Even if Iginla's current struggles are wholly idiosyncratic and have little to do with the rotating #1 C assignment, I still think the Flames primary weak spot is the lack of one more top 6-forward type. The bottom 6 are solidified and effective - even with two of them on the sidelines currently. Calgary is 7 or 8 defensemen deep with the emergence of Pardy as a viable NHL player. A step up from Conroy /Lombardi between Iginla and Cammalleri at ES seems to be the only place to go in terms of markedly improving the club.
Options are extremely limited, however, for two reasons:
1.) The Flames cap position. Calgary was rubbing up against the ceiling at the start of the year and there's been some call-ups and such from the AHL during the first half of the season. I'd be astonished if the org had any sort of room under the cap at all.
Meaning, to make a deal, Sutter will likely have to dump some salary. Either separately (Vandermeer for a draft pick?) or in the exchange that lands the player in question (Two for one swap).
While those conditions dont prohibit a trade, they do make one more difficult to consummate. Especially with fringe clubs like Tampa Bay and Phoenix bleeding cash and likely looking to eject dollars themselves - there'll be no dumping of contracts on the likes of them.
This also means the Flames can't be looking for anyone with significant dollars left on his deal. Scott Gomez, Vincent Lecavalier, Danny Briere and Chris Drury are out.
2.) The pending UFA center rental market is a thin one, especially since contenders like Montreal will likely be holding on to their aging depth players for the play-offs (think: Robert Lang). Only marginal teams on the outside of the play-off picture will be moving centers of any value.
That limits the field severely. Let's say TBL, LAK, NYI, OTT, TOR, STL and ATL are the teams already looking to next year when the end of February rolls around. That yields this list of possibles:
- Nik Antropov (2.050M)
- Jason Williams (2.2M)
- Doug Weight (4.3M)
- Mike Comrie (4M)
- Andy McDonald (3.33M)
- Keith Tkachuk (4M)
- Antoine Vermette (2.763M - not a pending UFA, but he might be available due to his horrendous season).
The links take you to each guys advanced stats (some are the same link and so weren't duplicated). See anyone that is a real step up from the current options? I don't, really...except for maybe Nik Antropov, who has the best batch of ES numbers of the bunch (ESP, corsi). His +/- sucks, but the goaltending in TOR this season has been questionable at best, so it's probably not indicative of anything.
Of course, any trade speculation involving a center coming to Calgary involves Matthew Lombardi going the other way. He looks to be the odd man out, Im afraid: Langkow has proven indispensable, Conroy is decent value for the dollars and signed for one more year, Boyd is rapidly improving and poised to pass Lombo on the depth chart and the org clearly has a woody for Mikael Backlund. There's also Wayne Primeau about to return from injury and Jamie Lundmark leading the Flames in scoring on the farm. The club is literally choking on centers, especially the "third line or below" type.
The resulting question is: does Lombo have enough value as a trade piece to land a Nik Antropov type? And, should the Flames deal a good value contract to "go for it" with a rental?
Im not so sure either way right now. Thoughts?
