Flames make big splash on Day 2 of draft

ABSTRACT Calgary acquires the rights to soon-to-be unrestricted free agent defenceman Jay Bouwmeester despite warning he wants to test the open market.

FULL TEXT The Calgary Flames made an early splash on the second day of the 2009 NHL draft, acquiring the rights to soon-to-be unrestricted free agent defenceman Jay Bouwmeester. The price was steep: a third-round pick and Jordan Leopold. The Flames' move was a bit of a surprise because the word around the draft floor Friday evening was that the Bouwmeester camp had informed most teams that the player wanted to test the open market July 1. Flames' general manager Darryl Sutter, who made the trade this morning, must have had a complete change of heart overnight. After being linked to a possible Bouwmeester trade a couple of days earlier by The Globe and Mail, Sutter was asked about the lack of movement during Friday's opening round of the draft. Sutter began by acknowledging that things"quiet" and then added: "There's big names out there. None of them involve us - and we're not interested in any of them." Something changed because Bouwmeester was clearly as one of the biggest names by any objective standard, a soon-to-be unrestricted free agent, who wanted to leave the Florida Panthers, the team that drafted him third overall in 2002, because they hadn't made the playoffs in his career. Bouwmeester will unquestionably make the Flames better - and it's hard to imagine that they would trade for his rights, unless they thought they had a legitimate chance of signing him in advance of Wednesday, when he becomes an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. The challenge will be to try to fit him under the new $56.8 million salary cap in place for next year, considering they already have $47.417 million committed to salaries already next year, even before Bouwmeester's acquisition and that seven players (Jarome Iginla, Dion Phaneuf, Miikka Kiprusoff, Olli Jokinen, Robyn Regehr, Cory Sarich and Daymond Langkow gobble up $37.7 million of that). Salary-cap charges differ slightly from the actual dollars on the contract, but here's how it breaks down for Calgary next year: Iginla ($7 million); Phaneuf ($6.5 million), Kiprusoff ($5.83 million), Jokinen ($5.25 million), Langkow ($4.5 million), Regehr ($4.02 million) and Sarich ($3.6 million). If Bouwmeester commands a salary in the $6 million cap range, that means Calgary will have almost $44 million tied up in eight players, leaving about $13 million for the other 12. At some point, the Flames will need to move out salary, or face the same issues that they did down the stretch last year, when they played up to three men short some games, because they couldn't fit 18 position players onto their game-night line-up and stay compliant with the salary cap. So Sutter's work isn't done by a long shot, and one can only assume that Bouwmeester came highly recommended by his younger brother Brent, who coached against him in the Eastern Conference for the past two seasons, where he emerged as dominant player with the Panthers. In Leopold, the Flames surrendered a player they acquired at the trading deadline, but - like Bouwmeester - who was also scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent. Leopold played big minutes in the playoffs for the Flames as a result of injuries to Regehr, Phaneuf and Sarich, but struggled defensively and was only a shadow of the player that played so well for them in the run to the 2004 Stanley Cu final. Last year, Bouwmeester was first overall in the NHL in minutes played among players who played more than 10 games, averaging 26.59 minutes per game. Calgary's Phaneuf was fourth at 26:31. According to Sutter, if the Flames do sign Bouwmeester before Wednesday, they are not obliged to surrender any further compensation. Sutter indicated that he would try to talk to Bouwmeester in the next 48 hours and then head north to Edmonton, Bouwmeester's hometown, to try to persuade him to sign with Calgary face-to-face. But as of Saturday afternoon, no talks had taken place. "We now have the opportunity to talk to him, which we didn't have before," said Sutter. Nor could Sutter predict how the talks would go. "Once you talk to him, then you can judge that level." Sutter suggested that Leopold's unwillingness to re-sign with Calgary factored into the deal. "We weren't able to do that, so we thought we'd give him the opportunity to go somewhere else and sign," said Sutter. "Obviously, we've had interest in Bouwmeester for a long time. Now we have to see if we can make something happen." Sutter didn't put much stock in the notion that coming home to Alberta would influence the Bouwmeester negotiations. "I don't think that has any bearing on it. If it did, then everybody in Edmonton and Calgary would be playing in Edmonton and Calgary." A more likely attraction would be the fact that Flames finished fifth in the Western Conference and have made the playoffs in each of the past five years. Bouwmeester has said repeatedly that he wants to play for a competitive team, after failing to make the playoffs in the NHL. "If I was even an average defenceman, I'd want to play on a defence that had Robyn Regehr and Dion Phaneuf," said Sutter, who thought that because Bouwmeester has the versatility to play either the left or the right side, he could play with one or both of Calgary's two top rearguards. As for making the salary-cap dollars work, Sutter took an important step in that direction by shedding defenceman Jim Vandermeer and his $2.3 million annual contract, trading him to the Phoenix Coyotes for Brandon Prust, a former Flame. Prust joined the Coyotes briefly in the trading-deadline deal that saw Jokinen come Calgary's way. "Actually, I think coming into the draft today, we were nine or 10 million dollars under the cap, so obviously, we wouldn't have made that deal if we didn't think we had the room to sign a couple of players," said Sutter. Bouwmeester, speaking to the Fan960 radio station, was non-commital about the deal, suggesting: "I can't discount anything today. I will talk to them. There's a lot to think about, but it would be good to sit down and chat with them. "I'm from Edmonton. I've got connections in that neck of the woods. They're a good team and a strong organization. Time will tell ... but I"m looking forward to talking to them."