Bouwmeester Signs!

After the Flames did a great job in landing Jay Bouwmeester, they were taken to task to try and sign him before the free agency period ticked into effect at noon ET on Wednesday. On Monday, GM Darryl Sutter sat down with the Bouwmeester camp to talk about what each side wanted. Tuesday, the team officially put their offer on the table. Before the end of the night on Tuesday, the Bouwmeester camp accepted the deal and it was signed, sealed and delivered.

The Flames signed Bouwmeester to a 5-year, $40 million deal on Tuesday, which should round out the cap hit at around $6.68 million per season. This was going to be around what Bouwmeester was going to attract on the open market on Wednesday, so he should have come away happy with this deal.

For his stats, click on the link to the deal for more info.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Jarome Iginla	Dion Phaneuf	Miikka Kiprusoff
Olli Jokinen	Jay Bouwmeester	Curtis McElhinney
Daymond Langkow	Cory Sarich
Craig Conroy	Mark Giordano
Rene Bourque	Robyn Regehr
Curtis Glencross
David Moss
Eric Nystrom
Wayne Primeau

With the signing of Bouwmeester, the Flames have now five top quality defenders in their stable and if they want to build from the back outwards, they have decidedly done a great job. The team now stands at having 16 players singed on for next season, including Bouwmeester, at the approximate cap hit of $52 million. That leaves roughly $4.8 million remaining underneath the cap for their remaining seven players. That equates to under $700,000 for each of those players, so there could reasonably be some more movement from the Flames camp this summer.