Everything you need to know about the Daymond Langkow Cap Situation

There's a rumour that was started this morning by the Calgary Herald that Langkow is healthy enough to return to the Flames lineup, however there are cap problems with the Flames that prevent the organization from bringing his 4.5 million dollar contract off the LTIR.

It is true that as it stands now, the Flames do not have the cap space to bring Langkow on board, in fact they don't have enough room to bring anybody on board right now; they are pushing cap! (they have the least cap space in the league).

There are a combination of players that Jay Feaster would have to send down to Abbotsford in order to make room for Langkow's 4.5 million dollar contract. But Feaster has to be careful because when he sends players down to the AHL every team in the league gets the opportunity to pick those players up off of waivers for their full salary for the duration of their contract. This is a list of healthy combinations of players that I would send down if i were Feaster:

Hagman + Stajan would do it. But it would be tough to part with two players that have been playing mediocre hockey all season, for the uncertainty of Langkow.

Nemisz + Ivanins + Modin + Kotalik- This is possible. I don't know why Ivanins is still counting against the cap but he is. Modin hasn't done anything since he came here so he's expendable. Kotalik played his best hockey in Abbotsford so it wouldn't be too hard to send him back. It's just tough to say goodbye to four players and bring aboard one when you already have injuries to Morrison and Moss.

The ideal situation would be to pick two of the following three players: Kotalik, Stajan, Hagman. I guess I would do Kotalik and Hagman. It would be great if some other team took one of them through the waiver-wire so the Flames don't have to deal with their fat salaries next year. However anyone that has followed the play of Kotalik and Hagman this year would know that they are not even worth half the salary they are making.

So it's starting to look as if the Flames won't see Langkow until next season, unless some major injuries happen to players on the Flames that are making big money.

-HArk

Flames Sign Geodude

It was announced today that the Calgary Flames have resigned defensemen Mark "Geodude" Giordano for 4 million a year for 5 year.

I think this is a decent signing. I would have preferred 3.5 a year, but the length is just right. I never liked signing defensemen to huge money filled contracts unless they are a deal breaker (Oldschool Lidstrom, Newschool Doughty). The Jay Blow signing has still scarred me for life.

This of course means we are investing heavily into our back end, but thankfully Sarich's contract is almost up so that is 3 million off the books and we probably shouldn't resign shitty Ian White unless he takes a huge pay cut, so that's another 3 million.

Overall, I'm happy with the signing as Geodude is the all around defensemen we thought Jay Blow would be.

-Hal

how the canucks will stay under the cap.

ok so. the canucks are 1.8 million over the salary cap. plus sami salo and alex burrows who make a combined 3.5 million can not go on injured reserved until after the first game of the season. so the canucks have to do something tricky to bring their roster down by 1.8 million in the meantime before the first game of the season. this is what they will do:

They will waive goalie cory schneider and forward mason raymond. reason being is that both are rfa's and can not be claimed off waivers by other teams. this will free up 3.4 million in cap space. then they will be replaced by cody hodgson and goalie eddie lack who combined make 1 million dollars.

boom!!!!we just saved 2.4 million in caps space. we will play one game without mason raymond which will suck, but at least cody hodgson will have a chance to play in the nhl for one game before the gets sent down to manitoba. And we have to prey to god that roberto luongo's sore groin doesnt act up and we have to put in eddie lack because he is not ready for play yet. then after the first game we will send eddie lack and hodgson down to the ahl and call up raymond and schneider who never really left but were watching the game from the pressbox all along.

Mike Gillis you are a genius! and so are u hark for figuring out his plan.