, he will have arb rights and be due for a significant raise in 2020. Next year, the Flames are losing a ton of contract value with Brodie, Frolik, Hamonic, Andersson, Kylington and Jankowski all due for new contracts. Getting good value out of years 2 or 3 of a Managiapane contract would help offset the loss of some of those below market value veteran contracts.
Ryan Dzingel is the closet comparable I could find from a career arc / contract standpoint. He was a 7th round pick who slowly progressed into a top 6 NHL forward. While there is no guarantee that a player will keep improving, I’d rather see a team bet on these young RFA’s that they see potential in.
Year | Points/Game | Contract ($ amount is AAV)
2015-16 | 0.300 | $715k (last year of ELC)
2016-17 | 0.395 | $750k (1 year contract)
2017-18 | 0.519 | $1.8M (Year 1 of 2 year contract)
2018-19 | 0.718 | $1.8M (Year 2 of 2 year contract)
2019-20 | TBD | $3.375M (2 year UFA deal)
For the 2016-17 to 2018-19 seasons, Dzingels average salary was $1.45M. Hindsight is 20/20, but if the Sens signed him to a 3 year $1.45M AAV deal after his ELC instead of that 1 year 750k deal, they’d have an extra 350k of cap space in years 2 and 3. In a cap dominated league, you need to moneyball some value out of these contracts. Outside of ELC’s, locking in these midlevel RFA’s to good contracts before they pop is one of the few ways left that GM’s can add contract value to their team.
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