[GranteedEV]

If the cap is 70M, and you've got 23 players that means your average salary is around about 3M.

For a forward, that "average" is probably a player who's somewhere between a 3rd and 2nd liner. For a Dman, that's probably between a #5 and a #4. Mikael Backlund perhaps, who signed for 3.575 is a good example - There's a skew in his pay because centers tend to be worth more than wingers.

From a dollars perspective your big money should be tied up in:

2 centers
3 defensemen
~3 wingers
1 goalie

and then a third center that makes more than the other five bottom 6 players as well as a fourth defenseman in that same boat.

Let's say your goalie makes 5M a year.

Your top 3 D probably make about 20M a year. 8 for a #1, 6.5 for a #2, for a 5.5 for a #3

Your top 2 centers probably combine for 12M or so, though it can be higher.

Your top 3 wingers, let's assume they make 5.5x3 = 16.5.

That third center and fourth D combine for 7M if they're on Backlund-esque deals.

Okay, so where does that leave us? 60.5M in used cap space. We'll round that down to 60.

So 10M in cap space to pay:

1 backup goalie. - 1M?
3 more bottom D. - .7 (ELC) x 3
3 more top 9 wingers - 2.2 for a Bouma + 1.1 x 2
5 more bottom line forwards - .7 x 5

That puts you right at the cap. Basically the cap structure transition towards paying Bennett, Monahan, Giordano, Gaudreau, (Ortio? / Hudler?) in the next two years will make or break the Flames success.

1) You really gotta lowball the bottom of the lineup in the future, as the top of the lineup fills up with Gaudreau and Bennetts and Hamiltons and Monahan. You need a steady influx of players on entry-level contracts, so these replacement level guys - Mangiapanes and Carolls might need to make bottom of the lineup and perform. Can't give everybody a Bouma deal.

2) The cap will go up, sure, but the assumed salaries will go up with it.

3) Getting Gio down to 7M or less will be huge. It will mean we'll have about 2.5M in flexibility going forward from the assumed 20M a year above.

3) Backlund @ 3.5 + Wideman @ 5.125 is a bit over this budget. It pretty much eats into the aformentioned flexibility.

4) If Monahan and Bennett both make 6.5M a year, that part of the budget will probably be above the projected 12M by a million. I wouldn't bank on getting these two cheap, though if anyone could do it, Brad Treliving could do it.

5) Frolik makes 4M, so that leaves 12.5M left for Gaudreau/Hudler. It's optimistic but 6.5M for Johnny and 6M for Hudler would be convenient.

6) Hiller makes 4.5M right now, which is slightly under that budget. We will need to find a starting goaltender for 2016 and I would prefer if it were Joni Ortio and he were signed long-term.

7) 2 backup goalies (Ramo / Russell) - 3.8M + 1.0M
3 bottom D (Russell / Engelland / Smid) - 2.6 + 3.5 + 2.9
3 more top 9 winger (Bouma / Jones / Colborne?) - 2.2 + 4.0 + 1.275
5 more bottom line forwards (Bollig + Stajan + Shore + Ferland + Raymond)- 1.2 + 3.2 + .85 + ~.7 + 3.0)

= ~30 million.

Right now we've got 20 million in cap hit that needs to shift away from these lower roles and up to the top roles. Of them, Ramo, Russell, Jones are 10.3 million in UFA in 2016 (replacing them with 3 ELCs saves you 8.2 million). So that's really 12 million left that needs to be cleared if you choose not to resign these three (you can also replace Hiller with Ramo. Besides the point). If we put Smid on LTIR that's down to about 9M needing to be cleared.

Raymond + Bollig + Engelland expire as Bennett becomes RFA so that's 7.1M. Replacing the three contracts with some dirt cheap ELC players puts you at about 5M in savings.

That's still 4 million that needs to be tracked down somehow. Some flexibility should be there but it will be tight. Looking at the previous assumption "#4 Dman @ 3.5M" where Wideman is making 5.25M, his 2017 expiring contract saves us an additional 1.75M.

So really, we will be budgeting an extra 2.25M into the bottom of the lineup in 2017. Replacing the 3.2M that Stajan makes with an ELC solves that problem. He expires in 2018 if we want to keep him around. I'd prefer to move him sooner and get a better return, but much of that depends on whether Arnold, Jooris, Jankowski, or Granlund can make him expendable.

TLDR:
Every veteran except Hudler, Backlund, Brodie, Giordano and Frolik needs to go within the next 3 seasons, or take a HUGE pay cut.