Finish the Fire Sale: The Flames at The Deadline

In the pre-morning dawn here it is still unknown if the Flames will make further moves but more and more names are starting to pop up. Kipper has been there for awhile. A recent Dreger tweet seems to confirm some kind of Toronto deal is looming, even if it turns out to be conditional picks but not sure what Kipper and his agent are thinking here.

Kipper has no NTC / NMC this year and given his performance so far this year not sure how he thinks he can negotiate a re-signing prior to a trade but Flames fans should brace themselves for another underwhelming return.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The sense Tor has in talking with Kiprusoff, his agent and the Flames, he would accept trade. Concern is what about next year or year after.</p>&mdash; Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenDreger/status/319426266417725440">April 3, 2013</a></blockquote>

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And you know what, that is fine.

Dwelling on the recent trades I think there might be an explanation to Feaster's moves, not necessarily a defensible one but at least an explanation for why the Flames are getting hosed so bad in these moves.

Iginla was a PR Trade

Iginla was traded for a poor return because I honestly believe he only wanted to go to the Penguins. He personally did not want to go to any other team, the so-called list was verbal and the Flames as an organization simply gave their franchise player what he wanted.

They avoided a Sudin circus and had a media black-out in place to keep all of it under wraps as much as possible. It would have divided fans between the player worshipers and the team first camp and that is not a fun civil war. In short it all could have got very ugly, very fast.

Instead it became a shock announcement upon completion and all water under the bridge saving a library worth of fans arguing with each other over the Iggy's Wishes "first" or Best Return "first" camps that would have quickly formed.

So moving on

The Jbo Trade as Cap Dump

This one again was an underwhelming return and upset me immediately but it was because I had from the very beginning always assumed Jbo's Cap would be partially eaten by the Flames in a trade to get max return. Feaster mentioned that the Jbo's list quickly shortened when it came to teams who had the Cap to take him on.

The explanation here is the Flames have another trade pending where they will eat Cap, either a Kipper or Cammy trade. Hence they needed to dump Jbo clear and free. He is a good player, in high demand but he is overpaid, I don't think anyone disputes this.

Hence the fact they moved his whole contract, already very high in a normal cap market to a team that could eat it and also adjust to next years lower Cap made for a very short list of teams.

The ability to eat Cap in a trade is new, we are not sure at this time the impact it will have on trade returns. Overpaid players can literally in some cases begin to have negative value due to the Cap limitations they are hitting their team with.

So I can accept this in anticipation of yet another trade where the Flames WILL eat Cap. At this point there is a risk that they actually will have to work to hit the Cap floor next year as they clear all the big contracts.

What to expect today (Kipper or Cammy)

When or if this trade happens, expect the Flames to eat Cap on it. For sure this will be the cherry on the mock-a-rama on Jay Feaster but step back and analyze it all.

If Feaster can magically get another 1st round pick from someone. The Flames will have 4 – 1st round picks in the coming draft, called by most the deepest since 2003. I like those odds.

It All Could Be worse

Impossible you say, well, actually the worst case scenario is that Iggy, Jbo and Kipper were not moved at all and the Flames got absolutely nothing for them. That is a worse scenario.

Olli walked for nothing for the Flames. It could have happened for the stars and as of this moment still could happen for Kipper. I hope it doesn't.

I hope a Kipper trade is made and I don't care what the return is at this point or even if the Flames have to eat part of his Cap.

The reason why is that something is better than nothing and that is the mode Feaster is in now, that is why he is getting trades done but the returns are weak.

I think is part of a larger plan to go after some high contracts this off-season and try and get those expensive FA on the Flames, they will cost more and some teams may have to dump them in trades that will have the Flames on the other side of the Cap side of trades now.

by M Smith