1) The Calgary Flames are near the bottom of the league in committed money for the 2016-17 season but they're about to be in serious cap trouble.
Once Johnny Gaudreau re-signs, Sean Monahan re-signs and the Flames find a starting goaltender - presumably one that isn't playing for pennies - they will have next to no cap space.
They still have to extend Joe Colborne, which they should be very careful doing, and fill a few other roster spots, too.
That's why I think the Flames may have to get creative going forward. If they can't trade Dennis Wideman and/or Lance Bouma by the end of draft weekend I wouldn't be surprised to see one or both of them bought out.
Wideman has one year remaining on his contract at $5.2 million but a buyout would save the Flames $4 million this season. They'd be on the hook for $2 million in 2017-18, though.
A Bouma buyout would be a little more friendly. The Flames would save $1.45M in 2016-17 and $1.55M in 2017-18. All it would take is an extra $750K three and four years down the road.
Obviously trading these players would be a lot more preferable but, if it comes to it, the Flames could rid themselves of both players and save $5.45M against the cap for the upcoming season. That would really help.
2) One of the good things about Calgary being in a cap crunch is that they don't have the resources to spend big in free agency.
The Flames have long been rumored to have interest in a top-6 power forward and Milan Lucic as well as David Backes are slated to become unrestricted free agents a month from now.
Lucic's goal scoring numbers over his last five full seasons: 30, 26, 24, 18, 20. He played at least 79 games each year so it's not as if his decline is related to injuries.
Lucic is still a solid player but he's exiting his prime and power forwards don't tend to age well. Committing six or seven years and a big chunk of money to Lucic would probably do more harm than good moving forward.
Meanwhile Backes is 32, his goal totals have dropped in consecutive seasons, and his shots/game rate this past season was the lowest it's been since 2009-10. He doesn't seem like a good investment, either.
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