The Stajan deal was a mistake, so I'm not for one second suggesting that it wouldn't be nice not to gave that on the books.
That said, the comments about it not being a huge issue for the Flames is 100% correct. I guess if we didn't have that contract we could maybe improve our team a little on the wing for example, but only if you were able to find a good winger willing to take a one or two year contract max. And usually, the players we would need to help make the team better wouldn't be available for those terms, and if they were, they still wouldn't be the long term solution to our problems. As some one else said, we need patience.
The reason being, if you look at the Flames right now, we actually don't have too much salary committed to centre. That's obviously because our best centres are on their entry level contracts, but it's still true. Even when Mony gets paid this year, we will still be fine. Mony will be making #1 money, Backs making reasonable dough at #3, Stajan overpaid at #4, but Bennett underpaid for a number 2. Stajans money isn't really available because it will need to go to Bennett anyways, so it's not really free to distribute elsewhere because it's needed at the centre position.
The Flames biggest issue is we have too much money committed to our bottom 4 D men with Wideman, Engelland, and Smid. Luckily it all goes away after this year. Centre isn't the same deal, we don't have too much money committed there, even if we don't love they way it's distributed now.
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