Paring the UFA list

As established, the Flames have precious little room to be playing in the deep end of the UFA pool this summer. They may, however, have a small to moderate amount of dough to use towards firming up their forward depth, specifically the left wing where they'll be losing Mike Cammalleri and his 39 goals (19 on the PP). None of the remaining left wingers have Cammalleri's offensive ceiling or proven PP production, so one would expect the organization to look for a LW than can carry his weight at ES and pot a few with the man advantage.

Considering the maximum amount the team can spend on such a guy is probably in the 3.5M to 4M range, it's not a very large list:

Player – previous Cap $

Mikael Samuelsson – 1.2M

Steve Sullivan – 3.2M

Brian Gionta – 4M

Mike Knuble – 2.8M

Alex Kovalev – 4.5M
Bill Guerin – 4.5M

Erik Cole – 4M

Jere Lehtinen – 4M

Kyle Calder – 2.7M

Keith Tkachuk – 4M

It's a bit of scratch and dent collection of guys – lots of age and injury concerns – although there might be some value to be had here, depending on the price. I've included pending UFA RW's here as well since switching sides doesn't seem too big a deal.

Rather than do a lengthy profile on each guy, I figure a poll was in order. I'll go on to write about the top 5 picks over the next few days, then perhaps tackle any stragglers as I see fit.

by Kent Wilson