Milan Lucic waives no-move clause, makes himself available to Kraken

Forward Milan Lucic has officially agreed to waive his no-movement clause, meaning the Calgary Flames won’t be forced to protect him from the Seattle Kraken. 

Isn’t that a sweet thing to do? On Tuesday, it was indeed confirmed that Lucic didn’t want to make it hard on general manager Brad Treliving, despite the fact that he would prefer to stay with the Flames in the future. 

“As much as I want to stay in Calgary I didn’t want to handcuff Tree (GM Brad Treliving) in the expansion draft so I agreed that I would waive it for the expansion draft if he didn’t want to protect me,” Lucic told Sportsnet.ca.

“I really enjoy it here in Calgary and I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of my career here.”

The Flames therefore won’t have to protect the veteran forward “as one of its seven protected forwards and eliminates the team’s significant quandary over whether to expose a player like Mikael Backlund, Dillon Dube or Andrew Mangiapane. Now all three can be kept, along with Johnny Gaudreau, Elias Lindholm, Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk.” Each team must expose at least two forwards that are both under contract in 2021-22 and fill a games played requirement. 

Lucic even admitted that he agreed to move his NMC from the moment he became a member of the Flames in the trade with the Edmonton Oilers for James Neal in July 2019. 

The veteran has two more years left on a contract paying him $5.25 million annually and it sounds like there is little chance the Kraken would take him away from the Flames. According to Sportsnet, Seattle GM Ron Francis is more focused on Mark Giordano, Oliver Kylington and Derek Ryan.

However Lucic is ready to sacrifice himself and maybe Karma will reward him for it and leave him where he wants to be, in Calgary.