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Originally Posted by CanadaMatt
Buying him out doesn’t shed all of his cap hit. Do you not know this? Plus Murray is unlikely to buy out another expensive RW so soon after Brouwer...so a buy out is not an option.
You do realize we need to sign Chucky and a goalie next season right? Wouldn’t you like to add a terasenko/stone ‘type’ player to exploit this window while we have it?...we would need rid of Neal’s cap hit to do this
What do you think we’d need to offer say ‘carolina’ to take him off our hands?
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CanadaMatt, I can't see a team taking on Neal's cap hit straight up nor do I think we have a deep enough prospect pool/picks to throw away, so a lateral trade might make more sense.
I actually think a good trade partner might actually be the Montreal Canadiens. To me Karl Alzner's contract could be looked at as almost equally worse. He hasn't been a good fit there and they are a team 15th place team in goals per game. They're probably very interested in adding goals and I think their team has enough playmakers to resurrect his game.
As for Flames, the pros for adding Alzner is 3 fold. He's a left handed shot veteran defenseman, which is something the GM is allegedly looking for. The term on his contract is one year less, which would mean a more palatable buy out if in the worst case, we needed to. Also he makes just over 1 million less as well which would help this team's cap crunch considerably in the offseason. He's also from Calgary, so bringing in a hometown boy might re-energize his game.
If it all works out, the Flames would have a reliable, experienced, stay at home #6 defenseman paired with Rasmus Andersson who could then start joining the rush more, adding more offense from the 3rd pair. Neal could maybe some chemistry with some of the speedy forwards and it would be a win-win for both sides.