JayBo=Flame

The Flames announced tonight they have signed coveted free agent defensemen Jay Bouwmeester to a 5 year contract worth 6.6 million dollars a season. This comes after the Flames acquired Bouwmeester's rights on the weekend from the Panthers to have exclusive negotiation rights with him and boy did it pay off!

WOW!! What a signing by GM Sutter. I'm unbelievably pumped about this, the Flames have arguably the best defense in the league with a top 3 of JayBo, Reggie and Phaneuf. This signing completely makes up for losing Cammalleri and here is why. Our PP I think will be better with two bombs coming from the point with Phaneuf and Bouwmeester, so teams wont be able to pressure Phaneuf all the time like they did last year. The 40 goals we will lose from Cammalleri will be made up by a committee of players. You can pencil in Iggy for 40 goals after last seasons off year, we have Jokinen for a full season so he should be good for 25-30 goals, while guys like Bourque, Moss and Boyd are only going to get better. Finally Bouwmeester can be penciled in for about 15 goals as well so I dont think we lack any offense at all. Most of all though, our defense with Bouwmeester and coach Sutter will be better, which I have stated so many times was our downfall last season. Bouwmeester makes guys like Phaneuf and Kipper both better while Bouwmeester, Phaneuf and Regehr as a trio will make young guys like Giordano, Pelech, Pardy and Negrin transition and development a whole lot better and easier.

So heading into the free agent frenzy tomorrow which Sutter has stated he wants nothing to do with, the Flames now have roughly 3.5-4 million in cap space. Personally I think they should just sit on it and let the season play out, fill in the holes with guys like Dustin Boyd and Kyle Greentree, see how they do as the season goes on and make moves if needed after Christmas and closer to the deadline. From reports and the newspaper it looks like Bertuzzi would like to come back to Calgary even going as far as phoning GM Sutter himself. Bertuzzi has said he is willing to sign a 1 year contract so if he is willing to play for about 1-1.5 million then I dont have a problem at all. I think there still could be some moves made via trades or waivers and I think guys like Primeau and maybe Sarich could be candidates to be moved.