With the news that a couple shady agents of the Montreal Canadiens have been in attendance at the last two Flames games, anxiety over Calgary's impending budget crunch in the summer of '08 has reached a fever pitch on messageboards and around water coolers recently. That seems a pretty massive causal leap (trade spec-->budget crisis), but it really isn't, given that the object of the speculation is Alex Tanguay.
The Flames salary crunch is admittedly dire - Calgary has just 12 players signed for next year with a cap hit of over 38M. That leaves around 16-18M to sign Huselius (5M), Langkow (5M) and Phaneuf (6M+) (or their replacements) with the additional need to replace some of the other departing free agents (Conroy, Nolan, Yelle) and a couple other plugs.
As such, the primary reason any Flames fan can imagine Sutter trading Tanguay is to free up cap space for the off-season. Tanguay's so-so counting numbers this season and 5M cap hit make him an obvious target. Here's my problem with that kind of thinking:
Tanguay is demonstrably the 2nd best forward on this team. Without question, he's an elite player. No one out scores the competition like Tanguay on the Flames excepting Jarome Iginla. Tanguay has also expanded his repertoire of impressive skills by becoming a decent penalty killer this year. He makes whoever he plays with better and has proven to be one of the best ES producers in the league.
The problem with getting rid of Tanguay is you leave a huge, gaping hole in the Flames top 6 forwards. Keep in mind, Tanguay isn't just a point-getter: he's a difference maker. He does things that add (+) to a team's goal differential. Huselius doesn't replace Tanguay's contributions (and I love Huselius). Neither does Langkow. And who wants to bet that BOTH of those guys will be $5M players next year? Trading Tanguay to sign Juice or Langkow is robing Peter to pay Paul. It get's you nowhere (unless both can be signed for something approaching his cap hit...which is, let's face it, extremely unlikely).
So, IF Sutter is to trade Tanguay he has to:
Acquire players that can replace his contributions to the team in one form or another (say - an up and coming forward AND top a 4 defensemen at the least) WHILE ensuring less of a cap hit in the summer (the point of all this is freeing up cap space, after all). Keep in mind, this is a "just okay" squad with Alex Tanguay. Without him, or at least a reasonable facsimile, this is a much worse (ie; no play-offs) team.
Granting these stipulations, then, sure, trade Tanguay. If you can get him to waive his no trade clause and convince another squad (Montreal I guess) to give up a couple of relatively cheap but decently performing young assests (Higgins and Komisarek), then , great...get 'er done. Anything short of that (see: anything involving Ryder, who should be available for much less than Tanguay) then you're making a mistake. I've mentioned it here in the comments and elsewhere that Sutter needs to find a way to trim the fat from this roster through whatever means necessary (and there's a lot of fat), before sacrificing his best players. Trade, package, demote, buy-out, waive the guys that don't live up to their cap hits. Aucoin, Warrener, Eriksson, Primeau, Nilson, off the top of my head. Make the roster lean and only then start dealing key pieces if you must. But not before.
EDIT - Matt Chimes in.
