The Calgary Flames didn’t make the playoffs, but they still spent like a team that did. Despite that notion, some of the team’s biggest success stories in the post-Darryl Sutter turnaround were their “budget” players.
Along with the impressive finish by not-so-budget captain Jarome Iginla ($7.5 million cap hit), the Flames received great contributions from cheap veterans Alex Tanguay ($1.7 million, 69 points), Brendan Morrison ($725K, 43 points) and rising young forward Curtis Glencross ($1.2 million, 43 points). Unfortunately, with that silver lining there was a catch: Tanguay, Morrison and Glencross ranked among the team’s pending free agents. That’s not a great thing since the team isn’t exactly swimming in salary cap room.
While Tanguay and Morrison remain question marks, Glencross avoided unrestricted free agency by signing with the team. Vicki Hall of the Calgary Herald writes that it is a multi-year deal with a “significant raise” and a no-movement clause, although terms have not yet been revealed.
The salary cap is expected to be around $62.2 million in 2011-12, so the Flames will have about $8.9 million to work with before the Glencross deal. They have a bit less than $53.3 million devoted to 16 players at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how much the team has left once the terms of the contract are announced.
Either way, the Flames re-signed a forward who finished the 2010-11 season on a hot streak, scoring 24 of his 43 points (including 12 of his 24 goals) in his final 31 games after the All-Star Break. We’ll let you know the damage of the deal when those details are released.