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Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen
Most of the ones using the LTIR would not be able to make room for Smid at the time of the trade. At least not without some additional housekeeping.
Go down the line with those with 3M+ cap (and remembering that was less when the trade occurred). Pittsburgh is spending 69M on their roster, they have nearly 4M in "cap space" because Martin, Scuderi, Vokoun are on LTIR. Toronto is spending 67M but have 4M+ "cap space" because Bozak and Bolland are on LTIR. Columbus is spending 64M but have cap space because Horton is on LTIR. Keep going through the list and it's going to be the same. Once all these players start coming back they no longer have the listed cap space, they no longer would be able to keep Smid without major changes. Pretty much the only team that is using LTIR today and would have been able to take on Smid was Carolina because Pitkanen is out for the season. There is a reason that over half the teams in the league are using the LTIR, it's because they need the cap relief that comes with it.
So now you're looking at only a very small handful of teams that could have taken on the cap space the Oilers needed to sign Bryzgalov. Smid, like you suggested, wasn't the only way to do so though. So maybe they would have started to look at other options or bigger deals (like Hemsky for example) if the Flames didn't offer them at least Horak. But the fact remains that Smid was a pure and simple salary dump trade. Oilers needed cap space, they needed it fast, but very few teams had to offer it. The Flames got a bargain, pretty much regardless of what you view Smid as.
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Thanks. The Flames clearly got a bargain as far as personnel they had to give up. I guess the question is whether Smid was even worthy of the $3.5 cap hit, which could be argued on both sides.
He certainly wouldn't be the cheapest guy around at that cap hit, but also not the worst (ie. Komisarek).