Regarding the Flames so far, I was shown to this link by you Kent, from a previous post. I had never seen it before and found it very interesting. Hockey Numbers breaks down players by value and then allows the comparison against the contract itself (note: not the cap hit). It's quite interesting. Here are a bunch of the Flames (Value first then contract amount and then lastly I have added the current cap hit.)

Forwards we have built around

Iggy - 5.3mil value / 7mil actual / 7 cap

Lanks - 3.3 / 5 / 4.25

Joker - 2.5 / 5.3 / 5.25

Middle six forwads

Bourque - 4.4mil value / 1.2mil actual / 1.35 cap

GlenX - 3.2 / 1.2 / 1.2

Moss - 3.0 / 0.6 / 1.3 (now)

Recent departures

Lombo - 5.1mil value / 1.6mil actual / 1.8 cap

Cammy - 3.9 / 3.3 / 6.0 (now)

Bert - 1.9 / 2.0 / (now ?)

Defense

Phaneuf - 6.1mil value / 7mil actual / 6.5 cap

Reggie - 3.0 / 4.6 / 4.0

Pardy - 2.5 / 0.5 / 0.7 (now)

Keeper

Kipper - 7.4mil value / 8.5mil actual / 5.83 cap

Big Bouw and Boyd

Bouwmeester - 2.1mil value / 4.9mil acutal / 6.68cap (now)

Boyd - 0.4 / 0.7 / ?

I don't know how much we can take from these calculations, or the exact details of how they are calculated, but I don't disagree with many of them. I am surprised to see Bouw and Reggie come in as low value contracts and a bit surprised to see Kipper as a value contract???

I think the middle six players we would all agree were high value, so no contention there.

I also think if we had Iggy for 5.3, Langkow for 3.3, and Jokinen for 2.5 (10.8 for all three) that we would all be smiling, but we don't. Instead it's a 16.5 million cap hit for the three of them. Are we overpaying are high-end stars based on their performance?

Another question going forward, with the salary cap likely to drop next year is are we playing way to much for our defensive unit? I was reading a comment today that "The Montreal Canadiens had their big three on the blueline in Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard. Maybe no team will ever equal that kind of top-end defense corps again. However, Calgary has incredible potential to boast [they have done this with] three top-flight defensemen with the addition of Jay Bouwmeester to a crew that already boasts Robyn Regehr and Dion Phaneuf."

But are they worth all that dough? I think so.

Lastly, what happens next year when Bourque, Glen X and Jokinen all see their contracts come to an end?

One thing is for certain, the financial challenges facing the Flames going forward will be as brutal as recently signed Canuck Andrew Raycroft who was listed by hockey numbers as having a value of $0. At least there is that to smile about.