DEToffseason1

2 things.
1. I would probably heavily consider that from a Flames POV. Could you retain on Sundqvist?
2. If you are acquiring Monahan it isn't to play 4C. You would be banking on his surgery fixing his other hip and looking for a bounce back and then probably flip at the deadline for more value

Flames will save around 3.75 MIL from this deal and sundqvist is a capable nhl player. DET could RS but the price would increase as the savings increase. I expect monahan to be available next season and he prob would play 3c for 4c, det is doing this for a LD prospect that can maybe play next yr and a 2nd rd draft pick. if he is decent a 50 percent RS (recently, we've seen third teams to come in to retain additional cap) to get another draft pick

Flames need to save a fair bit more than 3.75M this offseason regardless of if Sundqvist is a capable NHLer. Monahan played the entirely of the last 2 seasons (except for the first 6 games of 20/21) with a completely messed up hip (whether it was his left last year or right this year). If he comes back healthy do not expect him to be a 4th line caliber center by any means. I understand the idea of mainly wanting Valimaki here, all I'm saying you are basing Monahan's results off his time playing through major injuries

The trade market is not going to be friendly to teams clearing cap unless it is for very good players than the issue almost goes away. Monahan played the bottom 6 the whole team in CGY this season and this is a pretty serious surgery. Definitely has to be caution with monahan and while I am expecting him to be available, it is unreasonable to think he will be a quality player considering he was about in the mid 20's percentile for WAR and regressed even lower this season to about a flat 20th percentile. Gaudreau led the league in even strength points (no one has had as many as him in a single season in a long time) and matt tkachuk was great this yr too. They will both get 10M + and they both deserve it. that leaves cgy with about 6M for everything else so I think clearing monahan is a priority for them to keep Kylington and mangiapane. Det definitely has leverage

This is not entirely true. Monahan started in the top 6 and as his hip got worse he got demoted to down the lineup (mind you they had no idea his hip was so serious until he spoke up and got x-rays at the beginning of April). On the other hand though, as stated by him, his left hip feels excellent. His availability depends entirely on if he can play next season as we don't know anything more about the surgery besides that he was place on LTIR to get it done on the right hip. Any team interested would certainly get full access to his medical records though. I don't really understand bringing up his WAR from last year since he was also playing injured the entire season

Gaudreau and Tkachuk definitely haven't earned 10M deals yet. That heavily depends on these playoffs. The last team to hand out multiple 10M+ deals without any playoff results has been spinning their tires for 3 years now. Even then I would expect around 9.5M with the Flames with term being the main factor. They also have the option of moving Lucic and it has already been reported there is a lot of interest in Monahan so the "leverage" is not specifically with Detroit at all, It's simply highest bidder (not that I am expecting much).