Quote:
Originally Posted by the2bears
I agree, in that I don't think the expansion draft is an issue, Treliving is too smart to not have thought about this.
But, the concern is not whether Lucic is claimed. The concern people have is whether a protection slot is wasted on him.
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To me, it is not that big of a problem.
First of all, the thought behind honouring his NMC is to make the player feel wanted. It would be kind of a slap in the face to welcome him to Calgary and by the way can we start planning on moving you out now? If he's a part of your plan, make him a part of your plan.
Leading up to expansion, there are a ton of different variables that will play out, but it would be pretty unlikely that the Flames would actually want to be protecting him. So, you tell him that you can't. Even if at the time two more years of Lucic sounds tolerable.
He would have 2 options:
1. Agree to waive
2. Be bought out
The buyout in 2 years is not great, but Lucic can be replaced with a league minimum salary guy as we won't be relying on him for production. So, the Flames actually save cap in this situation. The punitive part of the buyout is done after 2 years, which actually makes it pretty manageable. After the first year of this buyout, the Brouwer buyout comes off the books.