Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
I think you can say other teams did well with their limitations to some degree, and Calgary didn't, but it wasn't a fed narrative that there was a huge salary disparity.
The Flames fell under the league average starting to the 1990-91 season and then slipped further and further.
From 1997-98 thru 2003-2004 they were 25% below the league average and an average of 33M below the top spender in an era that had an average team salary of 34M.
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In the Button years the Flames would spend too much on veterans while not having good young players or mid level guys. I remember than having like 6 guys making over 2 million a year with Turek/Vernon/Kravchuck/Boughner/Rob Niedermayer/Conroy. Out of that group only Conroy and Turek were impact type places in the lineup. Button was just a bad GM. The Flames were spending, but weren't spending in the right place. Other teams like Ottawa/Vancouver/Edmonton were getting much better value out of similar payrolls.