Team: 2022-23 Calgary Flames

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 20, 2022

Published: Jun. 21, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Part 4 of 32 of my "If I was GM" series this off season. Trying to keep as realistic as possible, but of course stuff happens in the hockey world that is unexpected.

Here is my analysis of all my moves:
RFA SIGNINGS:
Tkachuk - A no-brainer in my opinion. 9.5 x 6 is about what I see happening, maybe a little bit cheaper as he may take a very minor pay cut if that means it would be more likely to keep Gaudreau, though this is the value I see at the moment.
Mangiapane - A future Selke winner. Thats all I need to say.
Ruzicka - Solid depth d-man.
Dach - Traded for his rights, he has a big season in him, he now has to prove it.

UFA SIGNINGS
Gaudreau - One of the obvious huge musts for Calgary is keep Gaudreau. You can afford him with the cap dumps I have done, so sign him to whatever it takes under 11m.
Lewis - Good veteran depth forward.
Lyubushkin - Great gritty d-man, the kind you need to make a playoff push. I would assume his name will carry some heat, so if he is more expensive than 3m, we would consider other options.
Stone - Good depth guy that can step in and serve as great help.

TRADES
Lucic - Cap dump.
Dach Acquisition - Clearing cap in Monahan for another struggling young player. Chicago receives a solid B/C prospect and a 4th as compensation for taking the contract and participating in the value for Dach.

OVERALL ANALYSIS
This is a very crucial off season for the Flames. A bit of a difficult team to do, as they have so many key guys to re-sign, little cap space to do so, and not many assets to give as compensation when clearing contracts. Though I have done all of these things, they also should add, but really just dont have the cap space for it. I dont totally trust Backlund as 2nd line C, but I wouldnt just get rid of him, and there arent any other guys with heavy enough cap that would make sense to get rid of to acquire a 2nd line C or improve the D core. I have added depth in the back end, though they still need that star in the back end in my opinion, which cant happen under the current cap issues we have.

In my opinion, as far as flexibilty with adding guys in the and fixing our issues, it almost wouldnt hurt if Gaudreau left. If we were to use that 10.5m towards Fiala which would likely be 6-7m, then not be forced into signing Lyubushkin and saving that almost 3m, giving us 6-7m to spend on someone like maybe Letang in free agency. All hypothetically. Let me know any thoughts.

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