With the ever growing assumption that Jay Bouwmeester will not be dressing for the Flames this upcoming season, many wonder who Calgary will seek out to replace his minutes.
Carlo Colaiacovo is currently an unrestricted free agent from the St Louis Blues, and has played 370 games in his NHL career this far. Carlo is not known as an offensive defenseman, rather as a puck mover who can play both ends of the ice. The main criticism for Colaiacovo has been his inability to remain healthy, as in his last four NHL seasons he has averaged about 65 games each respective year. While missing an average of 17 games a year isn’t a large amount, when juxtaposed with Bouwmeester’s iron man health record, it becomes a significant factor.
Although Colaiacovo isn’t a big name defender who will garner a lot of attention, he may be a cost effective replacement for the Flames if they find a new home for Bouwmeester. Whereas the Flames currently have nine defenders signed, Feaster wants his group to remain competitive and has no problem with having a surplus of defenders for precautionary measures. He acknowledged his enviable problem saying:
“There’s always a trade market, there’s always an interest in defencemen, as you move into training camp,” said Feaster. “That’s the one position you can never have enough depth at. Obviously, it’s a different issue when they’re all on one-way contracts, and we recognize that.”
“As we sit here right now, it’s a good problem to have.”
Source: Calgary Herald
In addition to Feaster’s thoughts on the defensive corps, Giordano shared similar feelings in that he’s excited for the upcoming season and feels that their defensive group is currently strong. He also notes that he enjoys being a part of a franchise whose goal it is, is to remain competitive rather than “blowing things up” as it were.
“The past couple of days have been real positive for our defence corps,” said Giordano. “All of us are in a fortunate position. We’re on a team where the management and owners . . . they don’t beat around the bush. They’ve said from Day 1 that they want to win every single year. Look around the league — there are a lot of organizations who aren’t that way. There are teams that will try to rebuild, that will take years to try to get better. That’s not the direction we want to go.”
Source: Calgary Herald
As things stand, the Flames have eight defensemen penciled in of the nine signed for the upcoming season. The overall consensus, as mentioned, is that top pairing defenseman Jay Bouwmeester would not be a part of their roster which would leave the following group behind.
__________________ Dennis Wideman ($5.25M)
Mark Giordano ($4.02M) Cory Sarich ($2.00M)
Chris Butler ($1.25M) T.J. Brodie ($.742M)
Derek Smith ($.775M) Anton Babchuk ($2.50M)
Of this group, we can expect Smith to be sent down to their AHL affiliate team, with Babchuk remaining as the 7th man. The optimal scenario for Calgary would be to move one of these extra defenders, be it Babchuk, Butler, or even Brodie for upgrades up front which would allow them to bring in a guy like Colaiacovo instead. While some may hold that Carlo isn’t necessarily a large upgrade over some of these names, moving an extra defender out would allow the team to upgrade in other needed areas.
If Bouwmeester is moved, any new defensive acquisitions will all depend on how things go with the remaining group and their new coach. Subtracting Bouwmeester from the current roster will surely weaken the corps, but will certainly allow for strengthened additions elsewhere.
Whether the team will need to address their defense come training camp will ultimately be up to Hartley, however given the amount of minutes and games played by Bouwmeester it will certainly be a topic of discussion during the upcoming months if he’s moved.
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