Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
What I find interesting is the grouping of Canadian teams in the bottom half. Without Montreal's run this year they'd all be in the bottom 14 teams.
I wonder how much a rabid fan base plays a role in teams making poor decisions in how to manage assets and their future.
When really the opposite is true ... Canadian fans are likely astute enough to appreciate a rebuild more than a non traditional market.
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I read an interesting article on Oilers nation (I know, no goodness . . .
) that highlighted that effectively US born players do not sign as UFAs with Canadian teams. There's only been a handful of signings the last 5 years of US players with Canadian teams. In the early 90s this wasn't so much of a big deal as Americans represented around 10-15% of the league with over 2/3rds of the league being Canadian born players. Problem is now the league has almost 27% US born players with ~44% Canadian born players. In a salary cap world this would put Canadian teams at a structural disadvantage and Calgary in particular has to be concerned going forward as their two best players are American born and might have to overpay to keep them in Flames silks.