[Signing] Flames sign James Neal (5 years, 5.75 AAV)

[ColoradoFlamesFan]

The “hates to lose” ratio increased substantially on this team in the past couple weeks.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Wow didn’t see Neal as an actual possibility
Happy to be wrong

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Haha. I guess I owe Commodore and apology.

Vegas may have stole Reaves from the Flames by slightly outbidding them, but looks the Flames slightly outbid them for Neal. The reports were Vegas was offering Neal a 5x5.

I also wonder if this means the Flames will use the 2nd buyout window on Brouwer. All they need is at least one player to file for salary arbitration. Or they just need to file for one salary arbitration against on player. If this happens, they will have a 48 hour window to buyout a player 3 days after they settle their final arbitration or get an arbitration award.

For those wondering, the following players are arbitration eligible:

Lindholm
Hathaway
Jankowski
Kulak
Rittich

[Poe969]

So file arbitration with Hathaway then let him walk a d buy out brouwer. BOOM!

[howard_the_duck]

Such tremendous news! Huge coup for the Flames to bring in arguably the top free agent winger in this UFA class. That’s no small feat.

[MisterJoji]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

I also wonder if this means the Flames will use the 2nd buyout window on Brouwer. All they need is at least one player to file for salary arbitration. Or they just need to file for one salary arbitration against on player. If this happens, they will have a 48 hour window to buyout a player 3 days after they settle their final arbitration or get an arbitration award.

I wonder if offering a B-level prospect with Brouwer would make any teams bite on him without salary retained. Would Mangiapane be enticing enough for a team to eat 2 more years at 4.5 million for a guy who’s average 24 points over the last two seasons?

[Aarongavey]

If BT can get out of his other bad UFA contract (Brouwer) and somehow find a way for a team to want Stone he should have the cap space to sign Hanifin longterm. Getting rid of Brouwer and Stone and actually getting something in return for them combined will take real wizardry.

This looks like the second offseason out of 5 attempts where the Flames got better as a result of the UFA season, so that is a huge positive. Now if BT can clean up the mess from some of the offseasons where his signings made the team worse, the Flames could really be in a good place.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Haha. I guess I owe Commodore and apology.

Vegas may have stole Reaves from the Flames by slightly outbidding them, but looks the Flames slightly outbid them for Neal. The reports were Vegas was offering Neal a 5x5.

I also wonder if this means the Flames will use the 2nd buyout window on Brouwer. All they need is at least one player to file for salary arbitration. Or they just need to file for salary arbitration against at least one player. If this happens, they will have a 48 hour window to buyout a player 3 days after they settle or are awarded their final arbitration case.

Who can file for arb?

I would have suspected Shore but they didnt qualify him...though admittedly i dont know a lot about how it all works with this stuff.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

I also wonder if this means the Flames will use the 2nd buyout window on Brouwer. All they need is at least one player to file for salary arbitration. Or they just need to file for salary arbitration against at least one player. If this happens, they will have a 48 hour window to buyout a player 3 days after they settle or are awarded their final arbitration case.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/771015

14 forwards
8 defencemen
2 goalies

$1,067,543 over the cap.

I wonder if Brouwer doesn't waive even his 15 Team NTC just to get an opportunity to play elsewhere. Better to retain a bit on Brouwer than to buy him out in my eyes, but I'll just be happy if he's gone at the end of the summer.

[mikephoen]

Has anyone mentioned #askneal yet?

https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/201...witter-askneal

[Frequitude]

#### ya! A bit too much term and money, but you can get away with it when nearly everyone of your key contracts are great value. Well done, Bradley.

[Flamescuprun2018]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/771015

14 forwards
8 defenceman
2 goalies

$1,067,543 over the cap.

I wonder if Brouwer doesn't waive even his 15 Team NTC just to get an opportunity to play elsewhere. Better to retain a bit on Brouwer than to buy him out in my eyes, but I'll just be happy if he's gone at the end of the summer.

23 players for cap calculation is it not? 14F, 7D, 2G usually.

We are fine if Hanifan is bridge deal which some sites are projecting for him anyways given he is 21 years old and wants a show me contract with a payout RFA contract in 2 years if he breaks out.

The big crunch comes in 2 years with 3 out of 4 top 4 Dmen to sign. Hopefully Andersson and Valimaki can replace two by then!

[FiveSeven]

Woooooo!!!!!
I didnt have to wake up yet but when I seen Commodore post I had a feeling.
He was golfing with them and he probably wouldn’t wanna troll fellow Flames fans.

Seen a mock line up right before I went to bed and just seemed incredible.
I haven’t been this excited to watch the Flames in years, this is awesome!!!!

[bax]

Gaudreau - Monahan - Neal
Tkachuk - Lindholm - Czarnik
Bennett - Backlund - Frolik
Jankowski - Ryan - Lazar

Wow. Feels like a fantasy off season. Treliving has completely revamped our forward group. I love it

[Moneyhands23]

So one of our 3 top 6 left wingers will have to play on the right side. Interesting

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Flamescuprun2018

23 players for cap calculation is it not? 14F, 7D, 2G usually.

We are fine if Hanifan is bridge deal which some sites are projecting for him anyways given he is 21 years old and wants a show me contract with a payout RFA contract in 2 years if he breaks out.

The big crunch comes in 2 years with 3 out of 4 top 4 Dmen to sign. Hopefully Andersson and Valimaki can replace two by then!

Yeah, we're carrying an extra player in my projection (just because we still don't know how things shake out).

Something to remember though is that Hanifin has posted the same stat line as Hamilton through 3 years while being a year younger. We gave Hamilton a 6 year, 5.75M contract 3 years ago. If we can get Hanifin to 7 years at 5.35M...I say 100% get that done.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Poe969

So file arbitration with Hathaway then let him walk a d buy out brouwer. BOOK!

If you file arbitration, you can't walk away from the award (not that Hathaway's award would be significant anyway). Buying out Brouwer just doesn't seem like something Treliving would do at this point. If he was going to buy him out, I think he would have done it during the regular buyout period.



If the Flames were willing to retain $1.5 million on Brouwer, I wonder if there'd be interest in him at $3 million? He would bring veteran leadership to a young team, and he did put up 22 points last year, playing mostly on the lower lines. He can also play both sides of the special teams.


Also, if Treliving put him on the market, I think there'd be interest in Frolik. His actual salary is below his cap hit for the rest of his contract, which would appeal to some teams. I could see Frolik either going back to Winnipeg, or possibly Ottawa.

Stone would also probably generate some interest. Again, Ottawa would be a good destination, especially if they move Karlsson.

[Moneyhands23]

Best news with this signing!
Flames shouldn't need to trade a 1st or 2nd round pick for the next 3 years!

Time to restock the cupboards!

[tvp2003]

Ive posted this before but Neal knows a thing or two about scoring goals at the NHL level. A good read here: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en...edators-sniper

Reaaaaaally hoping some of this can rub off on Bennett...

[Vinny01]

I am really happy with this deal.

I was ready for the Flames to go 6x6 on this the other night so happy to see it come in at better numbers. Very pleased with this pickup as we desperately needed a legit top 6 winger and this is it