Hey everyone, out there, and a very warm welcome back into the world's premier destination for all things NHL salary cap. Last week, we deep dove into a couple recent signings and while I was looking for an extension or trade to discuss this week, I got into a conversation with my league about "tanking" clubs and their decisions on who to offload. This goes hand-in-hand with the salary cap as for example, the San Jose Sharks going into next season are close to $40 million away from the salary cap floor and could be in position for a high pick again if they cool off. While I don't 100% love the mantra of "tanking", there's merit in doing so. On one hand, I vehemently disagree with the notion of tanking in the aspect that I do not want a losing culture to be introduced to my franchise and I've always felt that it's easier for most clubs to decide to strip things down to the studs, rather than rebuild or retool. It's how GMs keep their jobs longer than they otherwise should, for better or for worse.

On the other hand, though, the intrigue lies in being able to completely re-imagine your roster, so long as you don't have too much "bad" money on a salary cap. That goes along with the option of going in a different direction if your franchise has been one stuck in the rut of never bad enough to truly bottom out, but never good enough to compete. Whatever club that you have coming to mind right now is probably accurate, and I'd go as far to say that this exists across all major sports. Trust me, I'm a Bulls fan. If you weren't with us when we went 41-41, then don't act like you're with us once we go 42-40!

So, as my mind wandered I happened to see a trade rumor surrounding Nazem Kadri and while I can't remember the specifics, it was one of those graphics that they show on TV to fill 30 seconds. Yes, I'm sure the Flames would really consider Logan Stanley and a 2028 3^rd rounder retaining half salary. Still, Kadri's name keeps coming up along with the Flames bottoming out and I think we need to maybe take a step back and see what the "best" route to go here is.

First, wasn't last season supposed to be the bottoming out season? If it was and coming within points of a playoff spot, then job not well done? I wrote the pre-season guide for this club and while they brought everyone back plus some pieces from their farm system, I was encouraged that they could maybe be one of the teams we're talking about in the second week of March. So far this season though, this has not been the case as Calgary has found themselves in a very difficult spot early on. This also isn't like Minnesota a couple seasons back to where it was just more tough losses where a puck bounce one way or the other and it's a different story, this club has had games where their offense just cannot seem to generate any momentum, and that's difficult to watch when on the opposite end, Dustin Wolf has not been in the same form as he was at points last season.

So does trading Kadri fix this? That's where I'm not so sure, because there are more moving parts to dealing him than I think meets the eye. Kadri has a 13-team no-trade list so that's striking a quarter of the league out unless he and his representation decide to waive that. So, that leaves us with the rest of the league, where it's more than safe to assume that most of those clubs won't have the salary flexibility which means that Calgary would have to eat a substantial amount of remaining money, just to get a deal through. Think say, San Jose and the Tomas Hertl trade. Look, I get gaining an asset back in return for a piece that could be valuable, but I don't think looking to bottom out as an issue right now for this club, so why take away more pieces that could be valuable in the future? I like Connor Zary, and he might be a contract that's easier to move…but lose the asset in that case? The one name that I don't think is getting mentioned here is Rasmus Andersson to where that makes sense in moving him if the organization knows that re-singing him is off the table, gain pieces back while you can instead of losing out.

The Flames already have one salary retained in Jacon Markstrom, and I don't think this team is in a position to be a third-party banker for other salary retention so that in all likelihood is not an avenue I would venture down. I've said this before, but this season we may see more teams intentionally bottom out in order to get a prize in the draft, whether that be Ryan Roobroeck, Ethan Belchetz, Keaton Verhoeff, or even Gavin McKenna if all falls your way. Teams like Calgary may just have a season from hell if you will, where hey, some small pieces moved and you start to see guys shelved later on down the road, to where I can't really look around the NHL landscape and find a club that could outright just throw in the towel outside of San Jose and maybe Boston…who I can't seem to get a read on night-to-night. On the other side of that, Nashville would make perfect sense, but who is picking up all the contracts that they have lying on their roster? This season will be interesting because say that Nashville was looking to move Jonathan Marchessault and his $5.5 AAV…so okay, we'll probably need to get a third team involved but those clubs are the ones that are also trying to bottom out, why would they help Nashville?

I'm extremely curious as to what direction the league goes in closer to the deadline this season. I pushed back on the idea that this summer was going to be one offer sheet after the next, because this draft class might just be too special to want to lose out on a chance at a high pick. I still stand by we're going to see clubs really go for that top pick more than in previous seasons and while I don't think that's great for the league as a whole, some signs are starting to point us in that direction.   

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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