This topic was beaten to death yesterday afternoon on the Flames local radio station (the same on Elliott appeared on to talk about).
By the sounds of it, teams have definitely been inquiring about his availability. Apparently in the Canes deal, Bennett was one of the original pieces in the deal. By the sounds of it, the Flames are open to moving Benny, but not for a song. Like there's no point in moving Sam Bennett for a 2nd round pick, that makes Calgary a worse team right now and likely in the future.
One of the things bounced around was the idea that they would be open to move him in a high upside struggling player for high upside struggling player trade. Similar to the Domi/Galchenyuk deal.
I do feel bad for the kid. He never got a fair shake in Calgary. His rookie season was more impressive than Sean Monahan's, but it was kind of downhill from there. Essentially, Monahan, drafted in front of him was given the top line role with Johnny. Then Calgary drafted Matt Tkachuk, who opposed to what HF thinks, is an elite player. Then the team has the worst bottom 6 likely league wide (considering people on Calgary's bottom 6 from the past couple years are either not in the league or on league minimums/PTO type deals), and slotted Bennett to be the driving force with guys who were barely NHL quality. He isn't that type of player. He can't do that, not at the age of 20 at least. So Bennett was stuck in terms of not playing 1LW, 2LW or 1C or 2C... the coach refused to give him a look at 1RW, opting instead to give guys like Alex Chiasson the time of day.
Really it was a mix of circumstance, performance and coaching. I think given some decent PP time, and top 6 minutes, he'd be a good player for someone. I don't think he'll be a 1C or something, but I could see a skill/grit 40-50 point player with the right make up.
The worst part, is even if he breaks out with a 20 goal season in Calgary, we likely can't afford him regardless.