I'd want to wait until at least the following deadline, just because completely gutting the Flames of useful vets will leave the team in a poor developmental position. I think, given another season and three quarters, they'll have had the opportunity to bring in another useful guy or two, and the young dudes will be old enough that Gio might be someone who can be traded off.
Think of it this way: you get rid of Gio and the top 4 D is Brodie, Wideman, and an assortment of guys with either no real NHL experience (Cundari, Wotherspoon) or established bottom pairing guys (SOB, Butler, Smith, Russell). The top end is already a little weak as it is; you take out a guy who's arugably the best dman on the team on a given night, and things go downhill very quickly.
