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As several NHL teams continue to prepare their rosters for the 2013-14 season, many are having difficulties locking up certain players as they flirt ever too close to the NHL’s salary cap. The Toronto Maple Leafs happen to be one such team as they are currently left with roughly $4.8M in cap space to sign both Cody Franson and Nazem Kadri.
Of the two players, Nazem Kadri should be Leafs GM Dave Nonis’ main concern to have locked up, despite the important role that both played for the team last year. With that being said, Kadri and his agent will likely be looking in the $3.5-4M dollar per year mark with respect to a new contract, leaving Franson on the outside looking in. Consequently, the Leafs will need to either find a way to shed some salary or entertain moving the young defender to someone like, the Flames.
Calgary, currently in a rebuild, are seeking any opportunity to add young promising players to their organization and just so happen to have some extra cash to spend in order to do so. The only concern with respect to Cody Franson and the Calgary Flames will be the asking price via trade. Given that the Leafs are looking to shed salary, any trade for Franson unless accompanied by a “salary dump” would require high draft picks or prospects heading back to Toronto. This is certainly not something the Flames can afford to be discussing right now, which leads me to the second part of this blog – How the Flames can actually help out the Leafs, and vice versa.
Given that we’ve already established that a trade for Franson would either be too pricey or would require the loss of high draft picks/prospects from Calgary, Nonis and Feaster would need to come to a different type of arrangement that would benefit both sides. Because it doesn’t take a highly paid hockey analyst to figure out, I am confident that the Leafs would much rather keep both Kadri and Franson than trade one of the two due to cap restrictions. As such, a potential trade scenario where the Leafs dump a player such as JM Liles to the Flames in order to open up much needed cap space could ensue.
Despite the fact that Liles is still considered a good defensive player himself, the Flames would likely request a prospect of some sort is added to the deal for helping out the Leafs in the predicament which they currently find themselves in. A few names come to mind, but one specifically – Joe Colborne. The 23 year old center is still working on developing his game at the AHL level with the Toronto Marlies and has been called up a few times by the Leafs in the past two seasons. He stands at 6’5, 220lbs and would be a solid addition to a rebuilding team like the Flames who not only need more youth in their system, but stronger options down the middle as well.
The Flames would receive JM Liles and Joe Colborne from the Leafs to open up cap space for Franson and Kadri, but what would they need to give up? Because we ultimately come back to the same problem where Toronto couldn’t really take on any extra salary, what are our options? Liles is no Komisarek and Colborne is a prospect with potential. Therefore, in spite of doing the Leafs a favor, the Flames would still need to pay a decent price for the two. Given that a team like Toronto seems to be comfortable with 7-8 defensemen on their roster, perhaps moving a guy like Kris Russell could start things offs.
With a small cap hit of $1.5M, the 26 year old defenseman could be quite serviceable to the Leafs should they consider the option. Although many Flames fans were content with this acquisition not too long ago, he’s a guy who shouldn’t be that hard to replace in their system, and Liles would be a steady puck moving defenseman on their backend for another three years. In fact, I could see Liles having a positive effect on a guy like TJ Brodie as he continues to develop his own game at the NHL level.
In order to even things out, the Flames would need to move a prospect and or pick(s) to the Leafs as Russell alone is not worth the free cap space presented by moving Liles and Colborne. Even though the Flames are starting their rebuild, moving a mid-level prospect or two and/or a draft selection shouldn’t hurt them when you consider that they could acquire a young player like Colborne. And while there would be several NHL teams out there who are likely able to offer better deals to the Leafs, not all of them have around $10M in remaining cap space with only one RFA to sign.
If by chance you feel that Colborne would be too expensive for the Flames to acquire in this proposed trade, the Leafs happen to have a few other prospects at a lower cost which I’m sure Calgary would be happy with. Guys like Carter Ashton, Brad Ross, Greg McKegg, Stuart Percy, or even Jerry D’Amigo are all players I feel the Leafs could afford to move if it means securing the defenseman they want in Cody Franson. Any of the above named players would add more depth to the Flames as they continue to rebuild their franchise, and would cost less than an NHL ready prospect like Colborne.
What do you guys think? Could you envision the two teams working something out that would satisfy both clubs, or are the Flames simply too poor to be moving any prospects/picks at all?
Thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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