So on last Friday ago I wondered "I wonder if I can put the Sabres and Leafs together and create a team that doesn't suck?"  Well, I figured it couldn't hurt to try.  To make it more interesting and less of an all-star team, it will need to be cap-compliant and i'll even try to stick to the Top/Sheltered/Checking/Grind breakdown for forwards.

Here goes:

Top:  Vanek/Roy/Kessel

I strongly suspect this would fail somehow, but it works great in make-believe land and that's what really matters for this exercise.

Sheltered: MacArthur/Grabovski/Kulemin.

I contemplated swapping C-Mac and Tyler Ennis because of pre-existing biases against Clarke, but if we're going off this year's performance this is clearly the way to go.

Checking:  Hecht/Connolly/Versteeg

I like Pommenville, but he's way more expensive than Versteeg and can't seem to score this year, so off he goes.

Grind: Brown/Zigomanis/Kaleta

I'd prefer Gaustad, but again, far too expensive for a role that can be easily done by Zigomanis.  Mike Brown beats out McCormick because of yesterday's heroics.

Pressbox: McCormick

Defense:  I use a lot of Sabres here because the Leafs defense is too expensive.  I decided against splitting up any pairs because I've learned two things about defense pairs in hockey:  If you think it will work, it probably won't, and if you know it will fail, it will be the best pairing ever.

Myers/Sekera

Montador/Leopold

Kaberle/Schenn

Weber

Goalies: (this one ought to be obvious)

Miller

Gustavvson

(I pretended to trade all these players to the Sabres to calculate the cap hit which is wrong because we're 1/4 of the way done but it should only be off by 200,000 or so as trade was nearly equal in salary.

Its almost like they'd be a good team or something.  I'm sure if you combined two playoff teams you could make a scary awesome roster, but that's not the point.  So of course the obvious conclusion here is that both teams need to stop signing horrible contracts.

So there's the players: now for everything else: (for fun)

Market: Toronto (I like bags full of money.  thanks.)

Name: Maple Leafs (i was torn but the Sabres third jersey was the tiebreak.)

Farm Team: Portland (For Kevin Dineen, though if we kidnapped Kadri first from the Marlies first that'd be nice.)

GM: Brian Burke(Darcy wouldn't be able to handle an unlimited budget, it'd only confuse him)

Coach: Lindy Ruff (Both of these chosen because i know their interactions would be awesome.)

Arena: I hate them both but i'll stay with HSBC.

TV team: Sabres (not only because of RJ, i actually like the leafs pbp, i just hate everyone else on the leafs broadcast crew.  Also, I really want Rob Ray to KO Pierre McGuire.)

Feel Free to declare all my choices to be stupid and suggest superior ones.