[getbak]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...-final-stages/


Talk about the unsigned RFAs and where things are likely to land...

If I were a team, I’d want term. The price for talent never goes down. Look at all the great players who extended in the summer of 2016 — Johnny Gaudreau, Nathan MacKinnon, Sean Monahan and Mark Scheifele among them. How much has the market changed in three years? It’s massive. If you really believe in your free agent, lock him in for as long as you can.

Colorado wants this with Mikko Rantanen. Gabriel Landeskog and Cale Makar are up in two years, MacKinnon in four. They don’t want to worry about extending the talented Finn a second time in that span. The Avalanche seem willing to make Rantanen their highest-paid player, but don’t want him making, say, $4 million per year more than MacKinnon.

The dynamic is similar with Matthew Tkachuk in Calgary. A five-to-eight year term makes him the highest-paid Flame. Everyone understands that. But how much higher than Gaudreau and Mark Giordano is the question.

Many of the "thoughts" are from the NHL media event last week where Sam Bennett was the Flames' rep.

The Athletic’s Craig Custance reported Calgary’s Noah Hanifin tinkered with his one-timer at Darryl Belfry’s skills camp last month. He’s not the only Flame working on his finish. Another is Sam Bennett.

“I can do a better job of finishing opportunities,” he said. “Release points. Someone told me every time I shoot the puck it’s the same. Sometimes you need to mix it up, change the angle, change the release point, and I was working on that.”

Bennett added he was working on shooting off different feet, as well.