Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
Maybe something to take with a grain of salt because it's not 100% a confirmed source but I heard this today (I'll let Dissentowner or Sec214 confirm or deny if they have better info)
Flames are in a bit of a weird spot with Hanifin.
There are teams are willing to pay close to the asking price for Hanifin but only if he will extend. The is issue is generally he only wants to extend in a couple places (Calgary, Boston, Florida, one other unknown place) and as of right now those teams aren't the teams with the best offer on the table.
Those teams are interested in the player but don't really want to step up to pay the price. Boston and Florida don't have their 2024 1sts, which the Flames don't love as they'd prefer the picks be sooner. And those teams also don't have deep prospect pools, and aren't willing to move top prospects they do have (Poitras, Lundell, Samoskevich).
Which has reopened the door to the Flames signing him since there is still interest from
both sides in him re-signing, or hoping a team would be willing to pay the premium without a contract being agreed upon at the time of the trade.
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I can't forsee any situation where Hanifin ends up in Boston unless he takes a discount (<$7.5M AAV) for a sign and trade arrangement that includes the Flames retaining salary this year, or somehow makes it to UFA on July 1st (and signs for a hometown discount).
Assuming Boston has Hanifin @ $7.5M, re-signs Swayman at a similar amount to what he currently makes ($3.5-4.0M AAV), releases all pending UFAs, and maintains their current center depth (Zacha, Coyle, Poitras, and Beecher), they only have ~$10M to sign:
1 top6 winger
3-4 bottom six forwards (including the 13th forward)
2-3 bottom pairing defensemen (including the 7th dman)
If they promote their "NHL-ready" prospects into the open positions (Farinacci, Lysell, Merkulov, and Mast) and find league-minimum journeymen to fill out the remaining depth spots, they only have ~$5M to find a top6 winger...leaving almost no cap space for performance bonuses of the seven ELCs on the active roster and absolutely zero prospect depth at forward or defense in the event of injuries