[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Nah. Changes nothing. Treliving said at the draft that priority was to re-sign both players. Had Gaudreau informed them the days prior to the draft, Treliving still would have been trying to sign Tkachuk.

You're assuming that. It may or may not have been true. It's entirely possible that if Tre & Edwards knew Johnny wasn't re-signing, any realistic shot at making a deep playoff run in 2023 just went out the window, and they may have decided at that point to do a re-tool on the fly which involved moving Chucky at the draft.

Instead, believing that Johnny was staying, they wanted to keep the band together and kept signing both of them as their top priority.

For weeks people kept saying that players/agents always take it to the last minutes as a positive that Johnny may return but when it goes down to the last hours as they predicted with a different outcome all of a sudden the player did a disservice to the team.

People were saying that because they believed Johnny was staying in Calgary but was simply trying to maximize the contract value. Then at the last minute when he suddenly said he wasn't coming back to Calgary, it felt like a punch in the mouth to Flames fans. You can't blame us for feeling that way.

That's not the way that it works as the player doesn't have to rush a decision just to make fans happy.

It's not even a matter of loyalty, it's a matter of basic decency. The team that gave you a shot, set you up for success and embraced you for all these years, kind of expects some honesty in return. If you are planning on leaving, make that known to the organization so they can plan for the future accordingly. Leaving the decision to the last minute really hurt the team.

If Johnny really wanted to make a kind gesture to Calgary on his way out, he could have asked permission to talk to other teams weeks prior to the UFA dealine, got an idea of what kind of market there was for him, made it known to the Flyers that he wanted to go there, and arranged a sign-&-trade between the Flames & Flyers. That way the Flyers get Johnny on a home town discount contract, the Flames get assets, and Johnny gets to play where he really wants to play. Win-win-win all the way across. That's what loyalty to the Flames would have looked like.

But, he chose not to do that. It was his right to handle things the way he wanted to, sure. But he comes across as a guy who wanted his cake and wanted to eat it too, and took a very unintelligent approach to it all. In the end, the Flames avoid spending $10.5x8 on a guy who doesn't seem to prioritize team success and winning Stanley Cups. Not the worst outcome after all.

Johnny didn't have a 'Flames can't make moves clause' in his expiring contract.

Committing $10.5M/yr over 8 years really did limit the other moves they could make, especially since they were also setting aside big money to keep Tkachuk.