I'm personally trying to figure out what would hurt the team more in the Lindholm situation:
1. Losing Lindholm for nothing
2. Losing Lindholm in a bad trade, setting the table for low ball offers in future trades
3. Signing Lindholm to an 8 year contract that doesn't age well
Out of those 3 bad options, losing Lindholm for nothing almost seems like the lesser evil. Of course, ideally we either sign Lindholm and then he gets back to the PPG Lindholm that can dominate on both sides of the ice, or trade Lindholm for a great package of assets.
I just wanted to throw it out there, but the Flames actually have ~$35.5M in cap space for next offseason. If the Flames lose Lindholm/Hanifin they could throw money at Toews, Nylander, or Guentzel. They could also try and find the next Tanev/Giroux/Pavelski by signing a guy like Novak, Schiefele, Reinhart, Duchane, Tarasenko, Marhessault, Arvidsson, Pesce, and Skjei hopefully Conroy will be savvy enough to avoid creating more anchors.
With so much capspace they could even offersheet Pettersson. The point is that the Flames will have options in either scenario, and even if we lose our players for nothing there will still be a lot of interesting players available.
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