Columbus Blue Jackets: 4 Trade Destinations for Sergei Bobrovsky

VANCOUVER, BC - OCTOBER 3: Mike Smith #41 of the Calgary Flames looks on from his crease during their NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena October 3, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)"n
VANCOUVER, BC - OCTOBER 3: Mike Smith #41 of the Calgary Flames looks on from his crease during their NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena October 3, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)"n
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Calgary Flames

Columbus Blue Jackets
VANCOUVER, BC – OCTOBER 3: Mike Smith #41 of the Calgary Flames looks on from his crease during their NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena October 3, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)

The Calgary Flames are loaded up front with Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Elias Lindholm, James Neal, Mikael Backlund, and Matthew Tkachuk just to name a few high end forwards. They also get a ton of scoring from their backend with Mark Giordano and Noah Hanifin leading the blue line. In a weak Pacific Division, the Flames should be a playoff favorite with that amount of firepower.

But Mike Smith is not getting it done in net. He is off to a poor start and has been trending that way for a while. In six starts this season, Smith has a whopping 3.38 goals against average and a terrible .885 save percentage. Now Sergei Bobrovsky’s isn’t much better but who are you putting your money on to turn their season around? My money is on Bob.

The 36-year-old is in the final season of his contract in Calgary and isn’t the answer between the pipes Calgary is looking for. Bob could be traded to Calgary and they may even give him a longterm deal closer to what he is looking for than Columbus would.

The problem is that the Flames are in a tight cap situation. They only have $1.3 million in cap space right now according to CapFriendly.com. That would mean the Jackets would need to take on a portion of Bob’s contract plus a player that makes a decent amount of money which the Flames would not be looking to get rid of.

If they make this trade, the Flames will be looking to win now. They wouldn’t want to give up any player that makes decent money, except for Smith, who the Jackets would only be bringing on to backup Joonas Korpisalo.

The Flames certainly are looking for an answer in net and Bob could be that piece.