GOODBYE, GIORDANO
Kraken claim Flames' C
After 949 games in a Calgary Flames uniform, Mark Giordano walked across the stage on Wednesday in a Seattle Kraken jersey.
A franchise icon and a treasured, adopted Calgarian, Giordano was officially a member of a new NHL team for the first time in his career.
Giordano smiled and thanked the Kraken.
He'd been open about wanting to finish his career in the same place he had started it, but this is hockey, which is a cruel business.
The fact that Giordano will continue his career skating for another team does nothing to take away from his status as one of the most important, beloved players to ever wear a Flames uniform.
He earned his status as a Flames legend, but when push came to shove, the price to keep Giordano was too high for GM Brad Treliving.
“In order for this not to happen was a price we couldn't pay,” Treliving said. “If there was a way within reason for this not to happen ... we certainly would have pursued it.”
There is no question that Giordano wanted to stay with the Flames to finish his career. He's been open about that.
The Flames wanted to keep him, too. Treliving was sombre and reflective in his conversation with the local media on Wednesday evening.
Giordano was captain when Treliving took over as Flames general manager and led the team through its post-jarome Iginla rebuild. They never achieved a ton of playoff success, but Giordano remained the leader as they turned themselves into a team that finished with the best record in the Western Conference in 2018-19 and tried to establish itself as a legitimate contender.
He made being a GM a lot easier, too, as Treliving said.
“Since I've been here, my first talk to all our young players is: `When you get to Calgary, you'll see a stall that's got a No. 5 on it. Watch what he does. Just do that and you'll be all right,'” said Treliving. “That's the biggest compliment we've said. If you want to follow somebody and how they work, how they prepare, how they commit, how they live, follow that. If you come pretty close, you'll be all right. I think he's had a big impact on a lot of people.”
In a normal year, with no expansion draft, there's no question the Flames keep Giordano. It's not like they were dangling him on the trade market.
He'll be 38 when the final year of his contract, which carries a cap hit of US$6.75 million, is up after next season, and the Flames likely would have tried to re-sign him. Trying to bring him back may still be on the table.
But the nature of the expansion draft left the Flames little choice but to leave him exposed.
They simply couldn't risk losing one of their young core defencemen — Chris Tanev, Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin.
Losing Giordano makes Wednesday a sad day in Flames history, and it's clearly been a tough couple weeks and months for Treliving.
Throughout the entire process, he had regular conversations with Giordano.
“Some days he was consoling me, some days I was consoling him. That went back and forth,” Treliving said. “We've had lots of discussions. To me, as you go through this process, you always try to keep your players up to speed with what's going on. This is a special person and a unique circumstance, so I wanted to make sure he was well aware and understood.
“That's the other thing, Mark understood the situation and we all understood the situation, and at the end of the day, we were looking at ways for it not to happen, but from an organizational standpoint, you have to make business decisions.
“In order for this not to happen, it was a price we couldn't pay. So it's tough, but in terms of the communication with Mark, it was consistent and constant throughout the process.”
So now, Giordano's incredible journey in Calgary comes to an end. He started as an unheralded, undrafted rookie. He wound up playing 949 games for the Flames and turned himself into one of the most respected leaders in the NHL and a Norris Trophy winner as the league's best defencemen in 2018-19. That's a story we may never see again around these parts.
He became a franchise icon who devoted much of his free time to helping out the Calgary community that embraced and loved him. Even Mayor Naheed Nenshi weighed in on his departure.
“I want to say that Mark has been an incredible community builder here in Calgary,” Nenshi said. “I've gotten the chance to know him a tiny bit over the years. We're going to miss him a lot. He's going to continue to be a great leader (in Seattle), but I know his heart will always be in Calgary.”
It will take some getting used to for Flames fans seeing Giordano in a Kraken uniform. It will probably take Giordano some time to get used to wearing another team's colours.
“Yeah, I obviously understood that this could happen,” Giordano said. “If I was telling you I thought it would happen for sure, I'd be lying. I thought it was up in the air right until the end. Once the list got released, it became very real that it was a possibility, and then I got the call last night.
“It was a weird 24 hours, for sure, but after the initial shock, I was excited to check out the city and I've had a good day.”
Giordano had a lot of good years in Calgary. He'll be rightfully given a hero's welcome when he returns for a pre-season game with the Kraken on Sept. 29.
Some day, he'll surely get his jersey hung from the rafters of the Flames' new rink.