Heading into the 2010-11 NHL Season the Flames will have the second largest payroll in the NHL and that's with out including are 7 NHL free agents. The payroll is only behind the youthful and sometimes questionable Chicago Blackhawks - None the less they are in a much better situation then we are, more after the jump.

Next season the Flames will have $53,379,167 devoted to the current roster without bringing back any of our current UFA's or RFA's who have NHL contracts. I have compiled a list of players that will have paychecks heading into next season and compiled a list of our current players destined for the open market. The Cap Space for next season that I've used is the active 58.6 Million.

Offseason numbers.

Money into players right now: $53,379,167

Cap Space: $5,220,833

Needs: 1st Line Centre, Backup Goalie

Draft Picks: No 1st or 2nd Round Picks

Forwards (Cap Hit)

Jarome Iginla (7,000,000)

Daymond Langkow (4,500,000)

Matt Stajan (3,500,000)

Rene Bourque (3,333,333)

Niklas Hagman (3,000,000)

Ales Kotalik (3,000,000)

David Moss (1,300,000)

Mikael Backlund (1,270,833)

Curtis Glencross (1,200,000)

Nigel Dawes (850,000)

Forwards = $28,954,166

Defensemen

Jay Bouwmeester (6,680,000)

Robyn Regehr (4,020,000)

Cory Sarich (3,600,000)

Steve Staios (2,700,000)

Mark Giordano (891,666)

Adam Pardy (700,000)

Defense = $18,591,666

Goaltenders

Miikka Kiprusoff (5,833,333)

Goalies = $5,833,333

Total Salary = $53,379,167

UFA's/RFA's

Forwards

Chris Higgins (2,250,000) UFA

Jamal Mayers (1,333,333) UFA

Craig Conroy (1,050,000) UFA

Eric Nystrom (687,500) UFA

Brian McGrattan (547,000) UFA

Defenseman

Ian White (850,000) RFA

Goaltenders

Vesa Toskala (4,000,000) UFA

There are about four contracts that Flames would be better off without.

- Daymond Langkow still has $8,750,000 owed to him for the next two seasons. Cap hit of 4.5 over those two years.

- Cory Sarich still has $7,000,000 owed to him for the next two seasons. Cap hit of 3.6 over those two years.

- Ales Kotalik still has $6,000,000 owed to him for the next two seasons. Cap hit of 3.0 over those two years.

- Steve Staios still has $2,220,000 owed to him for next season. Cap hit of 2.7 over next year.

That totals $23,970,000 tied up into these three players. Daymond Langkow (33) and Ales Kotalik (31) are probably the most attractive players out of these three and could be moved if the right team came along, Steve Staios will not be brought back after next season so 2010-11 will probably Sarich is also 31. Langkow will be 34 and Sarich will be 32 when the 10-11 campaign begins.

All three will be very hard to dump but if all three just brought in Prospects and Draft Picks that would make everything a lot easier and calmer in Calgary with Money to rope in the big fish Patrick Marleau in particular. The main objective for the Flames this season is simple make the playoffs. This offseason you can decide whether it is right to start from scratch.

This again doesn't bring into the account of any AHLers that could make the jump next season and most of us would agree that no one down on the farm is quite ready to make the jump to the big time.