NHL Rumors: 2 Teams To Explore Blake Coleman Trade This Offseason

Blake Coleman survived the March 6 trade deadline as a Calgary Flame, but the conversations that surrounded him between November and the deadline have not gone away.

They have simply been postponed.

David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported in his post-deadline breakdown that even after the Dallas Stars acquired Michael Bunting, Dallas kept tabs on Coleman and were planning to circle back if they could clear enough cap room to make the money work.

That conversation is now a summer conversation.

Frank Seravalli of Frankly Hockey reported at the height of the deadline buzz that sources indicated 20 of the other 31 NHL teams had called Calgary about Coleman, making him the most widely inquired-about player the Flames had available despite Nazem Kadri generating more public attention.

"They're not in a rush to move him," Seravalli said. "And so it's going to take something good and interesting to make the Calgary Flames jump."

Why Dallas and Tampa Bay Were the Two Most Prominent Suitors

Coleman is a native of Plano, Texas and has never played for the team he grew up watching, despite some of the most memorable moments of his career coming against them.

He scored his first career NHL goal against Dallas in March 2017 and netted the insurance goal in Tampa Bay's 2-0 win over the Stars in Game 6 of the 2020 Stanley Cup Final, sealing the Tampa Bay Lightning's championship.

David Pagnotta confirmed in January that Dallas is on Coleman's ten-team approved trade list and that Coleman would approve a move to the Stars if the deal came together.

Cap constraints were the reason it did not.

Dallas had only $3.26 million in cap space at the deadline, which made absorbing Coleman's $4.9 million salary logistically impossible without first moving out another contract.

The Lightning connection is also obvious.

Coleman won back-to-back Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021, and the trade deadline buzz frequently raised the possibility of a reunion with a franchise where Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy remain.

Multiple outlets confirmed the Lightning were among the teams very interested in acquiring him before the Flames held firm.

Where the Summer Market Stands

Coleman enters the offseason on the final year of his six-year, $29.4 million contract at a $4.9 million cap hit with a ten-team no-trade clause.

He posted 13 goals and 21 points in 48 games before the deadline, numbers held back by a mid-January upper-body injury that cost him several weeks.

He finished the season with 20 goals and 35 points across 69 games played. Over the last four seasons, the 34-year-old has recorded 83 goals and 83 assists for 166 total points over 311 games played, all with Calgary.

The Hockey Writers named the Lightning as the most natural offseason destination given the Cup reunion factor, with Dallas, the Canadiens, and several other contenders also identified as teams likely to revisit the conversation Craig Conroy held off on closing in March.

Frank Seravalli named Coleman the seventh-best trade piece heading into the summer on his offseason trade board.

Photo Credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images