Proposal: PIT-CGY

[Zirakzigil]

This is such a short-sighted opinion imo. What about 2027-2031 when we try to contend but have to deal with a 50 point, 10.5 million dollar one dimensional winger who is 34-38?

Pittsburgh would never do this deal in a million years for that reason alone.

You mean when the cap is over 110mil, Hube counts for less than 10% of that and 2nd line players are making similar money as he is?

 

[Zirakzigil]

Yes he would. Again, Huberdeau has by far the worst contract in hockey.

Graves' deal is horrible without a doubt, but you can buy him out. Huberdeau's deal is buyout proof, has a full NMC for a majority of the deal and has 6 years left at $10.5 million.



Literally none of these deals are worse than Huberdeau's deal.

According to you.

 

[Lunatik]

Yes he would. Again, Huberdeau has by far the worst contract in hockey.

Graves' deal is horrible without a doubt, but you can buy him out. Huberdeau's deal is buyout proof, has a full NMC for a majority of the deal and has 6 years left at $10.5 million.



Literally none of these deals are worse than Huberdeau's deal.

Thanks for reminding me why I don't usually reply to you.

 

[RasmusAndersson]

Ras isnt being traded now. And may not be this summer. By all accounts Conroy is trying to sign him to an extension. The Flames are also currently in a playoff spot. There is no reason for the Flames to do this trade. And in the future all Karlsson does is block Parekh.

You know Karlsson has more points than Huberdeau this year despite being a dman right? That, and the MASSIVE cap savings long term, are key reasons to do this trade. I get you don’t want Karlsson, but saying we have no reason is so not true to any unbiased party.

If it were me I’d trade Rasmus for a 1st+prospect, make a deal like this, and our long-term outlook would suddenly be much better. More assets, more cap space, and more cap flexibility for when we’re actually good in 3-5 years. We also can’t just pencil Parekh into a top-4 role next season. And even if he steals one, we could then flip Rasmus or Karlsson with retention for a haul. a trade like this would just be good asset management

 

[Honour Over Glory]

How about...

Mike Sullivan to the Flames for future considerations.

Let a Flames legend return and rot there.

 

[Zirakzigil]

You know Karlsson has more points than Huberdeau this year despite being a dman right? That, and the MASSIVE cap savings long term, are key reasons to do this trade. I get you don’t want Karlsson, but saying we have no reason is so not true to any unbiased party.

If it were me I’d trade Rasmus for a 1st+prospect, make a deal like this, and our long-term outlook would suddenly be much better. More assets, more cap space, and more cap flexibility for when we’re actually good in 3-5 years. We also can’t just pencil Parekh into a top-4 role next season. And even if he steals one, we could then flip Rasmus or Karlsson with retention for a haul. a trade like this would just be good asset management

Karlsson also sits on the powerplay with one of the best players to play the game. The Flames are tied for 31st in offence. This isnt a move the Flames would even remotely consider. Forget about the 2 NMCs involved.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Thanks for reminding me why I don't usually reply to you.

Cool story bro.

Let's look at all of the realities of the Huberdeau contract:

1. His base salary is $1 million up through 2030-2031, meaning all of his money is in signing bonuses that are owed even if he's bought out. If you buyout Huberdeau, you're not getting any money savings. Ergo: buyout proof contract.
2. He has a full NMC through 2028-2029 and then a NMC and 12 team trade list in 2029-2030 and 2030-2031. So you can't waive him, can't trade him without his consent until 2029-2030 and the market is limited.
3. He hasn't hit 60 points in a season with Calgary once and is only on pace for 60 points this year.

Again, Huberdeau's deal is the worst deal in hockey by far. It's not even a challenge, no matter what Flames fans try to say.

 

[Lunatik]

Cool story bro.

Let's look at all of the realities of the Huberdeau contract:

1. His base salary is $1 million up through 2030-2031, meaning all of his money is in signing bonuses that are owed even if he's bought out. If you buyout Huberdeau, you're not getting any money savings. Ergo: buyout proof contract.
2. He has a full NMC through 2028-2029 and then a NMC and 12 team trade list in 2029-2030 and 2030-2031. So you can't waive him, can't trade him without his consent until 2029-2030 and the market is limited.
3. He hasn't hit 60 points in a season with Calgary once and is only on pace for 60 points this year.

Again, Huberdeau's deal is the worst deal in hockey by far. It's not even a challenge, no matter what Flames fans try to say.

You can spout whatever bullshit you want. Like always your viewpoint is massively sensationalized because all you do is try and bait people into arguments. It's been your M.O for years.

 

[RasmusAndersson]

Karlsson also sits on the powerplay with one of the best players to play the game. The Flames are tied for 31st in offence. This isnt a move the Flames would even remotely consider. Forget about the 2 NMCs involved.

You keep making this baseless argument that means nothing lol. You think Flames ownership wouldn’t consider saving 40 mil on an aging 50-60 point guy? Just absurd argument.

You talk about the cap rising as if suddenly bad contracts won’t matter. Sure it won’t be as pressing of a concern as it is now with the flat cap, but 10 mil in cap savings is massive. You say Huberdeau will be ONLY 10% of the cap as if that’s a good thing lol.

I admit he’s turned a corner this year but come on, take your emotions out of it and have some foresight. Karlsson for Huberdeau is somewhat lateral now and saves us tons of money and flexibility long term. Saying we ‘would never consider it’ is just wrong honestly

 

[Empoleon8771]

You can spout whatever bullshit you want. Like always your viewpoint is massively sensationalized because all you do is try and bait people into arguments. It's been your M.O for years.

So it's "bullshit" to post objective facts about Huberdeau's deal, like how his contract is buyout proof with a full NMC and how he's hasn't even hit 60 points yet is the 13th highest paid skater in hockey?

It's funny how I'm apparently the only "baiting people into arguments" here for literally backing up my claim that Huberdeau has the worst contract in hockey. Which isn't an even remotely controversial claim to anyone that isn't a Calgary Flames fan. The only contract that is even remotely close to Huberdeau's deal is Nurse's deal.

 

[Zirakzigil]

You keep making this baseless argument that means nothing lol. You think Flames ownership wouldn’t consider saving 40 mil on an aging 50-60 point guy? Just absurd argument.

You talk about the cap rising as if suddenly bad contracts won’t matter. Sure it won’t be as pressing of a concern as it is now with the flat cap, but 10 mil in cap savings is massive. You say Huberdeau will be ONLY 10% of the cap as if that’s a good thing lol.

I admit he’s turned a corner this year but come on, take your emotions out of it and have some foresight. Karlsson for Huberdeau is somewhat lateral now and saves us tons of money and flexibility long term. Saying we ‘would never consider it’ is just wrong honestly

Except its not baseless. Because the Flames are sitting in a playoff spot. And ownership cares about that. Conroy isnt trading his best forward for another right handed shot defenseman. Just to save cap 3 years down the road.

2 things that are horrifically overrated on these forums. Cap space and draft picks. Cap space is only useful if you are at the limit. Flames are one of the lowest cap teams in the league and will be that way for awhile.

 

[RasmusAndersson]

Except it’s not baseless. Because the Flames are sitting in a playoff spot. And ownership cares about that. Conroy isnt trading his best forward for another right handed shot defenseman. Just to save cap 3 years down the road.

I know this trade would never ever happen because Pittsburgh would never hurt their long term outlook like this.

I’m just hoping our GM has more foresight than this. This is such a short-sighted mindset that mirrors the mindset of our previous managements that gave huge contracts to mediocre guys and then saw Lucic/Neal/Brouwer taking away the essential cap space we needed to add that final elite piece or two. And then had to trade monahan with a 1st just to sign Kadri and Huberdeau to keep us mediocre and hurt our long term outlook even more.

Cap space and flexibility are critical for every contending team. The cap rising will just make contracts more expensive, but bad contracts of over 10 mil will still be bad contracts that severely limit a team’s flexibility. 10% of the cap for an aging 2nd line winger is atrocious.

So, saying we have no reason to do this deal is silly. Maybe you’re saying our management is too short-sighted to actually do something like this. That would be fair. But saying we have no reason to is objectively wrong

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

Saying "the cap is rising" as a justification to keep a 50-60 point player signed for 6 years at $10.5 million a year is wild. Huberdeau's contract is literally the worst contract in hockey.

The reason Calgary does this deal is because Karlsson is infinitely easier to trade than Huberdeau. Which is exactly why the Penguins wouldn't do this deal, they're trading a tradeable bad deal for an untradeable bad deal.

Huberdeau had 2 piss poor seasons here but has been excellent this year. You can call him a 50-60 point player all you want but he is a pure playmaker and leads our team in goals. Give him some actual trigger men to work with and he would have a lot more than 19 primary assists.

This is such a pointless argument. Calgary has zero interest in a EK65 because they are already very deep at RD and have a potential superstar RD prospect in Zayne Parekh joining the team next year. Why are you so hellbent on justifying why Calgary should do it just because Pittsburgh shouldn't? There is such thing as being bad for both sides.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Huberdeau had 2 piss poor seasons here but has been excellent this year. You can call him a 50-60 point player all you want but he is a pure playmaker and leads our team in goals. Give him some actual trigger men to work with and he would have a lot more than 19 primary assists.

This is such a pointless argument. Calgary has zero interest in a EK65 because they are already very deep at RD and have a potential superstar RD prospect in Zayne Parekh joining the team next year. Why are you so hellbent on justifying why Calgary should do it just because Pittsburgh shouldn't? There is such thing as being bad for both sides.

He's literally on pace for 60 points this year.

I call him a 50-60 point player because he's been a 50-60 point player for the last 3 seasons now.

 

[HighLifeMan]

FWIW pointing out that Huberdeau is "only" on pace for 60 sort of falls on deaf ears for most Flames fan. He has shown this season that he still has the ability to be a highly productive and impactful player, and it's certainly not his fault that this roster is 31st in scoring, and plays a style of hockey that is tailored to low event, low scoring hockey. For some context Jonathan Huberdeau has more primary points than Jack Eichel does this year. It's tough to criticize the production of a player who doesn't even have a single secondary assist at five on five this entire year, and only 3 in total. If Huberdeau isn't the one facilitating offense then this team simply isn't scoring at all.

As far as the deal.. I can certainly see the logic in getting out of the term on Huberdeau's contract - but that is also why Pittsburgh wouldn't make the trade in the first place. To risky from their perspective.

 

[RasmusAndersson]

Huberdeau had 2 piss poor seasons here but has been excellent this year. You can call him a 50-60 point player all you want but he is a pure playmaker and leads our team in goals. Give him some actual trigger men to work with and he would have a lot more than 19 primary assists.

This is such a pointless argument. Calgary has zero interest in a EK65 because they are already very deep at RD and have a potential superstar RD prospect in Zayne Parekh joining the team next year. Why are you so hellbent on justifying why Calgary should do it just because Pittsburgh shouldn't? There is such thing as being bad for both sides.

I agree Huberdeau has been much better this year for sure and getting out of his contract is much less of a priority than it might have been last year.

But in your ideal world, wouldn’t it make a lot of sense to move Rasmus for futures and then make a move like this to clear 40+ mil in cap space long term? (Not saying this specific deal is realistic, but something like this where we swap Huberdeau for a somewhat worse player with a bad contract that has less term).

That way we’d still have a spot for Parekh as soon as next year, could replace Huberdeau with some of the 10+ mil we saved and/or one of our many LW prospects, and would have an extra 1st from the Rasmus trade without destroying our d core in the short term. Obviously Kerins or Stromgren or Honzek or whoever could help replace Huberdreau won’t be able to match his production right away, but it opens the door for more youth and we could sign a short-term top-6 LW to replace him.

And then long term, we’d have way more flexibility to pursue big names without having to worry about crippling our long term outlook with bad contracts. IMO we should be looking 3-5 years ahead, and moving an aging, overpaid Huberdeau when he may actually have some positive value would be a very smart move.

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

He's literally on pace for 60 points this year.

I call him a 50-60 point player because he's been a 50-60 point player for the last 3 seasons now.

He is yes, but he's also on pace for 30 goals which he's only reached twice before in his previous 12 seasons. His first 2 years in Calgary he had 27 goals combined. Again, he's not a goal scorer, he's a playmaker. Everyone else sucks at scoring on this team so who is he going to pass to instead? 22 goals, 19 primary assists and 3 secondary assists. He might quite literally be 90% of this teams offensive output.

 

[Flames Fanatic]

He's literally on pace for 60 points this year.

I call him a 50-60 point player because he's been a 50-60 point player for the last 3 seasons now.

It's less that he isn't on pace for what you're suggesting, it's that 50-60 point players get 7 million these days pretty regularly. So him being that but overpaid 3.5 million is bad, sure, but maybe not "the worst". Last year I would have been more inclined to agree, but his play this year has been vastly different. Reinvented his game a lot to be more effective.

 

[Bishop7979]

It's almost a year too late for this move. Back in November I was saying this might not be a bad move but...

EK has actually improved his play and looks like he's gone from a roll the dice with a poor fit for poor fit trade hoping it works out to a trade that would bring back actual value, especially with the cap rising and the possibility of some retention.

Huberdeau's play has also improved, but, not enough to accept him at 10.5 mil for what, 5 more years, especially without a sweetener being added in.

The flames also don't need EK right now, so the pens should move EK somewhere that will provide value in return that doesn't lock them into a long term contact.

The pens should take that extra draft capital they've built up and the cap space that trading EK would open up and be aggressive in free agency this summer and on the trade market.

Target some younger players or put together a package to potentially move up in the draft if there's a quality player just out of reach of where ever the pens finish.