A mostly unknown NHL rule prevented Mark Giordano's return to Calgary

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Sam Hutch
March 22, 2022 (8:11)

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The National Hockey Leagues Collective Bargaining Agreement has always been complicated, the wording can be hard to understand, that is, unless you study it, and even then, you might still need clarification on the ins and outs of the CBA.

As it turns out, the Calgary Flames were one of the teams that needed some guidance on the CBA when they expressed interest in bringing back longtime captain Mark Giordano according to TSN's Pierre LeBrun.

There's a little known rule in the CBA that the Flames got clarification on, they could not re-acquire Mark Giordano from Seattle and have Seattle retain any salary or any of the cap hit in that trade and in fact they couldn't have even involved a 3rd team, a broker team, to try and bring down the AAV. It's a rule in the CBA that is there for anyone not to get a player back on retained salary within the same calendar year, so that pretty much knocked them out of the Mark Giordano sweepstakes, which hurt because as we know the Flames went pretty hard at Anaheim this weekend for Hampus Lindholm, didn't get him and last week were in pretty hard 'til the end on ben Chiarot and of course didn't get him, so where do they go next?

The rule in the CBA that the Flames sought clarification on was that if they wanted to re-acquire Gio from the Seattle Kraken, who they lost in last year's expansion draft, Seattle could not retain any of Gio's salary or cap hit, even if a third team was involved. In other words,re-acquiring Giordano would be next to impossible.

Giordano was, of course, then acquired by the Toronto Maple Leafs along with Collin Blackwell in exchange for 2 second-round picks and a 3rd round pick.

Giordano, 38, has 23 points in 55 games played so far this season with the Kraken, including 6 goals and 17 assists.