The Flames Oilers Paradigm Shift

Would rather play Kylington than Russel. We already know what Russel is and have moved on. Kylington-Andersson was pretty solid last year when Valimaki was hurt, so why not go back to that considering it helped get to the 2nd best regular season in the league.

I've been running a similar trade that guarantees the 2020 3rd Round Pick involved in the Lucic-Neal swap with $1M retained on Russell.

Edmonton is still kind of a cap-stressed team, and I would be picky over that extra $500k; does guaranteeing that pick help bridge the gap?



There's also an element of cap-savings for the Flames involved in this trade. I think that there's almost $2M freed up here which all but guarantees that the Flames can re-sign Tkachuk before the season starts. The question then becomes do you deal with the devil you know in order to afford one of your stars, or promote internally and risk starting the season without Tkachuk?

Guaranteeing the pick likely isn't of interest to the Flames as unfortunately I think it's likely they get it anyway if Neal plays with McDavid. I mean Chiasson put up >20 goals last year riding shot gun with him.

I think there is a better deal out there for Frolik to open up cap if need be. Either one where they take back less money, or one where they get a better player. Even swapping him out for a guy like Hickey who is much better than Russel (Hickey v. Russell) is an option I've seen on a few ACGM's (there was even the inclusion of Ho-Sang or a late pick from the Islanders).

Also as it sits now I think they also could fit Tkachuk and Mangianpane's deals in while keeping Frolik by running a 22 man roster (depending on what Tkachuk's camp thinks he's worth). Today they have $7.75M in space with Valimaki on IR (counting) and Quine and Dube up. $7.75M - $7.65M for Tkachuk (5 year term) - $0.925M for Mangiapane (two year term) + $0.735M sending Quine down + $0.894M sending Vali to LTIR - $0.7M bringing up Davidson = $0.1M in space. Tight but possible without dumping Frolik or Brodie.
Gaudeau - Monahan - Lindholm
Tkachuk - Backlund - Frolik
Lucic - Dube - Bennett
Mangiapane - Jankowski - Ryan
x- Czarnik
Gio - Brodie
Hanifin - Hamonic
Kylington - Andersson
x- Davidson
Rittich
Talbot

I'd be concerned with Hickey's term and lack of production. I think he lost a wack of time last year to a pretty glaring injury too? At a similar pricepoint, I'd probably rather ol' Cowboy despite passionately not wanting him on the Oilers.