The Stanley Cup Final is set to kick off tomorrow night, the NHL Draft is right around the corner, and free agency is looming. The rumour mill around the Calgary Flames has been as loud as it can be for a team that hasn’t played a game since April.
From Jacob Markstrom trade rumours sparking once again, to the reported interest in Trevor Zegras and Martin Necas, to who the Flames are going to select at ninth overall. One idea that was sprinkled about the Flames was a little while ago when Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek introduced the idea of the Flames trading for Tampa Bay Lightning forward Tanner Jeannot.
While the Flames would probably like to add a little bit of muscle to their lineup for next season, the prospect of trading for Tanner Jeannot should be squashed at all costs. Let’s get into why.
Jeannot’s tough last few seasons
Jeannot looked like he was going to be a nice piece for the Nashville Predators just a few seasons ago. In the 2021–22 season, he scored 24 goals and had 41 points on a Predators team that made the playoffs (ultimately being swept by the Avalanche in Round 1), Jeannot looked like he could be a force for many years to come.
The 2022–23 season was a much different story, however. Jeannot played 56 games with the Predators scoring only five goals and recording 14 points, a far cry from his breakout season just one year prior. Even though he was in the midst of a nightmare season, the Tampa Bay Lightning decided to take a shot on him just before the trade deadline in 2023.
The Lightning would give up five assets to acquire the struggling Jeannot, and when getting to Tampa, his play did not get any better. He would record just four points in 20 games and no points in three playoff games in the Lightning’s first-round defeat to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It was an awful season for Jeannot, there was no way around it.
The Lightning hoped Jeannot would have a bounce-back year this past season, but that did not happen. In 55 games Jeannot would score seven goals and record 14 points before only having one point in four playoff games before being eliminated by the Florida Panthers.
A supposed power forward who is not scoring and taking way too many penalties is one thing that a team cannot afford to have, and Jeannot has been nothing but a detriment to the Lightning since arriving a year ago.
Why the Flames need to stay away from Jeannot
If Jeannot’s major dip in production wasn’t enough to convince you that the Flames should probably steer away from his services, I think there are a few more very major reasons why the Flames do not need to spend assets to bring in a player like Jeannot.
The first is the price they would likely have to pay to bring Jeannot in. While it would not be the major haul that the Lightning originally paid to acquire Jeannot, I don’t necessarily think that the Lightning would want to just give Jeannot away for nothing. Most likely the cost to acquire Jeannot would probably be a late draft pick—it is not much, but when you are the Flames, you need every draft pick and they cannot go to waste, even if the odds of hitting on a player later in the draft is slim. Jeannot is not a player they should be giving assets up to bring in, especially since he is 27 years old.
Secondly, Jeannot’s contract situation is something the Flames would have to be very careful about. Jeannot has one year left on his contract at $2.665 million and is set to become an unrestricted free agent by the end of next season.
The Flames already have a bunch of players whose contracts will be up by the end of next year, and they already have to figure out if they are going to sign those players or trade them. I don’t think it is necessarily the best idea for the Flames to bring in another player who will need a contract, and I don’t think Craig Conroy needs that on his plate for next season either.
Lastly, Jeannot is just not a good NHL player. He rode an incredibly high shooting percentage in 2021–22 and teams have been banking on him to do that again when it is extremely unrealistic. He is not a play driver, his defensive impacts are not good, and he spends way too much time in the penalty box to justify keeping him in the lineup.
If the Flames were to receive assets in exchange for taking him on I wouldn’t see any harm in that, I would actually welcome it, but I don’t think that is how the Lightning are going to try to get him off the books.
Make the correct moves for the future of the franchise
Conroy and the rest of the management team have to be smart with how they use their assets and cap space this summer. They cannot afford to give up assets for players who may not be here in a year’s time and they certainly cannot give up major assets in hopes of getting them back to the playoffs when they are very clearly not anywhere close to it.
If they want to use the Canucks’ first-round pick to move up in the draft order, I can definitely get behind that, but moving picks for players who are in the midst of their prime years with little upside anywhere else—I cannot get behind that. The management team will have to proceed with caution this summer, and we will just have to wait and see what they are going to do.
