I think the Flames need to look at the coming year as a one-off, and the team's real future - whatever it is - as beginning in 2023.
If the Flames qualify Tkachuk one one year deal, they'll have him, Lucic, and Monahan all going to UFA in 2023 (if I've understood things correctly). That means over 20 million coming off the books - and if they can't re-sign Gaudreau it will effectively be over 25 million. So huge room to make deals and signings and I hope the Flames are judicious about it. They have some younger pieces who will have matured a lot by then too, so I could see a very quick rebuild taking place. But they'll need to add at least one bit of high end offensive talent. Who that might be I've no idea.
The main thing for me is - with the exception of re-signing Johnny if the terms are reasonable - I don't want the team saddling itself with bad contracts, especially ones that extend beyond next season.
Also, they need to clone Tanev.
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