Quote:
Originally Posted by Freeway
It's worth noting that there were structural economic issues that made it financially impossible for the Flames (and other Canadian teams) to compete on equal footing with their American counterparts until the late 1990s.
Escalating salaries in the early '90s combined with the Canadian dollar tanking made things really, really tough.
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It is a bit weird looking back that none of the Canadian teams tanked or tried to use a Tampa Bay Rays type strategy to compete, draft high initially and move the players out for more picks and futures as UFA status approached. The Canucks took a bit of a dive to get McCabe and the Sedins and Ottawa picked high for a bit after expansion, but the economic conditions with so much fear of the teams moving must have been a factor