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Stormy future ahead for Flames

Calgary Flames acting general manager Jay Feaster swears he has plan.

Calgary Flames acting general manager Jay Feaster swears he has plan.

If he gets the GM gig on a permanent basis he better, because the optics surrounding the future of the club are not good.

While the team deserves full marks for their turnaround at mid-season that came up just short in their bid to make the playoffs, there is little reason to believe it is a run that will continue into next season.

There are three critical issues facing the franchise right now — any one of in this cap world would be a big problem, two would be crippling and all three is catastrophic.

1) No cap space — According to capgeek.com the Flames already have $53.2 million wrapped up in 16 players. If the cap stays at $59.4 million for next season that leaves just $6.2 million to sign four to six players. Making matters worse, some of the players responsible for their big turnaround, like Curtis Glencross, Alex Tanguay and Brendan Morrison are unrestricted free agents and due big pay raises.

Also the Flames are overloaded with bad contracts like Matthew Stajan at $3.5 mil a year for the next three years, and Rene Bourque at $3.3 mil for the next five years.

Daymond Langkow comes back on the books full time next year at $4.5 mil after hiding on the injured reserve list all season and Mark Giordano is already locked in at a bump in pay of roughly $3.1 mil for the upcoming season.

The Flames have also hampered themselves with most of their big contracts being no-trade or no-movement pacts. About the only big contract that could be moved to create space without convincing the player to waive a clause is Niklas Hagman who has been a disappointment at $3 million a year, but with just one year left they may find a taker on the former 20-goal scorer.

2) Old age — Right now their average age is 29.8 years old. With an age that high they are not built for the future, they should be built to win right now.

And when you look at their star core players — Jarome Iginla, 33; Alex Tanguay, 31; Miikka Kiprusoff, 34; Robyn Regehr, 30; Jay Bouwmeester, 27 — only one can really be considered at the beginning of his prime with most in the final stages of their prime. Which again is great if they are surrounded by talent capable of going on a long playoff run, but they aren’t. The last time the Flames went beyond the first round of the playoffs was their Cup run in 2004, and they will now have missed the post-season dance all together for the second straight season. And the surrounding group of players under contract don’t exactly inspire greatness, defenceman Giordano being the brightest light and he’s also 27.

3) The prospect cupboard is bare — It is no secret the Flames are lacking when it comes to talented prospects, in fact it is arguable their top three prospects are already with the team. Mikael Backlund is the best of them and he could possibly be a first liner one day, maybe make an all-star team here or there. T.J. Brody likely tops out as a second-pairing defenceman and Greg Nemisz has third-line centre written all over him.

Even Feaster has said they have little by way of prospects coming. But it’s not going to get any better this year. While they actually do have their first- round pick this year, that pick will not be made until the middle of the first round in what is supposed to be a weak draft year. Then they will not be picking again until the fourth round with their second- and third-round picks already traded off for scrap.

It’s a tough spot for Feaster or whoever takes over permanently. To tear it all down and start over from scratch would be an impossible task with all the major contracts on board with no-movement clauses. But then there is also not much room on the books to reload with even solid supplementary players.

And there are also no reinforcements coming from the farm.

Really it’s the perfect storm for what can go wrong in the cap world.

jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com

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