Two weeks into August and the Flames still have some significant cap issues to consider. NHLnumbers puts Calgary at 1.479M over the salary ceiling. The true number is actually worse than that since Giordano's contract details are still "TBA". Assuming an $800k dollar figure for Gio, the Flames are actually closer to 2.3M in the red, or, about the amount of Rhett Warrener's contract. If management wants a bit of breathing room to work with during the season, guys like Nilson and Eriksson have to go away as well.
The problem is, the number of potential solutions is narrowing. The buy-out option went bye-bye weeks ago. All Sutter is left with is 1.) trade or 2.) demote.
1.) Trade - it seemed somewhat likely in July that Calgary might be able to unload a bad contract or two on one of the salary floor clubs. I really don't think that's the case anymore. Mike Chen does a good job of cataloging the suddenly numerous organizations in cap trouble here. You'll notice teams like Philly, Chicago, Washington, San Jose and Anaheim also have dollars they'll be trying to give away in short order. And many of them are connected to players who still have some value - think Nylander, Khabibulin, Schneider, Knuble or Simon Gagne. Not to mention some of the capable players that are still floating around the UFA pool - think Gelinas, Nagy and Marek Malik.If Im looking to fatten my cap hit and maybe improve my team, these are the type of players I consider before the likes of Warrener or Eriksson.
In the same piece, Chen rightly identifies Adrian Aucoin as the Flames lone viably-tradable salary-dump. I've been an advocate of getting rid of Aucoin in this space for months, mainly because I think he'll be poor value for the money this coming year: Im not, however, an advocate of dealing Aucoin in lieu of moving guys like Eriksson or Warrener. However out of line I think his contributions will be relative to his cap hit, they would likely be considerably more valuable than what Warrener et al. can offer. If Aucoin is moved in a desperate attempt to duck the cap, here's what the resutling depth chart looks like:
Regehr-Sarich
Phaneuf-Vandermeer
Giordano-Eriksson
Warrener
Ugly folks. I originally hoped Aucoin would be expunged so his cap dollars could go towards a better value contract. Now we're looking at moving him so other immovable dead weight can reside on the roster another year longer.
2.) Demotion - considering Sutters fetish for "depth", especially on the back-end, the potential for the Flames Bad Contract Brigade to spend a bunch of time in minors is a very real one at this point. Questions:
- Can the Flames afford to spend nearly $5M for 3 washed-up guys to play in the AHL?
- What does it say about management when the Flames have to resort to burying expensive mistakes in the minors to survive? When did Calgary start acting like the cash-drunk, over-spending GMs in giant markets?
- Moving vets up and down exposes them to waivers, specifically re-entry waivers. Meaning if someone else gets desperate enough, they could claim one of the anchors listed, thereby sticking the Flames with 50% of the remaining salary - and, more concerning - cap hit. What's worse, paying Warrener 2.35M to play in the minors? Or absorbing 1.175 in real money and cap space for him to play elsewhere?
In light of these on-going cap issues, the Roy and Prust contracts seem very silly (more so). Not to mention the baffling decision to not buy-out the last year of Warrener's contract back in July (the resulting cap hit would have been around 650k). As it stands right now, the Flames have way too many players making too much money and increasingly fewer options to do anything about it. I think it's safe to say at this point that whatever solution Sutter arrives at in the coming weeks will probably be a less than ideal one.
