Gaudreau’s future uncertain

It’s a waiting game.

The Calgary Flames have pitched a lucrative, long-term deal to Johnny Gaudreau — undoubtedly, the largest contract offer in franchise history, speculated to be worth between US$9-10 million per winter over the maximum eight-year span — but the consensus among the ace insiders is that the superstar left-winger is still mulling it over. He’s eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 13.

As Pierre Lebrun summed up on recent edition of TSN’S Insider Trading: “The news is that there is no news, which is not good news if you’re Calgary, if you follow along … I’m told, on this day, Johnny Gaudreau remains undecided about the offer from the Calgary Flames. His camp has not communicated to the Flames one way or another where this is headed at this point.”

Nobody is knocking Gaudreau.

The ace playmaker has earned the right to take his time with this massive decision.

And if the 28-year-old chooses to test the market, he’s earned that right too. If he goes that route, he will be the biggest name available. Calgary’s Brad Treliving won’t be the only general manager willing to empty a Brinks truck to secure the services of the puck-whiz winger. (Treliving, it’s worth noting, is the only exec who can offer an eight-year term, and only if the contract is signed before the free-agent period opens.)

Gaudreau finished second in the NHL’S scoring race this past season with 115 points, including a league-leading 90 in even-strength scenarios. He was fourth in Hart Trophy voting.

The Flames want the firstliner and fan favourite to stick around the Saddledome for a long while. Everybody knows that. The trouble they’re facing now, with the calendar flipped to July, is that it’s awfully tough to game plan for the future — either immediate or long-term — without knowing if there will be a sudden vacancy at the top of your forward depth chart.

Treliving boarded a flight Sunday to Montreal for the 2022 NHL Draft. While the prospect-picking won’t begin until Thursday evening, most of the shot-callers from around the league arrive early in the week. There will be plenty of trade chatter, certainly some wheeling-and dealing, and Treliving always likes to be a part of it.

But does he have any cash to spend, especially since Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane and Oliver Kylington are all primed for significant paydays as restricted free agents? Does he need to try to unload a contract to create some salary-cap wiggle room?

Doesn’t it all hinge on whether he can re-sign No. 13?

“It’s a bit of a matrix,” Treliving said during an interview with Postmedia. “We have a number of players that need contracts. We have to try to determine what each is going to be at and how you fit it all together. Certainly, there’s guys at the higher end of the food chain, in terms of what their salary is going to be. You have to set yourself up so that you can accept that into your cap situation and what does it do to other situations.

“But it’s very fluid. You have to stay flexible. Obviously, everybody knows that Johnny is up and we want to get him signed and we’re trying really hard to do that, and you have other players that we want to keep here. There’s only X amount that you have under a salary-cap system, so you try to balance it all out.”

Word is, the Flames delivered a big-bucks offer to Gaudreau’s rep, Lewis Gross, soon after being eliminated in the second round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs.