Flames Ink Lindholm

Definitely one of the big deals that needed doing for the Calgary Flames was getting pen to paper with one of their recent acquisitions via trade, forward Elias Lindholm.  Lindholm was acquired from the Hurricanes in a sizable 4-player deal, both teams taking care of some business within their own dressing rooms, if you believe the reports out there, but free agency was looming for Lindholm, to which was taken care of on Monday.

Lindholm and the Flames agreed upon a 6-year, $29.1 million deal, which will see a cap hit of $4.85 million per season through the 2024 season.

The 23-year old didn't do too badly on a struggling-for-offense team like the Hurricanes last season, finishing with 16 goals and 44 points in 81 games with the club, which had him ranked 133rd among all forwards in scoring.  The idea will be for him to be on either one of the top two lines, depending on where he or James Neal fall in the new Flames lineup, but either way, it's an added bit of speed and scoring, which should help the Flames go a little further in 2019.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Johnny Gaudreau	6.750	Mark Giordano	6.750	Mike Smith	5.667
Sean Monahan	6.375	TJ Brodie	4.650	Tyler Parsons	0.759
James Neal	5.750	Travis Hamonic	3.857
Mikael Backlund	5.350	Michael Stone	3.500
Elias Lindholm	4.850	Dalton Prout	0.800
Troy Brouwer	4.500	Rasmus Andersson	0.756
Michael Frolik	4.300	Oliver Kylington	0.731
Derek Ryan	3.125
Sam Bennett	1.950
Austin Czarnik	1.250
Curtis Lazar	0.950
Matthew Tkachuk	0.925
Andrew Mangiapane	0.705
Alan Quine	0.700

The Flames still have some work to do, but they're cutting it nice and tight against the cap ceiling, if you ask me. Still with Noah Hanifin, Mark Jankowski and Jon Gillies to sign, this team is running out of cap space. I currently have them with a projected 23-man roster, like the one above and they only have $3.6 million left in space.  Hanifin is going to be on the expensive side, while Jankowski could request a fair bit and Gillies could make some money to be the backup and taking out three of the cheaper deals will only open up a little over $2 million in space over that, so it will be tight.  It'll be interesting to see what else the Flames have up their sleeves this summer.