This was a big topic at the Hockey Summit.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=331624

The players want to go - and the league sort of wants to be there, but it is a tough call.

What is everyones opinion on issue ? Does it need to be solved ?

A way to perhaps make it more palatable to NHL owners after the jump.

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Earlier this summer I did some historical comparisons for Iginla and Kiprusoff versus their recent peers, with the object of learning what to expect from them going forward. Both stacked up fairly well relative to their age in comparison to some very good players

Now it is Daymond Langkow’s turn.

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The Flames announced the signing of soon-to-be thirty-nine year old centre Craig Conroy to a one-year deal today. The terms were not disclosed by the club, but the deal is allegedly a two-way contract at league minimum, as per the Herald's Vicki Hall. With the health of Daymond Langkow still in question and the ability of any of the other three centres currently on the roster to handle tough minutes at even strength on the penalty kill, retaining Conroy certainly makes sense for the Flames, especially at that dollar figure with a versatile contract.

I'm not sure whether or not Conroy makes the team is really a question, I think there's too much respect there; perhaps he'll retire if he gets demoted, because I can't imagine a thirty-nine year old player with a family wants to spend what is potentially his last season traipsing around the AHL, but who knows, he could prove to be a useful influence on what looks to be a very young Abbotsford team. What say you?

With a last minute deal, the Flames have avoided the potentially nasty arbitration process and signed defenseman Ian White to a one year, $2.999M contract early this morning.

As expected, Cap Geek is showing that this puts Calgary approximately $2.4 million over the salary cap.

Now with the final major piece in place (for now), it's time to clarify the Kotalik situation, and deal with one or both (please make that both, Daz) of the Staios and Sarich contracts to free up some cap room.

I have to wonder if the Flames are finished dealing and signing. Aside from White being signed-hopefully-then what? Anyone have any ideas about our current roster? What about Kotalik and Staios? Any trades forthcoming? Trade rumours or trade suggestions?

If Kotalik disappears Kotalik's salary is needed for White. If Staios goes, a little more money for another free agent?

Bryan Cameron or Backlund will have to play, and it looks like Conroy is an outside bet.

Dawes is gone so I guess Sutter, Ivanans or Meyer on 4th line LW.  It seems Calgary has depth at  Centre too, the farm is full with Stone, Cameron, Nemisz,  waiting in the wings. Perhaps a centre will move on to a wing.

The starting roster: Kotalik subtracted to sign White-just a thought

Left                                    Centre                              Right

Tanguay                           Langkow (Healthy?)      Iginlia

Hagman                           Jokinen                           Borque

Glencross                         Stajan                            Moss

Sutter                                 Backlund                       Jackman  

                                         Defence 

             Bowmeester                              Giordano

                White                                          Regehr  

                Pardy                                          Sarich

                                        Staios? Pelech up?

                                          Goal

                                       Kirpusoff

                                       Karlsson

I guess its not that bad, the new additions have added depth, barring injury the team looks competitive. God forbid Kirpusoff ever getting hurt, that would be devastating to this team.

If we had one more free agent to add-any ideas? Or how about realistic trade proposals. Staios would add cap space if he isn't in the Flames plans

From The Hockey Gym: Calgary Cap Space -note Dawes was bought out, increase capspace, Flames paid 2/3 of 850,000 or 566,666 to make Dawes a UFA. My best guess is just over 1 mill cap space and with Kotalik gone add 3 million leaving 4 million to sign White. However, no cap space if White gets 4 million. Come on White sign for 2.5 and let us add someone else, like Dawes perhaps. How about Sutter takes less pay for adding an assistant GM and pushing his son through-I just added that to be controversial. I like how all Sutter's play hockey.

So, here's what I figure:

The Flames currently have just over $3M left in cap space, assuming Backlund is on the roster, along with Sarich, Staios, and Kronwall (according to CapGeek) and somehow Kotalik is not.

They apparently want to sign White, which by some accounts could cost $3.5M or more. If Staios and Kronwall get sent to Abbotsford, that would free up $3.2M for White. That would leave us with only 6 Dmen, so perhaps Kronwall stays up or Pelech replaces him for $0.35M more. I'll assume Kronwall stays up and Pelech stays down.

If Langkow can't start the season (or play in 10-11 at all) then they require another centre. It could be Conroy, Mayers, Cameron, Sutter, Wahl, or someone else altogether. This position could cost anywhere from $0.5M to $1.5M. Cameron falls pretty close to the middle of that range, so I'll use him.

(There is some possible cap relief regarding Langkows injury, but I don't know what it is and so I'm ignoring it.)

My best guess is that one or both of Ivanans and Jackman will spend enough time in the press box that a couple of other 4th line bodies will be required under the cap. Cunning and Niemisz are certainly possibilities here, at a cost of $0.5M and $1.046M respectively.

Goaltending seems settled.

So, here's what it boils down to (in my mind anyway):

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Unlike the Iginla comparison, trying to establish a predictor for Kiprusoff’s potential performance is much more difficult. The stat to measure for goalie performance is more difficult to decide. Wins are great but are as often determined by the team as the tender . Goals against average is also tough to compare as a team style can vary creating discrepancies in the number of shots allowed, harming or benefiting the goals against.

Though imperfect, save percentage is probably the best measure. It can not measure that big save effect, clutch goaltending as it were, but those stats would be hard to dig up. Not like baseball – batting average with runners in scoring position etc. Someone suggested even strength save percentage – and I agree that’s probably the metric, but I’m not going to spend the time to separate out the historical stats on that.

I put together some high level peers here for Kipper to measure against. In doing so I hope we are setting the bar high, so that we can look at the most optimistic prediction possible.  Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek, Ed Belfour, Curtis Joseph and for a closer contemporary Marty Turco for a total of 6 guys.  Unlike the forwards the trends are far less clear in the sv pct statistics.

I started the comparison at 23, though some had played earlier – only 4 were playing at 23 with Hasek, Turco and Kipper starting later. I ignored Kipper’s San Jose stats as they were small. All of them played until 37, with the exception of Kipper and Turco who haven’t reached there yet. Brodeur is 38 this year. Kipper’s last year under contract is when he is 37, though that will only be a $1.5 m salary year.

The range of sv pct for all goalies for all seasons was – from a low of .893 for Hasek in his rookie year at 26, and Joseph in his last full season in Phoenix at 39, to the high of Hasek’s .937  at 32. Kipper’s .933 at 27 second best among all. As a group – the 6 goalies fall below .902 only once –at 39 years old, when there is only 3 providing data.

Kipper clearly beats the group in his first year in Calgary at 27 - his .933 is 2.63 % pts ahead of the average – over 3 goals every 4 games. He missed the 28 year old season due to the lockout but the Vezina year at 29 had him 1.16% ahead of the group. At 30 his .917 was again nearly a full point ahead of groups .907.

What followed then was 2 years below the average as Kipper was only.906 and .903, then last year’s .920 beat the group by 0.7 %. If he had been at the group average.913 – that would have been over 14 more goals allowed last year. So the good news is that in 4 of his 6 NHL years Mikka has had a better save percentage than a group that contains the top 4 win leaders of all time and Dominik Hasek !

The interesting part of this is the unpredictability. The graph for the average looks not much like the bell curve of the goal scorers. It looks instead like one of those crazy Tour de France hill climbs - up, down, back up again and a screaming downhill to the finish ! 7 of the top 8 seasons on average of the 6 comparables occurred after 31 years of age. Age 32 was the best at just about .920, followed by the 37 and 38 year old seasons at .916. This is pretty astounding, but Roy and Hasek both had .925 seasons at 37 and 38 respectively. The drop off is steep from 38 on, though Brodeur hasn’t had the opportunity to affect those numbers as yet.

The years of 34, 35, and 36 are important as they are the next 3 for Kipper. The group produces a .915, a .911 and a .914 at those ages – pretty consistent. Assuming Kipper continues to beat the group 2 out of three years, he has been beating the group by 1.36 % when he does,  and on the down years is under by 1.30 %. This could produce a range of .928 to .898 – a huge gap over the next 3 years. 72 games at 28 shots is 2016 shots; that range of save percentage is a 60 goal differential. Absolutely gigantic range of possibility here.  If he sticks to the middle and achieves the .915 and sees 28 shots per 60 – you are looking at a 2.38 GAA; not quite as good as last year but I’d take it.

What you see is what you get...

In examining the state of the Flames on Capgeek recently, I noticed a disturbing trend...a lot of little locks next to player's names. 

This got me thinking, "How does Calgary stack up against the rest of the league when in comes to NMC clauses?"

The answer:  We WIN!!!!

In all, Darryl Sutter has handed out contracts to 10 players that involve NMC Clauses.  They are:

Jarome Iginla: 3 years remaining / $7.0m per
Daymond Langkow: 2 years remaining / $4.5m per
Matt Stajan: 4 years remaining / $3.5m per
Rene Bourque: 5 years remaining / $3.33m per
Ales Kotalik: 2 years remaining / $3.0 m per
Olli Jokinen: 2 years remaining / $3.0m per
Alex Tanguay: 1 year remaining / $1.7m per
Jay Bouwmeester: 4 years remaining / $6.68m per
Robyn Regehr: 3 years remaining / $4.02 m per
Miikka Kiprusoff: 4 years remaining / $5.833m per

http://www.capgeek.com/charts.php?Team=9&salary_cap_mil=59&salary_cap_thou=4

In looking at this, one has to believe, we are in for very little change to this Flames team.  Especially over the next two seasons. 

There will be $42.563 million committed to these ten players in 2010-2011 and $40.863 million committed in 2011-2012 once Tanguay's deal expires.

2012-2013 should bring a little more relief as Langkow, Kotalik (providing of course he sticks around) and Jokinen come off the books.  That brings the Flames total NMC promises to $30.363 million. 

2013-2014 may be the first year we can realistically expect to see a true change in this team, without a player or two waiving their NMC. $11.02 million in additional space will be freed up, assuming Jarome Iginla and Robyn Regehr are not re-signed.  That leaves $19.343 million to the remaining "core" of Bouwmeester, Kiprusoff, Bourque and Stajan.

The team that comes closest to Calgary in handing out NMC clauses are the lovely folks out in Vancouver, who have dished out 8 to their respective employees.

http://www.capgeek.com/charts.php?Team=29&salary_cap_mil=59&salary_cap_thou=4

Although, it does appear as if they have been a little more judicious in their NMC's.  However, Manny Malhotra kind of blows that idea out of the water. 

Nonetheless, I digress.

The point of this was to illustrate just how hamstrung Darryl now is if he wants to make any meaningful changes to this club.   The problem is, it doesn't seem like does. 

As fans, we just have to hope that  "Darryl's Decemvirate" prove his decision making correct or we could be in for years of the same ol', same ol'.

Alot of discussion has taken place recently about the age of the Flames and whether the veterans can bounce back from down years. Intuitively , the age of 30 or just after seems to be the beginning of the decline of players. I thought I'd go in to some historical stats and compare Iginla to his peers from recent NHL seasons. Not all is equal for sure, but by comparing to 5 players - things average out pretty well and we certainly can identify some trends that can give a pretty good reading

What to expect from Iggy ?

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I see that Columbus is considering acquiring Kevin Bieksa. Filatov for Bieksa Rumour.

Is there any way that they might want to consider Cory Sarich instead ? I'd rather say Staios, but I'd think that having Scott Howson laugh in my face, might do little harm to future credibility !!

I don't know about Filatov - if they insist on being rid of him, I'd take a chance, but at this point a 2nd rounder would be more than adequate.