Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Monahan wants long-term contract with Flames, prepared to take less money ‘to be a better team’

Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau

Calgary Flames’ Sean Monahan, left, celebrates his goal with teammate Johnny Gaudreau during the third period against the Carolina Hurricanes in an NHL hockey game Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, in Calgary, Alberta. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)

AP

Sean Monahan would like to sign a long-term contract with the Calgary Flames.

And in the pursuit of a Stanley Cup, if the 21-year-old center has to leave a little money on the table, he’s prepared to do that.

“Our goal is to bring a Stanley Cup to Calgary, so if that’s what it is, that we can bring other players in, to have a little extra money room and get them in to help us to be a better team, I think that’s the idea,” Monahan said Monday, per NHL.com.

Monahan is a restricted free agent. So too is 22-year-old winger Johnny Gaudreau. GM Brad Treliving has said he’d like to get both players signed to long-term deals.

“The preference for us would be to have some cost certainty with them, get them under contract for term, but again it takes two to make a deal here and we’ll continue to work away at it,” Treliving said earlier this month.

Gaudreau led the Flames with 78 points last season, followed by Monahan’s 63 points. Those two, along with 20-year-old Sam Bennett and 18-year-old Matthew Tkachuk, are excellent reasons for optimism in Calgary. The Flames also have a solid defense, led by captain Mark Giordano, who’s already locked up to a long-term contract. And with the additions of Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson, they’re hoping they’ve stabilized their goaltending.

Certainly, the goal for 2016-17 should be getting back to the playoffs. Like their Alberta neighbors to the north, with all the talent that’s been assembled, it’s no longer acceptable for the Flames to keep missing out on the postseason.

That will be especially true if Monahan and Gaudreau sign big, long-term deals this summer. While still young, they’re around the same age that Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane started winning Stanley Cups in Chicago, and when Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty started winning in Los Angeles.

“We both want to be there, we both want to play together, and we want to win in Calgary,” said Monahan.