[CliffFletcher]

“Players want to play where they can win” isn’t straightforward in a league with so much parity.

Established players typically sign 4-6 year contracts. Only a few teams stay at the top over that kind of timespan, and only a few stay at the bottom. The other 20 or so teams will typically spend 2-3 years in the playoffs and 2-3 years outside the playoffs.

If a 25 year old player is looking to sign a 6 year contract this summer, will it matter much in terms of winning whether they sign with the Flames, the Predators, the Kraken, the Blues, the Flyers, or the Islanders? Probably not.

Veteran stars who have 2-3 years left in their careers move around to chase a Cup. To everyone else, the great majority of the teams in the league are interchangeable as far as chance to win goes. Sure, they’ll want to avoid the teams deliberately tanking for several years. And they’d prefer to join an elite team like the Avs or Panthers - but so would everyone else, there’s only so many spots on a roster, and those teams are typically capped out.

So in most cases, location matters more than odds of winning. Cities and geography are fixed, while winning is highly speculative and fluid. It has been well attested that the small-market Canadian teams are on most no-trade lists. It sucks, but it’s naive to pretend teams like Calgary, Winnipeg, and Ottawa aren’t at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to signing, trading for, and keeping players. Particularly Americans.