In my recent look at the Flames cap situation, I noted the club is probably going to want to accelerate the rebuild somewhat in the face of an impending cap crunch. All of the franchise's cornerstone kids (and their cornerstone captain) will be expensive come 2017. It's one thing to be a rebuilding club with cap space, but it's another to be capped out and still struggling to get over the hump.
This is a not insignificant challenge, despite the Flames' success this year. Calgary was the third worst possession club in the league 2014-15 and history tells us teams like this face overwhelming odds to make the post-season every year (they miss the post-season almost 98% of the time), let alone win a Stanley Cup.