Calgary Flames 6 days until the season starts: #6 Dennis Wideman

There’s less than one week until the regular season starts up again! With six days left, let’s take a look at a former Calgary Flames player with that number.

Since the start of August, we’re counting down the number of days left until the regular season starts up again! Every day until the start of the season, we’ll be talking about a Calgary Flames player whose number correlates with how many days there are left.

Yesterday, we talked about a player who went undrafted but was a part of the 1989 Stanley Cup winning team. That was #7 Joe Mullen. Actually, for the last three players, they’ve all been part of that winning team. Let’s change it up a bit.

With just six days left until the regular season starts (less than a week!!), let’s look at a DEFINITE fan-favourite! Let’s look at #6 Dennis Wideman.

Related Story: 7 days until the season starts: #7 Joe Mullen

Who is Dennis Wideman?

Name: Dennis Earl Wideman

Birthplace: Kitchener, ON, Canada

Position: D

Shoots: Right

Birthdate: 1983-03-20

Height: 6’0″ / 183 cm

Weight: 91 kg / 200 lbs

Drafted by: Buffalo Sabres, 241st overall 2002

Stats with all NHL teams, regular season:

After not being drafted until the eighth round, Dennis Wideman spent his junior years playing with the London Knights of the OHL. Never doing anything with the Buffalo Sabres, he finally signed as a free agent with the St. Louis Blues in 2004, at the age of 21. In his first year with the Blues in 2004-05, he spent the entire year down in the AHL. He had 43 points in 79 games.

The following year, he again spent it down in the AHL for 12 games before finally getting the call-up to the big league. He spent the rest of the season with the Blues, where he had eight goals and 24 points in 67 regular season games.

Calgary Flames

The following season, he was traded later in the season to the Boston Bruins. With the Bruins, he had just one goal and three points in 20 games and finished the season off with six goals and 25 points in 75 games.

The following two season got better for Wideman, and he broke the 50-point mark in 2008-09 with +32. But then he dropped to 30 points in 2009-10 with -14. While he did well in the playoffs in 12 points in 13 games, he was still traded in the off-season to the Florida Panthers.

And while Wideman was doing decently with the Panthers, he had nine goals and 33 points in 65 games, they decided to part ways with him and he was off to the Washington Capitals. With the Caps, he had one goal and seven points in 14 games.

After the 2011-2012 season, Wideman was set to become a free agent. But before that, the Capitals traded his rights to the Calgary Flames. Wideman was signed to a bit of an expensive contract… given his production. He was signed to a five-year contract with an AAV of $5.25 million. His first two seasons with the Flames, as you can see above, weren’t the best. And definitely not worthy of $5.25 million a year.

Then the 2014-15 season came, and Wideman had some career highs. He had 15 goals and 56 points and was part of a solid top-four defence core in Calgary. They also made the playoffs for the first time in six years.

The following season, following their fun playoff run, was a bit of a disappointment. The team somewhat unexpectedly took a big dip and they failed to qualify for playoff contention. But let’s slow down a little bit and look at what happened in the middle of the 2015-16 season. In January, Dennis Wideman got hit hard into the boards. As he gets up and is skating back to the Calgary Flames bench, he looks to cross-check a ref on his way.

It was later determined that Wideman suffered a concussion from that initial hit but was still suspended 20 games for that hit on the ref. After an appeal from the NHLPA that was determined non-intentional, that suspension was reduced to 10 games, after Wideman had already served 19 games.

The rest of the season was bad for the Flames. And this past season, it almost seemed like the officials had somewhat of a target on the Flames. People on Twitter constantly joked about it, even the analysts over at Sportsnet noticed a change in the number of penalties called on the Flames, and called it the “Wideman Effect.” The officials didn’t seem to like that too much because they ended up calling Sportsnet and telling them that they don’t like when they joke that the refs have a target on the Flames.

Sounds a little suspicious.

Related Story: Are Flames Fans Rightfully Frustrated By The Officiating?

But after this past season with Wideman being somewhat of an anchor, fans couldn’t wait until the season ended and his contract would be over. Wideman was on a no-movement clause, so the Flames couldn’t even put him on waivers with the purpose of sending him down to the minors if they wanted to. Then after a couple of games of Wideman being a healthy scratch this past season, he came out and said that he was willing to waive his no-movement clause.

Via Calgary Herald:

"If that’s something that (the Flames) want to do, then they can call and I definitely would be open to it. I think, as a player, you don’t want to be anywhere that you’re not wanted. So if they want to move you and someone wants to take you, then it’s nice to go somewhere like that if that’s the case.And if I don’t hear anything, then I guess I’m here."

Wideman is currently still a free-agent.

When the season finished, one thing Flames fans could look forward to: no more Dennis Wideman. You know, until that referee, Don Henderson, a day after the Flames season ended, announced that he would be taking legal action and suing Dennis Wideman for over $10 million for damages caused.

Come on! The season JUST ended! You couldn’t give Flames fans one week to be happy!?

Next: Flames Daily - Getting an idea of the final roster

As much as he was frustrating to have on the team, you somewhat have to feel bad for him. Nobody ever wants to feel unwanted on a team they play for. And that’s not how you want to end your career. For his sake, I hope a team picks him up.

Just you know… not the Flames.