Jay Bouwmeester Signs Five-Year Deal With Calgary

After acquiring his negotiating rights from the Florida Panthers during this past weekend's NHL Entry Draft, TSN is reporting on Tuesday night that the Calgary Flames have signed defenseman Jay Bouwmeester to a five-year contract with a $6.6 million salary cap hit. With Bouwmeester now locked in for the long haul, the Flames, on paper, have a rather scary looking defense with Dion Phaneuf, Robyn Regehr and Bouwmeester.

Trouble is, the salary cap situation is looking rather scary as well.

Counting Bouwmeester's new deal, the Flames now have over $51 million committed to just 17 players for the 2009-10 season. Sooner or later, somebody is going to have to go. Sportsnet's Mark Spector passed along the rumor on Monday that once Bouwmeester was officially added to the mix, Phaneuf could be used to add Dany Heatley in a trade from Ottawa. Obviously, that's a lot of moving parts, and it doesn't do much to solve the salary cap crunch.

As for Bouwmeester, Calgary general manager Darryl Sutter offered the following statement: "Jay is one of the most complete defenseman in the game, and we are very pleased to have reached an agreement that will make him an important component of the Calgary Flames success. We identified Jay as the priority player where we were going to focus our money. We wanted an opportunity a few days in advance of the deadline, and that's why we made the move we did this past weekend."

Bouwmeester, a former top-five pick by the Florida Panthers in 2003, has scored 15 goals in each of the past two seasons and hasn't missed a game since the lockout. In 471 career games he's scored 53 goals to go with 150 assists, while he's led the NHL in ice-time in each of the past two seasons, averaging over 27 minutes per game.