Veterans will be fighting for spots on Calgary's defense next season

From Jean Lefebvre of the Calgary Herald:

Still, it stands to reason the blue-line ranks will be thinned before opening night. "Robyn (Regehr) and Cory (Sarich) and Dion (Phaneuf) and Jimmy and Gio, they're all still young guys and they're all going to improve," said Sutter. "Then you have the three veterans (Eriksson, Warrener and Adrian Aucoin), those three are going to fight for spots to play on our team. And they're not all going to be here, that's obvious."

Read the entire article here.

While both Eriksson and Rhett Warrener have already been placed on waivers once, Aucoin's name has not really been mentioned as a player who will have to fight for his job. Perhaps this is a challenge from GM Darryl Sutter for Aucoin to drastically improve his play for next season.

Flames waive three

From Scott Cruickshank of the Calgary Herald:

The Flames have placed three veterans — defencemen Rhett Warrener and Anders Eriksson, and forward Marcus Nilson — on waivers.

If no NHL club snaps them up by 10 a.m. Friday — any interested team would have to honour the player's salary (thereby taking it off the Flames' books) — the players will have cleared waivers. Meaning, potentially, the next step could be a buyout, which would be a first for general manager Darryl Sutter.

All three players are in the final year of contracts — Warrener at $2.5 million (all figures in U.S. dollars), Eriksson at $1.5 million, Nilson at $1 million.

Read more from Flames Insider here.

All three of these players saw their ice-time dwindle last season and even move upstairs to the press box. If none of them are claimed (which I assume they won't be), then all three will almost certainly be bought out.

Considering Warrener hardly played last year, Eriksson was in and out of the line-up and Nilson could hardly find the back of the net, these three moves won't change the Flames' outlook for next season.