[gvitaly]

I don't think that nationality matters as much for a rebuilding team.

The three most important things for players are winning, the opportunity to advance your career, and the total earning potential.

Even if your market sucks, like the one up north, people will want to play there. Especially if you get to play with either McDavid, or Draiseitl for a year to inflate your point totals for free agency.

Being on a winning team is just as important, because let's face it losing sucks, and the players have pride. From all accounts, coming to the rink with Sutter at the helm during his last year was absolute misery.

Then we get into a dollar earned in Calgary being equivalent to 70c in Vegas and Tampa, so that's also a big consideration.

As far as prospects go, I could see the reluctance of going to CGY in years past. That said, Zary, Pospisil, and Wolf have changed that narrative under Conroy. Prospects get the opportunities to show their game and the development to round it into form.

Right now, a big selling point for CGY is an opportunity to play higher in the lineup for less proven guys(like Sharangovich, and Kuzmenko), that might be stuck behind good players on the depth chart.

---

After all that then there are more individual considerations:
Family, things to do, teammates' nationality, how close the room is, and the weather.

IMO, Calgary doesn't have that much to do besides the outdoors and hockey. When the weather gets bad in the winter it also makes people stay more indoors, so some wives/girlfriends might like it less.

Finally, I think we're slowly transitioning from a Swedish/American core to a more Russian/Belarussian/Canadian core. That might be attractive to other Russians, especially if Sharangovich and Kuzmenko follow up on their success last season. The Flames players also seem to be on the same page, and have a much better locker room than they had in years past. Everyone works on a nightly basis, and has eachothers back. That combined with a fair coach and a good captain would be the final selling point for players considering to stick around.