Really fortunate for Calgary that Treliving has been so good at re-signing existing players. Also, the entire scouting and development side of the business need more accolades for the job that they have been doing drafting these players - Tkachuk's performance on his ELC really helps this team perform.
That's the entire trick with the cap system - if you have more players that outperform their contracts than players that underperform, you should be in good shape, as long as the underperforming players don't have too high of a hit. Neal hurts this team compared to his cap hit, but the Flames can carry that right now without an issue. In fact, they are also carrying a very expensive insurance policy as the 7th (or 8th) defencemen in Michael Stone, who is usually a lower tier #4 defencemen. They can also carry a #4 center who is incredibly strong on draws, but is overpaid for the offence he provides.
Flames are a good looking team top-to-bottom. I haven't had this much faith in the organization from to bottom (players, coaching, management, scouting, development) since the late 80's.
Interesting graph to see. I wonder if you go back through the years, that if you don't see teams with a number of players exceeding their cap hit play winning the cup more often than not since the cap was implemented.
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