While it’s true the Flames made believers out of the harshest critics — and should be commended for their second-half surge — the fact remains they’re one of the highest salaried teams in the league, yet didn’t make the playoffs.
Personally, I’ve moved past my stance on blowing the roster to bits and trading away its best assets in order to facilitate a rebuild. I see reason to keep this unit together another season. With fine-tuning, of course.
The only way to retain key unrestricted free agents Alex Tanguay, Curtis Glencross, Brendan Morrison, and even Anton Babchuk, Adam Pardy and Henrik Karlsson is to move some existing salary. And that goes beyond buying out the final year on the deals of Ales Kotalik and Niklas Hagman.
Calgary should attempt to trade both Matt Stajan (three more years at $3.5 million) and Jay Bouwmeester (three years at $6.68). Both are grossly overpaid. The only way another team would take on those unwieldy deals is if it was able to trade its bad contracts for these bad contracts.
Kristian Huselius has been a colossal failure in his three seasons with Columbus and he has one more season left at $4.75 million. The Blue Jackets are serious about making changes after missing the playoffs for the ninth time in 10 years. Huselius had his two best seasons with the Flames.
The Blue Jackets were also disappointed that checking-line centre Samuel Pahlsson didn’t make much of a difference in his two years in Columbus and wouldn’t mind moving his $2.65 million. He’s one of the game’s top craftsmen in the faceoff circle, which is an area the Flames need help with.
The Blue Jackets have never had a premier minute-munching stud on the blueline and might have interest in Bouwmeester. They’ve also long had gaps at the centre position and maybe see Stajan being a No. 2 or No. 3 pivot. Trading J-Bo is a calculated risk for the Flames, but one worth taking. Tim Erixon and T.J. Brodie are Calgary’s two best assets in the system and they’re both blueliners.
Columbus has also been frustrated with the development of mobile, 23-year-old blueliner Kris Russell. In four seasons, he has been unable to realize the potential he showed as a junior in Medicine Hat.
With both the Flames and BJs upset about another year out of the playoffs and pressured to make changes, trading recycled projects makes sense. Bouwmeester and Stajan ($10.18 million total) for Huselius, Pahlsson and Russell ($8.7 million total).
There’s an added benefit that Huselius and Pahlsson are coming off the books after one more season, which will give acting GM Jay Feaster more salary cap room to play with in trying to sign this year’s UFAs.
