I want to talk today about assets and liabilities. YKOil put up a nice post early this month outlining the "asset classes" for NHL teams -- it's a solid primer. I chuckled at his conclusion:

All of this may also be patently obvious to everyone, in which case I apologize for wasting your time.

No, I think slightly clear to very few would probably be a more accurate assessment. Definitely no apologies necessary. Anyway, I'm going to focus on budget/cap dollars.

NHL GM is not an easy job. Yes, sometimes some of them do patently stupid things, but it is a major challenge as a whole. Not only do you have to fill a roster with a variety of players who can (as a group) score, defend, kill penalties, cash in on PPs, hold their own physically, and stop pucks -- and complement each other in doing so -- but you have to do it with a fixed and finite amount of dollars, all the while living with the consequences of your previous mistakes (or those of your predecessor).

Those dollars are precious. The successful teams are going to be those who have many players who outperform their salary relative to who you could hire with that same salary on the open market (via free agency, trade, what have you). There are certain types of players without whom you cannot be successful, but their value as an asset is heavily dependent on their contract situation. Extreme example:

• Jarome Iginla signed for 10 years at $1M/yr: tremendous asset
• Iginla signed for 1 year at $1M/yr: asset
• Iginla signed for 1 year at $20M/yr: liability
• Iginla signed for 10 years at $20M/yr: extreme liability

In other words, depending on his contract, Iginla can be anywhere from a tremendous asset to an extreme liability for the Flames. Naturally, all of this is getting around to the big question: what is Darryl Sutter going to do with his roster over the next 12 months?

Iginla, Kiprusoff, Langkow, Huselius, Regehr, Phaneuf. 5 UFAs and 1 RFA as of July 2008, and all except Iginla will be getting multi-million dollar pay raises... from somebody.

The important thing to understand here that a lot of people seem to miss (per the long intro above) is that the current value of these players -- as assets -- expires after this upcoming season, regardless of whether Sutter signs them to extensions or not. Kiprusoff is an excellent goaltender, but he is less of an asset at $6.5M/yr than he is at $3.3M/yr, plain and simple. Huselius is a killer PP performer, but is less of an asset at $4M/yr than at $1.4M/yr.

This here table is what the Flames' salary situation would be in 08/09 if the only thing Sutter did starting now was re-sign those 6 players to new contracts at near market value. No UFAs above the min this year, none next summer either. A $53.8M payroll. Hey, that might actually be below the cap next season, but clearly there is no chance that this is how things will go.

As noted, as this season moves on, the value of these players as assets (in the long-term, piece of the puzzle sense) diminishes. The flip of course is that (especially if the Flames are a strong team) their value also increases, in the short-term, we need premium performance right now to win the Stanley Cup sense.

It's a brutal juggling act, and difficult decisions will need to be made. If the Flames are good next year, more than one of the Six Players will end up walking in July '08. If they're not, some will be traded for lesser players with smaller contracts, signed to longer terms.

One thing I got out of Sutter's post-Rd1 presser was that while, yes, there were going to have to be decisions made going forward, he quite liked the bright side, which is that he has a bunch of terrific players signed to favourable deals for this upcoming season. I definitely did not get the sense that he's interested in dumping (say) Langkow for some younger prospects now simply because they probably won't be able to re-sign him later.

The one big thing I get from looking again at the salary table above is Seriously, why are the Ryan Smyth rumours so persistent? He's a terrific player, would make the team better, and they could afford him this year, but it's only plausible if the Flames have no intention of re-signing Iginla.

My guesses

Iginla: signed to a long-term extension late this off-season. 4 or 5 years, 8-ish mill per year. His Flames debut pre-dates Kipper's by 3/4 of a decade, face of the franchise, still damn effective, only 30 years old, etc.

Kipper: man, have I gone back and forth on this one. Before the playoffs I was of the relatively firm opinion that Sutter was going to extend Iginla and roll the dice with Kipper (no trade, no new contract, nothing until at least mid-to-late season). Yeah, the playoffs affected me: Kipper was the team's MVP by an order of magnitude -- how could you not tie him up long term? Then once Rd1 faded into the distance, I reverted to my original opinion. Now having seen Giguere's deal, I suspect Sutter would agree to the same one ($6Mx4) if available. Dunno -- but I will stick with the guess that Iginla is a lot more likely to get extended, and sooner, than Kipper.

Phaneuf: No hurry here, in fact I doubt anything gets done before next offseason. I'll guess he signs one of those longish-term 3rd/4th year MLBer type deals, where he gives up some years of arbitration and free agency in favour of more security and a pay raise now. ($3Mx4? $3.5Mx4? Thereabouts.)

Huselius: Gone by July 1 2008 at the latest, with the hopes they can replace him internally.

Langkow/Regehr: no doubt the Flames would like to have these guys around well into the future, but it will heavily depend on what they expect to get paid. Sometimes guys are willing to accept less money to remain where they are; sometimes guys are willing to accept less money now (say in December) than they could likely sign for later (in July '08) because of the peace of mind. If both of these factors enter into their salary demands, and Sutter is certain enough that the demands are less than what it would cost to replace their contributions, then they get re-signed. If not, they don't.

Last thing: if the Flames sign even one big or semi-big name UFA (say Hannan), at least one of the guesses above is quite wrong. So when that happens, and a reporter asks how they can afford him past this year, and he avoids the question, what is the correct answer?

1. "Because for the 5 years after this season, our core is going to be Iginla, Kipper, Hannan, Phaneuf, and 16 rookies or min. salary vets."
2. "Because this is Jarome Iginla's last season as a Calgary Flame."
3. "Because next year my starting goalie will be making $850k."
4. "Because... what do you mean? Math is hard."

My instinct is that (3) is correct. Your mileage may vary.