Unproductive wingers Ales Kotalik and Niklas Hagman will be bought out of their $3 million contracts. For that, the Flames will be charged $2 million against the salary cap each of the next two seasons.

Dreadful centre Matt Stajan is inked for $3.5 million each of the next three seasons. There probably isn’t another forward in the game making half a million a goal. But buying him out would take too much bite out of the cap for too long a period — six years.

This wasn’t interim GM Jay Feaster’s mistake. But he can undo a horrible wrong by getting rid of the soft pivot, either in a trade (I can’t imagine there being a buyer) or demoting him to Abbotsford next season. More teams these days are burying bad contracts in the AHL — Sheldon Souray and Wade Redden are two examples.

These moves are necessary because the Flames have to free up cap space in order to sign contributing unrestricted free agents Alex Tanguay, Curtis Glencross, Brendan Morrison and Anton Babchuk, not to mention Adam Pardy and Henrik Karlsson. With Daymond Langkow healthy and able to play next season, the Flames won’t have much more than about $6 million in cap space. Signing those UFAs, or finding replacements, will  cost well north of $10 million.
There’s another option I’d seriously consider. Find a taker for Jay Bouwmeester.

At $6.68 million each of the next three seasons, Bouwmeester is grossly overpaid. There are a few things he does well — eats up minutes on the blueline, skates well and has a long reach. He does for Calgary what San Jose stay-at-home gem Marc-Edouard Vlasic does for $3.1 million a year.

What Bouwmeester doesn’t do is contribute to the attack. He has seven goals in two Flames seasons compared to 42 in three in Florida. He has a ham-handed stick on the power play and a mediocre shot. Nor does Bouwmeester punish foes in his own zone. J-Bo might be third among NHL defencemen in ice time, but he’s 109th in hits. When the Flames needed him at his best during the California road trip and do-or-die games down the stretch, he was minus-7 in 10 games.

Maybe Bouwmeester is playing too much. Maybe being a minute muncher is a knock, not an attribute. I’d rather see Calgary’s other defencemen playing a couple minutes more each.
Come to think of it, I’d rather see guys like Tim Erixon or T.J. Brodie or Brett Carson replace Bouwmeester next year. And the savings would help the Flames meet budget with room to spare.