Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
2 words. Cap floor.
Just so we can put this one to bed for the rest of the off-season:
The cap floor for this upcoming season is $70 million or so. Currently, the Flames are sitting at $66M with a few notable RFA contracts to hand out (Frost, Bahl, Zary) which will undoubtedly get them over the cap floor. They are likely to find a back up goalie and a few other depth players as UFAs, but I don't see them more active than that.
The problem is that you have quite a few players that the Flames want to try out at the NHL level soon who are on ELCs (Parekh, Brusztewicz, Morin Gridin, Honzek, Stromgren, Suniev etc.), and you can't pay more than a certain amount on those contracts, so you need some bigger, bloated contracts to offset the difference and make the cap floor.
If you take away Huberdeau's $10 million, they are suddenly struggling to make the cap floor. Add in that he has become an important player in the locker room and culture of the team, and a good mentor to younger players, and you're starting to rip the heart out of what made this team so good last year. The other key guys that probably need to stay for this season are Weegar, Backlund, and Coleman. You need that leadership in place until the younger guys are ready to take over the team. They're not ready yet, and taking away too many of these veterans that help you reach the cap floor will undercut their development.
I get that everyone is excited for a full tear down rebuild, but I think that you can expect to see Huberdeau and Weegar play out their full contracts during that rebuild.
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Just to play devils advocate, and your point in a good one, but if the Flames are trading Huberdeau, the Flames are almost certainly taking a contract back, and it’s unlikely to be a light one.
Similar to Lucic-Neal, I’d bet any Huberdeau trade is going to have an element of problem for problem. Or, Flames are retaining a not-insignificant amount.
Huberdeau for picks/prospects wouldn’t happen. At least I don’t think so.