I think that 2020-2022 era is the best bet for the Flames to be a contender.
Brouwer off the books, Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm are around ~25-26 years old with great cap hits, Tkachuk, Hanifin ~22-23, Neal, Ryan, Backlund still well under 35, Giordano will be the only one a bit long in the tooth at 36ish. Valimaki will still be on ELC.
That should be the time that the Flames aim for big agent splashes to supplement the core and bring them to the next level. So Tkachuk and Hanifin contracts should not be two-to-three year bridge contracts, instead they should be focused on having the lowest cap-hit possible at that time.
Might as well gamble and go all out. If Hanifin 'busts' anyways, by the time the Flames recoup from that Giordano will be too old, Gaudreau and Monahan will have huge contracts. So go all out and risk it all for that 2020-2021 season and give Hanifin a 7 year contract today to keep the cap-hit small.
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