[getbak]

Originally Posted by codynw

Flames have pretty much their entire core locked up long term with zero cap hits over $7M. But their cap management is only ranked 6th? What 5 teams could possibly be in a better situation than that?

1. Nashville
2. Tampa
3. Carolina
4. Arizona
5. Pittsburgh

Not sure what criteria they used to come up with that.

Nashville had one of the lowest payrolls in the league last season and went to the Finals, so they make sense at #1.

Yzerman has been able to get some good-value long-term deals signed. There is risk that he's got a lot of long-term deals and if a couple of those players don't continue improving, he could get stuck in a situation like the Oilers with their 6x6 guys, where you're overpaying the underperformers and underpaying the overperformers.

Carolina had a very low payroll and weren't the worst team in the league, so I guess that's a mark in their favour.

I don't really know how Arizona is on the list at all. They filled up on so many bad dead contracts that they ended up having a bonus overage at the end of the season. Sure, they didn't spend much on their roster, but they also had one of the worst teams in the league. Next year, they're paying more for Calgary's starting goalie than either of their own two goalies.

Pittsburgh's cap strategy seems to be: Have the best players in the world and pay them a lot. Fill out the roster with whatever else you can afford and hope they perform well playing alongside the best players in the world. Can't really argue with success.