Calgary Flames rumours: Patrick Maroon becoming a Flame?
By Ramina Shlah
With the Calgary Flames having quite the busy last few days with Free Agency, it’s been rumoured that they aren’t done yet.
While the Calgary Flames didn’t have as busy as a Free Agency as the Minnesota Wild did on July 1st with their seven signings, they’ve still been quite occupied the last two days. To recap: They’ve signed C Derek Ryan to a three year contract, they’ve signed C/RW Austin Czarnik to two years, they re-signed Dalton Prout, they signed three players to two-way contracts, and yesterday, their biggest one yet, they signed LW James Neal to a five-year contract.
And that’s not to include their big trade involving Dougie Hamilton, which I’m still crying about, thanks.
With how busy Brad Treliving has been, it seems like he’s not quite done yet.
Related Story: Flames trade Dougie Hamilton and Micheal Ferland to Hurricanes
It’s been rumoured by a couple of different sources that the Flames and Patrick Maroon have been working on something. Many people have also seen a good fit with Maroon and the Flames. However, that was before the Free Agency Frenzy started.
With the additions of Austin Czarnik and James Neal, and including the trade that brought Elias Lindholm here, I’m not sure if it totally makes sense to have Maroon. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind having a guy like him around. I even mentioned him in our “10 Free Agents the Flames should target” piece. But the issue is that he’s really established himself as a dependable second-line winger, and I’m not sure if that’s something the Flames need right now.
They’ve pretty much sorted out their top-six issue. Now they need to make just a couple more tweaks in the bottom-six to really establish their forwards.
That being said, he could provide some good even-strength scoring to the bottom-six. It just depends on how much Maroon would be asking for. The last few years, he was getting paid $2 million AAV and had a good run with the New Jersey Devils. But the Flames are in a bit of a cluster right now with their cap and they need to clear up room. Bringing in a player like Maroon, who may be asking for more than $2 million, I’m not so sure the Flames can afford that.
Next: The Dougie Trade - a week later
In saying that, if the Flames managed to clear up space and signed Maroon for $2 million, I would be fully on board. It now just depends on if there’s any substance to these ‘talks’ between the Flames and Maroon.