Retention spots: This is nothing new with Calgary. When the Flames entered the rebuild, Feaster famously declared Calgary "Open for Business", and that included taking bad cap hits. The compliance buyouts created a tonne of cap room all around, so essentially the market collapsed. However, the willingness was there then, and I will take Conroy at his word now that the Flames are looking to take on bad cap in exchange for assets, whether that is through retention on their own players, acting as middlemen and helping on retention with another deal, or taking on a player with a bad cap hit. I guess the proof will be in the pudding, but this team under Treliving has consistently had bad contracts and buyouts, and has spent to the cap. I don't see why people want to draw a line that doesn't exist.
As for Huberdeau: It certainly seems like in a way, this is Jokinen 2.0. Jokinen was that first line centre that the Flames were trying to get for Iginla for years. Only he wasn't. Jokinen was just the guy that Florida had taking all the shots... shot after shot after shot. He wasn't a dynamic player. In that facet, he was a huge disappointment. He did manage to reinvent himself, though his second time around was on a cheaper deal. He became a very good defensive forward with some depth scoring ability. People will always look terribly on him for how he 'failed' here, but I look at him as a pretty good redemption story. Huberdeau was more dynamic than Jokinen was, but he certainly has been just as big of a disappointment. Jury is out on if he bounces back, or if he reinvents himself, just like Jokinen did, but the difference that will haunt Huberdeau here is the 10.5 million dollar price-tag. That's going to be a barrier.
|