Follow me on Twitter!:
@ColinDJD
The Toronto Maple Leafs will be reportedly using their 2nd compliance buyout on centerman Mikhail Grabovski.
The Belarusian was signed to a 5.5M dollar contract after a few successful seasons, though current GM Dave Nonis clearly feels the contract is not warranted and is tying his hand with respect to new deals/signings. Seems as though the Leafs will be extending Bozak’s contract and will also need extra room to sign a few UFA’s tomorrow.
Given the dire need in the Flames organization down the middle, Grabovski could very much be a viable option for a new contract of say 4-5 years. The centerman could be quite useful to the group and is a better option than a guy like Bozak for Calgary.
What do you guys think, should the Flames offer some cash to Grabovski and put him in a Flames jersey?
***
Because most discussions around the league are currently focused on free agents, signings, and trades, it should follow that we discuss where the Flames sit in respect to these discussions.
The Calgary Flames have made qualifying offers to nine players on Tuesday; Mikael Backlund, TJ Brodie, Carter Banks, Lance Bouma, Paul Byron, Greg Nemisz, Chris Butler, Chris Breen and Mike Cundari. They have not made any offers to forward Akim Aliu in addition to Bryan Cameron, Brady Lamb, and Gaelan Patterson.
Aside from Aliu, it’s clear why the abovementioned players were not presented with offers. I always had a soft spot for Aliu since starting to write for this club, and it’s due to his character and compete level. Granted he’s not a big scorer and appears to still have a lot of work to do in order to improve upon his overall play, but he has something a lot of guys just don’t seem to have anymore – heart.
It stands to reason that you can be giving out contracts to guys simply because they play with heart and cannot contribute a whole lot more than that, although I feel Akim could have something to offer to the club if he continues to work on his game. Good agitators and pests, despite not being entirely hard to replace, are always popular on succesful teams and Akim, at 6’3 and 225lbs fit the bill in my opinion. Whether he still has a chance to play with the Flames down the road is left to be seen, but if he is picked up by another team through free agency I wish him the best of luck.
Of the nine players who did receive qualifying offers, the names who were to be expected are Backlund, Brodie, and Butler. Although he hasn’t fully developed his game just yet, fans have not given up on Backlund and continue to be excited to watch him as he progresses at center. Brodie has been playing well as he gets more opportunity and appears that he will be around the Flames dressing room for a few more years just yet, while Butler is a hit or miss for me at this point. I am simply not a very big fan of Butler’s game but he serves a purpose just the same and will need to work at taking his game to the next level.
The Flames currently have $17.5M in available cap space, in addition to the $5.8M which will become available once Kiprusoff retires and is off the books. I would suspect that all nine players will accept their qualifying offers; however they also have an offer standing for Karri Ramo, meaning that $17-23M is to be stretched between 10 players.
With that being said, there should be no large contracts handed out as most players are coming off entry level deals and I would anticipate the highest contract offered to be $2-4M per year, the rest being one or two-way deals closer to or under the $1M mark. If this holds true, The Flames should have in the ballpark of $12-15M in available cap space which allows them some room to bring in a few players for supporting roles, or one bigger named player.
Before we get into discussion about which UFA's the Flames could target, I'd like to throw a name out there which I feel Calgary might be targeting given their recent moves. The Flames have recently made a deal with the St Louis Blues involving Jay Bouwmeester, and I believe there may be another on the horizon for centerman TJ Oshie. They already have TJ Galiardi and TJ Brodie, it just stands to reason they get another TJ, right? But all jokes aside I could see a good hockey deal between the two teams here. Thoughts?
So who could the Flames afford to bring in if my projections are accurate? Here’s my list of guys I think the Flames will either show interest in or could make offers to, and further what the Flames may need to offer assuming any competition:
- Mike Ribeiro – 3 years @ $5.75M
- Derek Roy – 3 years @ $4.5M
- Clarke MacArthur – 2 years @ $2.75M
- Stephen Weiss – 4 years @ $5M
- Ian White – 2 years @ $3M
- David Clarkson – 5 years @ $5.75M
- Mason Raymond – 2 years @ $2.25M
- Andrew Ferrence – 1 year @ $3M
- Matt D’Agostini – 2 years @ $1.75M
- Tyler Bozak – 5 years @ $3.5M
- Chad Larose – 2 years @ $1.875
Of that list, I can only see serious interest in Ribeiro, Roy, Weiss, Clarkson, and Bozak. The rest of the players listed are those I wouldn’t mind having as additions to the current roster to provide depth. I foresee the bigger named players such as Clarkson being bid on by several teams and will end up with more than he’s worth, but if the Flames could get a guy like him for no more than I listed I say go for it.
“It also doesn’t mean that we’re prepared to overpay whether it’s term on a contract or dollars on a contract,” Feaster cautioned. “I think any time you go to the free agency market, they don’t call it free-agency frenzy for nothing. The terms starts to run up and the dollars start to run up.
“We have our list of centres we’ve identified and we’ve started that process and the ones we want to have conversations with. We also think there are still some opportunities to acquire centres by trade.” - National Post
What do you guys think? Is there anyone from that list you would pay more for? Less? Anyone you would like to add or remove altogether?
Thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»