[Psytic]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Paying Backlund fair value is hardly backing up the truck for every Flames player.

We have 1.5 seasons until Backlund is UFA. Assuming Bennett/Goaltender/Ferland put us at the cap ceiling in 2017, in 2018:

- Tkachuk will be entering year 3 of his ELC and some contingency obviously needs to be in place for his first RFA

- Backlund's own 3.75M comes off the books, so any raise he gets is just that, a raise, not a brand new contract

- Stajan, and Bouma will also be UFA opening up cap space. That's about 5.3 million in extra cap space.

- Jankowski will be ready to play NHL minutes at a discount. I'd argue he's ready now to play top 9, and is only buried there because of the curious case of Stajan, Monahan and Bennett.

- Mangiapane, Klimchuk, Poirier, maybe even Lomberg or Dube, will replace the 2.2 million dollar Bouma.

- Raymond's $1.05M buyout is also out

- Brouwer will be on year 3. We'll probably have to suck it up miserably through the final two years of his deal, but losing Backlund at the expense of Brouwer would suck far, far more than keeping Backlund and not signing a better RW than Brouwer.

Your saying you want to find a way to keep the exact same wild card level team with out any upgrades on RW or Top 4 D unless one of our guys on the farm suddenly steps up miraculously in their first seasons? What is fair market value for Backlund?