The clock is ticking for the Calgary Flames to secure the retention of star forward Johnny Gaudreau's services, as they could soon lose the biggest selling point they have for Johnny Hockey, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

In exactly 48 hours, #Flames will lose the ability to offer Johnny Gaudreau an 8-year contract, which will significantly narrow (eliminate?) their advantage versus the market. Sources say there has been no traction in talks to this point between Gaudreau and Calgary. Tick tock.

With the real possibility of Gaudreau leaving the Flames this offseason, other front offices must be salivating over the prospect of acquiring his services, especially if talks between Gaudreau's camp and the Flames stall. The two sides are still discussing, but no significant progress has been reported, so far.

It's not hard to imagine more than a dozen of general mangers keeping a close eye on Gaudreau's situation with the Flames, with some perhaps licking their chops already at the prospect of contacting the forward. Among the teams who'd love to have someone like Gaudreau are the Philadelphia Flyers, but the team simply just doesn't seem to have the financial muscle to pull off such a move.

Via Sam Carchidi  of Philly Hocke Now:

Gaudreau “would (come to the Flyers), but they don’t have any money,” the source told Philly Hockey Now. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Calgary wants him back in the worst way, and they made him a really good offer. The Flyers haven’t reached out to his agent yet (that would technically be illegal), and I don’t know if they plan on doing anything.”

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Gaudreau has done everything he could to show how important he can be for the future of the Flames and Calgary knows it. He just finished the 2021-22 NHL season with 115 points on the strength of 40 goals and 75 assists. With Gaudreau as one of the huge driving forces of the Flames' offense, Calgary went sixth overall in the league in goals per game (3.55) and placed inside the top 10 in several other major and advanced offensive stats.

The potential of Gaudreau leaving in free agency could also impact the way the Flames handle the situations of Matthew Tkachuk and Andrew Mangiapane, who are both restricted free agents.

According to CapFriendly, the Flames have a projected cap space of $26.925 million Meanwhile, the Flyers only have a minuscule $118,560 left on their cap space.