What We Learned: Flames' pending UFAs doing the club a favour

Depending on who you believe, anywhere between one and 20 guys want to get the hell out of the Calgary Flames organization.

In addition to losing Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk last summer, it now seems as though the Flames could start next season without the services of guys like Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm, Mikael Backlund, and perhaps Tyler Toffoli.

All are pending unrestricted free agents and while their reasons for potentially wanting out (if the rumours are to be believed) are varied. However, it's also fair to say that if six UFAs very publicly want out in the space of about a year, there's a kind of ambient feeling that this is a dead-end organization in some ways.

Obviously, the club was caught with its pants down on the Gaudreau situation, and made the best of a bad situation