His contract was front-loaded to ease the cap hit, and this benefited him and the Flames for a few years. The benefit from that contract is effectively over - the Flames and Kipper both know it, and I can't imagine that either are surprised.
The freed-up cap space is the most important thing here - far more important than the miniscule return that trading him as a rental on the verge of retirement would have yielded. What's the market for a 36 year old goalie who has one year left on his contract that everyone knows was added as a cap space tool in the first place? Pretty much nothing.
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