Kevin Allen: Wheeling and dealing likely on NHL draft day

[codynw]

With salary retained, Wideman could be very attractive to a budget team like Florida. He played poorly after coming back from his broken hand, but before that he was one of the better Flames defencemen.

[theoforever]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The St. Louis Blues trade captain Rob Ramage and goalie Rick Wamsley for Calgary Flames rookie Brett Hull and Steve Bozek.

Ramage was 29, the Blues captain, and probably best player. And he had a better career up to that point than Gio has had (not to mention he was drafted #1 overall himself).

Brett Hull was a scoring machine already.
There was a conversation at Flames roundtable.
Are we prepared to give up future 40 goals scorer?
And the answer was yes.
Are we prepared to give up future 50 goal scorer?
And the answer was yes.

What is Ekblad?
A prospect with zero NHL experience, and experts don't know if he is #1 or #2 or #3 dman. Not a great skater, not an offensive machine, not a shutdown guy. He does everything well, nothing great.
Evaluated as a level below S. Jones who had a good year 1 with 25pts and -23.

Gio is worth #1 + in this draft.
Ekblad could become better than Gio in about 4 years or he could be just another 2nd paring dman. Ekblad is not the savor that comes in and slots in the top 2 parings.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Guys, Wideman has very, very little trade value. Tallon can sign a similar defenceman as a free agent this summer without giving up anything.

There is no way that Tallon can get a guy like Wideman on a 3 year 9 million dollar contract. For all of Wideman's faults here is the entire list of UFA dmen this year http://capgeek.com/ufa-finder/?position_id=D almost none of whom could be had for a price close to 3 million a year.

On a generous definition of who may be considered better or equal to Wideman and are a similar style dmen you get the following with my guesses around what they could get on a 3 yr deal:

Niskanen 5 million+
Markov 5 million+
Zidlicky 4 million
Timonen 3-4 million (he would be 43 by the end of the deal)
Meszaros 4 million +
Boyle - 4.5 million +
Gilbert -3 million +

Question is whether Tallon has any value in saving cap room for trying to make a splash in other areas of the UFA market given the massive amount of cap room he has. If he does he may want to get a Boyle, Wideman and try to make a play on a Stasny or another forward.

[Bandwagon In Flames]

Wideman played great the first season with the Flames, but after his injury trouble this year he looked completely lost on the ice.

Absolutely no point trading Wideman now as his value is low. Would be like trading Gio after his poor season last year. Wideman can rebound in similar fashion i'm sure.

I'd rather keep Wideman for next year and try to get a 3rd round pick for Smid or 2nd round pick for Russell.

I'm not sure the Flames are in a position to trade up for the 1st overall given that there's no consensus #1 pick and the top 5 look like sure-fire NHLers

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by theoforever

Brett Hull was a scoring machine already.
There was a conversation at Flames roundtable.
Are we prepared to give up future 40 goals scorer?
And the answer was yes.
Are we prepared to give up future 50 goal scorer?
And the answer was yes.

Too bad they didn't go up to 80.

[theoforever]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

Too bad they didn't go up to 80.

Hehe, yeah they didn't know that part.
They justified the trade that we needed a good dman and backup goaltender to win the cup. I think they would have won it without those 2.