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Top players are out there.

For free.

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No need to spend a pick. No need to trade a player. No need to pledge a fortune.

Just pick up the phone. You know, show a little interest.

Tyler Johnson got passed over hundreds of times, literally, during National Hockey League drafts. The Spokane, Wash., native created zero buzz.

At 24 years of age, the Tampa Bay Lightning centre is an established star – after being a low-wattage signing out of junior.

“Probably take him now in the seventh round, wouldn’t you?” said Flames general manager Brad Treliving, former executive in the Arizona Coyotes organization. “I confess, your honour — we had him at a development camp in Phoenix. We didn’t sign him. We talked about signing him. The rest is history.”

Adds Tod Button, the Flames’ director of amateur scouting: “It’s never going to be perfect. There’s always going to be guys that slide through.”

Like Mark Giordano.

Two winters with Owen Sound of Ontario Hockey League earned him no draft-weekend nibbles. Just a single free-agent offer — from Calgary.

“In the last five years, how much has that guy improved?” Button says of Giordano, one of the league’s premier blue-liners. “You never know what’s inside a guy, what spurs a guy on. Gio is a great example of a late bloomer — and he’s still getting better. Unbelievable.”