The second buyout window is now open

The second buyout window of the 2019 off-season has officially opened for the Calgary Flames. Opened up by virtue of the club having arbitration cases, the window will be open through Friday at 3 p.m. MT.

The timing of the second buyout window was determined by the first business day after David Rittich’s arbitration case was settled.

Since Rittich’s deal was signed and announced on Saturday, the “third day” counts starting Monday. As a result, the buyout period consists of Thursday and Friday. The CBA is a bit unclear on precisely when the buyout period runs, but it’s likely that it runs from the beginning of Thursday (midnight ET) to the end of Friday (midnight ET) given how other deadlines are specified.

Under the terms of the CBA, the Flames can only buy out players with cap hits of $3.455 million or higher who were on their reserve list at trade deadline. Only 10 players fit that description: Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Mikael Backlund, Elias Lindholm, Michael Frolik, Mark Giordano, Noah Hanifin, TJ Brodie, Travis Hamonic and Michael Stone. (They can’t buy out Milan Lucic.)

The general expectation among the FlamesNation braintrust is that the final year of Stone’s contract (with $3.5 million cap hit) will be bought out for the cap relief. If he’s bought out, the Flames would save $2.333 million on their 2019-20 salary cap.