Report: Flames aren’t shopping Bouwmeester, but there’s interest

Sportsnet’s Roger Millions recently tweeted that the Calgary Flames aren’t actively trying to trade Jay Bouwmeester, but some teams have expressed interest in him.

Bouwmeester entered the rumor mill when the Flames acquired the rights to Dennis Wideman and then signed him to a five-year, $26.25 million contract.

The Calgary Flames also inked Jiri Hudler to a four-year, $16 million deal, which, according to cap geek, gives them $66,668,332 committed to 23 players. Although they are currently under the cap, there is still a chance that the ceiling will be lowered when the players and owners agree to a new CBA.

On top of that, a report in June asserted that Calgary was not planning to spend close to the cap anymore – but all of their actions since then have suggested otherwise.

If Calgary decides to keep Bouwmeester then they’ll have a pretty solid – and very expensive – core of defensemen. However, if they opt to trade him, he could bring back a decent return despite his $6.68 million annual cap hit.

There’s plenty of teams that are still hungry for top-four defensemen and many of them have the cap space necessary to absorb his contract for the next two years. With the free agent market dried up, those franchise’s don’t have a lot of alternatives if they want to make a change this summer.