...the Flames have the heaviest blueline in the league, cap-wise.**
24.250M. That number includes Warrener and Eriksson, who continue to hang around, but not Mark Giordano, since his contract details are still shrouded in mystery.
Right now, Calgary sits about 1.3M above than 2nd place Anaheim (who boast Pronger, Neidermayer, Schneider and Beauchemin in their top 4), approximately 2M more than Detroit (Lidstrom, Kronvall, Stuart and Rafalski) and almost 8M more than the league average (16.632M). Subtracting both Warrener and Eriksson (2.35M+1.5M) and adding Giordano (1M?) would drop the Flames into 4th place (21.4M) assuming the Ducks keep Schneider (they won't).
There's no getting around it folks - that's poor value for the back-end. The Flames should have the best defense corps in the league at that price and here we are agonizing over who amongst the incumbents could possibly fill the sizable hole in the top 4. This is a big part of the reason it looks like the Flames will be heading into the season with a 2nd line of: ? - Lombardi - Bertuzzi
Ugh. At least we can still kinda laugh at TOR (21.365M - McCabe, Kaberle, Kubina, Finger).
**(Just want to express my love and gratitude for the sortable cap stats Soundwave keeps at nhlnumbers).
Submitted for discussion here.
