Let the Season Begin!

Trades and Free Agent Signings have Flames Riding High

It took 4 years of offers to SJ, but the new GM of the Sharks was looking for a change and the Flames GM was ready to accommodate. The world's best player is officially a Calgary Flame. Along with McDavid coming from San Jose is Elias Lindholm. Heading to the Silicon Valley are Nick Suzuki, Quinn Hughes, and Jordan Kyrou. “Moving any of those three is tough as they are stars in the making and are going to be unbelievable players for quite some time. But McDavid is the best player in the World and Lindholm is one of the best 2-way rated players out there.”

When all the dust settled the Flames went calling to the rival Oilers in search of a possible long-term replacement for Hughes. What they came away with was Jamie Drysdale. It cost the team Bo Horvat, $5M and a 3rd, and if Drysdale hits the 50-point plateau in the NHL another $5M and another 3rd. “Expensive…. Yeah for sure. But we have lots of depth up front and with Drysdale, we have another potential Star on the backend for years to come.”

Free agency came about and while the team was looking to potentially make a run on Kucherov, they knew it would come at a very high price for a very fragile player. “Were we going to try and sign him? Yeah for sure, but with him being injury prone and having a combined cap hit and yearly SB of around $25M per year it was going to be a huge risk, losing out on him could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. And in all honesty, we would have only been able to afford that cap hit for 1-2 years max.”

Not signing Kucherov allowed the team to fill out a trio of needs. The team's first signing was Duncan Keith at a very reasonable $3,333,333 cap hit. “Excellent veteran who can still create some offense and is a defensive beast still. He will be a 3rd pairing guy for us who can step up if needed in the top 4.”

Next up was the re-signing of Marc-Andre Fleury. “Yes we could have gone with Demko this year, but in this league having two top goalies is the way to go. We plan on splitting the games between the two this year and believe we have the top goalie tandem in the league as of now and combined they make under $8M for the next two years.”

Finishing off free agency was picking up Jonathan Toews. “Way too high of a cap hit at $8,850,000 but it's only for two years and he's top 3 in the league as a face-off artist and can still play a pretty solid two-way game and will slot in nicely in our middle 6.”

With the roster filled out and still having over 80M in the bank to deal with future RFA’s and future UFA’s with no bad long-term contracts, should have Flame fans excited for the foreseeable future. Sitting on the farm awaiting their shot at the big leagues is Lafreniere, Drysdale, Perunovich, Valamaki, Heinola, Commesso, and Blomqvist.