The Calgary Flames have been relatively quiet since the free agency period opened up in the National Hockey League but that likely can not go one for very much longer.
The Flames have just a little over $9 million left in salary cap space, which is a healthy amount to be sure, but with the restricted free agents on their roster that remained unsigned there is a belief that they must make a move. The contract of restricted free agent Matthew Tkachuk alone could eat up the overwhelming majority of that cap space, if not all of it, and that would still leave the Flames with forwards Andrew Mangiapane and Sam Bennett to sign, as well as goaltender David Rittich.
I may be wrong here but I simply do not believe there is a scenario in which Flames general manager Brad Treliving can get all those players under contract without first shedding some salary off his roster. That means that the Flames would either be forced to exercise a buyout to clear some cap space, or preferably work out some type of trade deal that would produce the same effect.
In a recent article for The Athletic Darren Haynes laid out a few paths in which Brad Treliving may take in order to get this done. The first of course was mentioning the possibility of a trade, the most ideal scenario for the Flames. The Flames would love to unload the salary they need by simply giving up a draft pick, or picks, and if they could pull that off that would truly be an ideal situation, but it would also likely cost them a pretty serviceable player. Haynes named defensemen Travis Hamonic and T.J. Brodie as well as forward Michael Frolik as players who could be moved to clear the space needed, with all 3 men likely commanding a different type of return.
Alternatively though Haynes also believes a buyout could be an option.
While the NHL’s first buyout window has closed, when teams have arbitration cases, they get a second buyout window that opens up after the final arbitration case is resolved. If at that time, more money still needs to be cleared, buying out the final year of Michael Stone’s deal is something the club could resort to.
The move would save the Flames just over $2 million against the cap this season but would probably only be used in the event that a trade failed to clear sufficient cap space. It certainly sounds like one of these 4 Flames, or perhaps more, is very likely to be a new team come the start of the regular season.
