I had an interesting conversation today before the Grill Room with the other guests. I was referencing the leaf fans that think that having 10 million in cap space will make them a champion.

Here was my proposal, hypothetical of course.

You're an NHL GM: you somehow magically manage to clear your ENTIRE roster. You now have 56 million in cap space. Could you build a championship team in 3 years with nothing but cap space?

We all agreed that it's almost impossible: you wouldnt be able to pry premium players like Crosby or Ovechkin away from their teams. You would be picking up everyone on the open market, where every good player is going to command MORE than his previous contract, making you overpay for EVERYONE.

Give it a shot, even in generalities (i.e first line centre 8 million) see what you can do...

i know where you are going with this, but it doesnt make sense..In the Leafs example, we will have around $14 million to spend solely on forwards...The defense is pretty much set...

your hypothetical scenario , is too hypothetical ..Its not possible as there isnt enough free agents to spend $56 million on, not ones that are worth it anyway...

Do I have picks and prospects to deal with?

let's see what I can do with this cart full of bleach

Went through the UFA for this season (I'm trying to do this in one year not three) and came up with these names at these made up prices (I think I've picked OK prices. fairly reasonable. not necessarily what I would want to pay but since I've only given myself UFA to get, it's what I've got)


Lehtinen - 2
Kovalchuk - 9.5
Fedotenko - 2
Marleau - 7
Tkachuck - 2
Selanne - 2


Gonchar - 5
Hamhuis - 5
Volchenkov - 4
Michalek - 2.5

Nabokov - 6

9 million left for 8 forwards, 3 D and a Backup Goalie. That's a bit tight.

But, my team is pretty good. A little weak after the first forward line though. (a little?)

My team so far has quite good top 4-D. I've got a good first line but after that we're going to struggle to score. We'll have a good powerplay at least. We've got to fill out the rest of the roster with good faceoffs, bangers, mash, speed, and they've gotta be cheap.

Obviously we're alluding to the Leafs.

A team can be put together but it will not challenge for the Cup...not even close.

Serge is overvaluing the cap space...not surprising, he does it in fantasy hockey too.

Ironically so did your ex gm in Montreal...He had a similar situation where he had not many players and a ton of money..

This is off the top of my head, and heavily influenced by the Penguins. It's a template of rough salary allocation for a team that wants to compete for the Stanley Cup. As you can see, it's built down the middle, but you can take the 2nd line center's money, and give it to a winger who can carry his own line (Nash, Kovalchuck, etc).

Based on 56.8M cap:

L1 (2.5M) - C1 (8M) - R1 (2.0M)
L2 (2.5M) - C2 (6M) - R2 (2.0M)
L3 (1.2M) - C3 (3M) - R3 (1.2M)
L4 (0.8M) - C4 (1.2M) - R4 (0.8M)
XF (0.5M)

D1 (6M) - D2 (4M)
D3 (3M) - D4 (2M)
D5 (2M) - D6 (1M)
D7 (0.5M)

SG (5M)
BG (1M)

F: 31.7 M
D: 18.5 M
G: 6.0 M
= 56.2 M (0.6M left for transactions between farm/main club, short term injury call-ups, etc)


Now, some qualifiers: Like I said, the two expensive parts at forward do not need to be down the middle. You can have a premier to line center in C1, but have a mediocre C2 making like 3M, if you have him with a dynamic R2 or L2 making the 6M or whatever. Further more, I'm assuming the C3 is going to be more than a 12-15 minute player. He would be the guy who is your top PKer, or be a force on the PP or something along those lines. If that doesn't fit at C3, you can allocate the money to one of the wingers in the top 6 who does those extra jobs, or whatever the case may be.

I think goaltending is pretty straight forward, cap-wise. You can usually find a quality journey-man backup for 500k to 1 million, and sign them to 1-2 year deals, so don't waste cap money there.

This isn't explicitly mentioned in the outline above, but it would be absolutely paramount to have the odd player coming up on a rookie deal, or a cheap deal where he hasn't yet established himself. Rookie deals are a bit different, because bonuses can make the cap hits pretty big, if they are top-15 pick type players. Now, you pretty well need to have one or two of these guys per year making the team and making an impact. For example, Kris Letang is in his 3rd year with the Penguins, and his cap hit is 835k. He's a guy who is probably the 3rd or 4th defenseman on the team. So you save a bunch there over the outline above. Likewise, at forward, having a winger come up and be productive when he's making <$1M is huge, and allows you to fill out the rest of the roster with slightly better players, and more depth.

Thoughts? Would you tweak the numbers a bit? There was a post a week or two ago on a Flames blog that had some percentages made up for each position, similar to how i did here. I didn't copy it, because I don't know where I found it, but it would be a good read if anyone found it. It was probably linked from Puck Daddy's Puck Headlines around the time of their big trades with the Leafs and Rangers.

Now, back to my outline. As you can see, I'm strong down the middle, and pay for that with weaker wingers. It's not the only way to build a team, but it's been the most successful in recent memory (Pittsburgh, Detroit mostly), and I believe in it, so that's what I've done. You can also be stronger on the wing, like in Washington, but you give up some center depth for it. There's always a give and take in a cap system. You can have a ridiculous defense, but you give up some forward power and depth for it (Calgary).

It really annoys me to constantly read the posts on the Penguins forums with guys whining about not having an all-star winger on that team. They never seem to realize that having an all-star winger means that Staal will immediately be gone, or maybe even Malkin, depending on how good that winger is (ie Kovalchuk, Nash, Parise types). Sure, we'd have better wingers for Crosby, but we'd give up the biggest strength of the team, which is center depth, and someone as versatile as Staal (not to mention young, with a boatload of potential). The strength down the middle model has proven itself, so I never get why people want to change it just so Crosby can score more points. I know he's not complaining about getting to the finals two years in a row.

However, with the model above, especially if you end up overpaying (justified or not) for two high caliber players (like Crosby/Malkin), you can merely get by until the trade deadline, and then have your shrewd GM (Shero) make outrageously awesome pick ups (Kunitz, Guerin, Hossa, Pony, Leopold, Gill) and plug the small holes you have. Of course, doing this, you need to strike a balance, because you can't give away all the draft picks and young talent, because, as mentioned previously, it's paramount to have guys on <$1M deals, who are way undervalued based on the ELC system, step in and take roles that would traditionally be for more expensive players.

I think what Zach did here is right on the money. I think that would be a close to perfect template on the salary structure to build a team. Now, the question becomes, can you get the players to fit the mold. It gets harder since, say a Jordan Staal becomes available on the FA market. He simply isn't going to sign for the same amount of money.
So is it possible to actually build this team? To find the real bodies to fit the dollars?

this is your problem...There just isnt top line players to go around, especially now..

You guys last night touched on a great point on the Grill room...The CBA needs to be tweaked..Love to see one player exemption to the cap or even a luxury tax...

We dont reality have a true cap anyways, where not every team is spending the same amount..A lot of small market teams cant spend $56 million a year anyway...

The NHL will never go to a luxury tax: they brought in the cap in the first place because NHL gm's couldnt control their spending, and were getting franchises into financial trouble overspending. Luxury taxes work great in the NHL or the NBA where the TV money and gate allow the overspending without damaging the franchises (at least for the most part). In the NHL, it would never work...

Once again you are wrong. Gainey didn't hoard cap space like Burke is doing. Gainey just had a lot of free agents. There's a difference between having NHL players on your team who are in the final year of their contract and having a team full of AHL players.

Here's my team:

Kovalchuk (10) - Marleau (4.95) - Plekanec (4)
Frolov (4.25) - Lombardi (2.5) - Afinogenov (2)
Tanguay (2) - Ebbett (0.8) - TOP DRAFT PICK (3)
Begin (0.8) - Metropolit (0.8) - Artyukhin (0.8)


Gonchar (5) - Boynton (1.75)
TOP DRAFT PICK (3) - Michalek (2.75)
Bergeron (0.8) - Foster (0.9)
Hnidy (0.75) - Murphy (0.55)

Turco or Nabokov (4)
Backup (0.6)

*I'm tanking the first two years to get two top picks. The salaries for the top picks include bonuses.

ok this notion of a team full of AHL players is really annoying...Here is the lineup:

Caputi-Bozak-Kessel
Stalberg-Hanson-Lundmark
Kulemin-Wallin-Sjostrom
Mitchell-Primeau-Orr

Kaberle-Phaneuf
Beauchemin-Gunnarsson
Schenn-Exelby

Giguere
Gustavsson

Other than Gunnarsson who is a rookie, filling in for Komisarek is there an AHLer on the defensive corp?

Ok the forwards..Obviously we traded away most of our forwards in the last two weeks....This isnt the team we will go with next year..Also we are missing Grabovski who is still injured..Bozak,Hanson,Kulemin,Stalberg,Caputi,Mitchell i believe will all be solid Nhl players...They may not be ready for top 6 minutes yet but these 20 games they will have a chance to play...Bozak has actually been one of the best rookies the last month or so...These guys are all young and developing...Add $16 million of free agents and one of the top players in the OHL this year(Kadri) , voila you have a solid team..

I would say 4 of the top 6 forwards are pretty clear AHL quality players AT THIS STAGE IN THEIR CAREERS.

edit - just realized you meant top 6 defenseman earlier. don't know if it's the best, but I think it is actually solid

Jamie Lundmark doesn't belong on the second line of an ECHL team.

I think he's an OK NHLer, but you're right, definitely not in a top 6.

edit - I'm thinking of Sjostrom?

Lololol...I love how a guy just claimed off waivers cracks the top 6 and you still really believe he's a solid NHLer.

THIS IS THE LAST TIME I WILL EXPLAIN..

WE JUST TRADED 6 of our top forwards...THIS ISNT THE ACTUAL TEAM WE WILL COMPETE WITH...

UNDERSTAND??

Why don't you project a possible lineup the Leaf could ice next season. A list of free agents can be found at www.nhlnumbers.com

...and you just traded 6 of your top forwards? What did you get back in return for those top 6? Also, why is Toronto in 29th plac if they supposedly traded away 6 of their top forwards and still have a solid top 6?

i m done..Obviously your goal is to upset me, but no more..

have a great day..

I'm not sure why you would become upset. I'm only asking you to back up your words and offer an explanation. Are you unable to do so? Is that why you claim I'm just trying to upset you...because it's the easy way out?