[gvitaly]

Is anyone else worried about exposing 25% of the roster cap rule? The Flames have a lot of bad contacts coming off the books in the 2017 off-season. Assuming the Flames spend close to the cap in 2016-17 (lets say $74M) they will need to expose a total cap space of at least $18.5M. The problem is that contracts like Wideman($5.25M), Smid($3.75M), Engelland($3M), Raymond($3.15M), and Bollig($1.25M) for a total of $16.4M all expire and can't be exposed.

So who do we have left? Estimated cap
Forwards
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Frolik($4.3M)
Backlund($3.575M)

Stajan($3.125M)
Bouma($2.2M)
Colborne($1.5M)
Jooris($1M)
Ferland($0.825M)
Hathaway($0.69M)
Hamilton($0.688M)

Defensemen
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Jokipakka($0.9M)
Nakladal($1.5M)
Wotherspoon($1M)

Goalies
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Ortio($1M)

Once we add everyone except Backlund and Frolik we get $13.43M which means we are $5.1M short on players we would expose. Potentially the goalie we sign in the off season will take a big chunk of it, but that means the Flames will be signing UFAs(or trading for players) with the intention to expose them in 2017. Otherwise, one of Backlund or Frolik will need to be exposed. How much it will either hurt or benefit the Flames is yet to be seen.