Straight to the point. I also added the term and cap hit

Forwards

James Neal ($5M x 6) - Jonathan Toews ($6.3M x 3) - Ryan Callahan ($4.275M x 2)

Loui Eriksson ($4.25M x 4) - Logan Couture ($2.875M x 2) - Martin St. Louis ($5.675M x 3)

Matt Moulson ($3.133M x 2) - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ($3.775M x 2) - Matt Halischuk ($712,500 x 1)

Jeff Skinner ($1.4M x 1) - Maxime Talbot ($1.75M x 4) - Cal Clutterbuck ($1.4M x 1)

Matt Bradley ($950,000 x 1) - Chris Thorburn ($866,667 x 2)

Defence

Niklas Kronwall ($4.75M x 7) - Alex Edler ($3.25M x 1)

Johnny Boychuk ($3.366M x 3) - Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($1.75M x 1)

Carl Gunnarsson ($1.325M x 1) - Luca Sbisa ($2.175M x 3)

Adam Larsson ($925,000 x 2)

Goaltenders

Jonathan Quick ($1.8M x 1)

Braden Holtby ($637,777 x 1)

SKILL2ENVY: $2,008,056 AVAILABLE

	Player Name	Team	Pos	Age	Salary	Cap Hit
Forwards (14)
	Toews, Jonathan	Chicago Blackhawks	C	24	$6,000,000	$6,300,000
	St. Louis, Martin	Tampa Bay Lightning	R	36	$5,500,000	$5,625,000
	Neal, James	Pittsburgh Penguins	L	24	$5,000,000	$5,000,000
	Callahan, Ryan	New York Rangers	R	27	$4,000,000	$4,275,000
	Eriksson, Loui	Dallas Stars	L	26	$4,600,000	$4,250,000
	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	Edmonton Oilers	C	19	$925,000	$3,775,000
	Moulson, Matt	New York Islanders	L	28	$3,000,000	$3,133,333
	Couture, Logan	San Jose Sharks	C	23	$2,750,000	$2,875,000
	Talbot, Maxime	Philadelphia Flyers	C	28	$2,250,000	$1,750,000
	Clutterbuck, Cal	Minnesota Wild	R	24	$1,700,000	$1,400,000
	Skinner, Jeff	Carolina Hurricanes	L	19	$900,000	$1,400,000
	Bradley, Matt	Florida Panthers	R	33	$1,000,000	$950,000
	Thorburn, Chris	Winnipeg Jets	R	28	$850,000	$866,667
	Halischuk, Matt	Nashville Predators	R	23	$825,000	$712,500
Defensemen (7)
	Kronwall, Niklas	Detroit Red Wings	D	31	$4,500,000	$4,750,000
	Boychuk, Johnny	Boston Bruins	D	28	$3,100,000	$3,366,667
	Edler, Alexander	Vancouver Canucks	D	26	$3,250,000	$3,250,000
	Sbisa, Luca	Anaheim Ducks	D	22	$2,000,000	$2,175,000
	Ekman-Larsson, Oliver	Phoenix Coyotes	D	20	$900,000	$1,750,000
	Gunnarsson, Carl	Toronto Maple Leafs	D	25	$1,250,000	$1,325,000
	Larsson, Adam	New Jersey Devils	D	19	$925,000	$925,000
Goaltenders (2)
	Quick, Jonathan	Los Angeles Kings	G	26	$1,700,000	$1,800,000
	Holtby, Braden	Washington Capitals	G	22	$600,000	$637,777
Cap Space: $2,008,056 Payroll: $57,525,000 Bonuses: $0 Roster Size: 23

Continue reading this post »

Getting right to the point:

Capgeek Link.

Forwards

Bobby Ryan - Jonathan Toews - Jeff Skinner

Loui Eriksson - Joe Pavelski - Max Pacioretty

Mike Cammalleri - Sean Couturier - Radim Vrbata

Mike Rupp - Frans Nielsen - Cal Clutterbuck

Defense

Alex Pietrangelo - Zdano Chara

Carl Gunnarsson - Alex Edler

Ian White - Ryan Ellis

Goaltending

Jon Quick

Braden Holtby

Extras

Ryan Jones, Mike Weaver, Deryk Engelland

Continue reading this post »

I'm going to give a pretty in-depth explanation of how my roster is built and why I believe it's a long-term winner, but I may as well start off by simply listing the roster. Here are my lines, with salary (in millions of $) and number of years remaining in parentheses:

Before getting to some rationale for the individual players and lines, here's how the team is constructed in general: when I set out to put this team together, I was looking for two things. The first is players who provided on-ice value above their cap hit, and the second is players who were able to succeed against tough competition. Just about every player on this team played against top competition last season, and almost all of them ran roughshod over that competition. There are three forwards who aren't particularly under-valued (Carter, Marleau, Neal), but all three are capable of completely dominating top competition. The main strength of this team is the fact that the opposition would never have the puck; it's an absolute beast of a Corsi machine.

FORWARDS

The only player in my top 6 who hasn't scored 30 goals within the past 3 years is Claude Giroux, who just scored 93 points. The "second" line here plays against the other team's toughest competition. Carter is among the best 2-way centres in the game, Marleau does exceptionally well against top competition, and Hornqvist has been the best Corsi player on a poor Corsi team in Nashville. That opens up Neal-Giroux-Vrbata (all great puck possession players in their own right) to decimate second defensive pairings and weaker forwards. 100 point season for Giroux? 50 goals for Neal? 40 for Vrbata? Not out of question with the other guys taking the toughest minutes. After that you've got an extremely undervalued 3rd line. There's no team in the league that can handle a 3rd line that good. Then the 4th line is made up of cheap checking line players who have no problem coming out on top while getting extremely unfavourable zone starts.

DEFENSE

There's not a lot of offense in my defence, but I'm OK with that because the forwards are so stacked. The primary job of the defence is to get the puck up to the forwards so they can work their magic, and that's exactly what this defence does. There are 4 legitimate top pair defenders on this squad. Like with the forwards, in theory the 2nd pair here is the shut down pair, which leaves Bieksa and Girardi open to join the Giroux line in feasting on the opposition. Make no bones about it, this is a tough, difficult to face defence. All 4 of these guys are strong and love to get in opponents' faces. They all throw lots of hits and block lots of shots, and all 4 are very sound positionally. Following up behind them you've got two cheap but highly effective players in Gunnarsson and Hamonic, both of whom are absolute steals on their current contracts.

GOAL

Halak may not be quite as cheap as Jonathan Quick right now, but he'll probably be cheaper in the long run and I don't think there's much reason to believe that Quick is much better than Halak is. Over the past few seasons Halak has been one of the most consistent goalies in the league. He's also reasonably young and comes with a pretty efficient contract. Behind him you've got Giguere. Giguere was the only real compromise I had to make on this team, but I'm still reasonably happy with him in a backup role.

MOVING FORWARD

This is a team that can contend for the Cup right out of the gate. The average age of the top 6 forwards is 27; for the top 4 D it's 31; the rest of the skaters are younger guys ready to move up in the lineup with an average age of 24. The top 6 is locked up for two more years other than Hornqvist who will be an RFA; I think he can be retained for roughly the same amount of money. The only forward at any real risk of leaving is Filppula, but Marcel Goc is more than capable of filling the same role for the same amount of money. Marleau and Giroux have contracts that expire at the same time, so Giroux simply takes Marleau's money and Wheeler or Marchand moves up one line. Vrbata probably tries to hit it big as a UFA in 2 years, but with Hornqvist, Wheeler, and Marchand sticking around I can replace him easily and fill the third line role with someone like Brett Connolly.

On defence Robidas is gone at the end of his deal, but that's fine because either Gunnarsson or Hamonic can take his place and they'll both do it for less money even after they get new contracts. Beauchemin and Bieksa are both at a great age for defencemen and both have good term left on their deals. It'll take a bit of work to keep Girardi, but I think it's doable, especially if Vrbata leaves that summer.

In goal Halak is the long-term option as the starter. Giguere can be reliably replaced for the same amount of money either through UFA or guys coming up through the system.

This is a team that can win a Cup right now, but it's also a team that has lots of room for the younger guys to move up as the older guys move on. It's got forwards who can all outplay their competition, a physically imposing defence, and a young, reliable goalie. It's a team built to last.

I had no real plan while constructing this roster. Giroux and Halak popped into my mind immediately and Quick was warranting a lot of discussion, but after that it was a bunch of browsing Cap Geek. I think the team has a decent mix of prime aged players and veterans. Several players are locked up long term as well.

Continue reading this post »

My first fan post ever,

Forwards

Neal - Toews - Eriksson

Flesichmann - Nielsen - Wheeler

Bourque - Couturier - Clutterbuck

Torres - Steckel -Hendricks

Brent,Jackman

Defense

Burns - Shattenkirk

Girardi - Phillips

Ference - Lydman

Y Weber

Goalies

Quick

Giguere

CapGeek

By Team

ANA - Toni Lydman

BOS - Andrew Ference

BUF - Not Used

CGY - Tim Jackman

CAR - Tim Brent

CHI - Jonathan Toews

COL - Jean-Sebastian Giguere

CBJ - Not Used

DAL - Loui Eriksson

DET - Not Used

EDM - Not Used

FLA - Tomas Fleischmann

LA - Jonathan Quick

MIN - Cal Clutterbuck

MTL - Yannick Weber

NAS - Gabriel Bourque

NJ - Not Used

NYI - Frans Nielsen

NYR - Dan Girardi

OTT - Chris Phillips

PHI - Sean Couturier

PHX - Raffi Torres

PIT - James Neal

SJ - Brent Burns

STL - Kevin Shattenkirk

TB - Not Used

TOR - David Steckel

VAN - Not Used

WSH - Matt Hendricks

WIN - Blake Wheeler

By Draft

1995 - Giguere (1)

1996 - Phillips (1), Lydman (3)

1997 - Ference (8)

1998/1999 - Not Used

2000 - Torres (1), Hendricks (5)

2001 - Steckel (1), Jackman (2)

2002 - Flesichmann (2), Nielsen (3)

2003 - Burns (1), Eriksson (2)

2004 - Wheeler (1), Brent (3)

2005 - Neal (2), Quick (3)

2006 - Toews (1), Clutterbuck (3)

2007 - Shattenkirk (1), Weber (3)

2008 - Not Used

2009 - Bourque (5)

2010 - Not Used

2011 - Couturier (1)

Undrafted - Girardi

So there's my team, I think it's pretty good.

NOT ON MY WATCH PHIL

via l.yimg.com

I decided that Phil Kessel was going to be a part of this team no matter what, ditto for Henrik Lundqvist. I wanted to make a team that would be competitive right now, but also into the future, while players like Datsyuk and the Sedins were tempting, I chose to ignore them in favour of younger players. As a result Henrik Lundqvist and Justin Williams are the earliest drafted players on my team, from the 2001 draft.

I tried to build a strong Defensive team with an emphasis on two-way centers capable of driving possession. I wanted to have a young, fast, tough team with most of the key contributors locked up relatively long term.

Continue reading this post »

Here is my attempt at the Salary Cap Challenge as put out to the community by clrkaitken based on this article at the hockey writers.

When making this team I tried to keep in mind two things besides "get the best players":

1) The ability to keep this team together.

2) Creating realistic and versatile lines.

So without furthur adieu here is my team (read after the jump for more information about the players and my rationale):

Here is the link to the cap geek page (there is 1.42 mil in cap space).

Continue reading this post »

After half a day of toiling over perfect matchups, I've dominated the Salary Cap Challenge. The link to Capgeek is here, and the lineup is also posted below, with players' current team and draft (year-round) next to their name. Feel free to correct me if you see any inaccuracies or dublicates.

-

Eriksson (DAL, 03-2) - Giroux (PHI, 06-1) - Couture (SJS, 07-1)

Horton (BOS, 03-1) - Datsyuk (DET, 98-6) - Plekanec (MTL, 01-3)

Saad (CHI, 11-2) - Nugent-Hopkins (EDM, 11-1) - Skinner (CAR, 10-1)

Higgins (VAN, 02-1) - Goc (FLA, 01-1) - Nielsen (NYI, 02-3)

Regin (OTT, 04-3), K. Wilson (NSH, 04-9)

-

Pietrangelo (STL, 08-1) - M.Staal (05-1)

Letang (PIT, 05-3) - Hedman (TBL, 09-1)

Gunnarsson (TOR, 07-7) - Vonyov (LAK, 08-2)

T. Barrie (COL, 09-3)

-

Hiller (ANH, Undrafted)

Neuvirth (WSH, 06-2)

-

Payroll: $57,107,500. Cap Space: $591,668

I'm running two first lines, a kid line, and a checking line that will rarely hit the ice, but will still dominate play when it does. Marcel Goc saw the Panthers' toughest competition, just 38% O-Zone start, and led the team with 9.2 Corsi Rel. Saad is the only part of the roster I hesitated on, but I needed someone on an ELC who wasn't drafted in the first round of 10 or 11, and wasn't from a team I had already picked. The kid's got promise, anyways, so I don't hate him being there.

On defense, I've got three players whose names were in the Norris discussion this year (Pietrangelo, Staal, Letang) and one whose name definitely should've been (Gunnarson, duh). Hedman is currently a serviceable - if not good - second pairing D-man, and if you're not sure why I took Slava Voynov from LA instead of one of their many choice forwards, you can check out this article over at CoppernBlue.

While some might say Hiller's down year makes him a dangerous pick, his monthly splits have him at a .921 since January. Given that he won't be a UFA at the end of next year (Jonathan Quick) and he didn't take up a draft slot, I'm okay with having him there.

When it comes up for re-signing, Plekanec and then Datsyuk are on the block, with Skinner and RNH moving into their spots, and the trade return making up the new Kid line. Sustainable? Check. Threat to win the Cup? Check. Ottawa player relegated to a healthy scratch? Check.

After completely messing up my first attempt and somewhat quickly fixing it with mixed results, I have come up with a team that I am quite happy with.

Center
Jonathan Toews, Chicago, 3yrs, 6.3M
Patrice Bergeron, Boston, 2yrs, 5.0M
Brandon Sutter, Carolina, 2yrs, 2.1M
Derek Stepan, NY Rangers, 1yr, $875K

Left Wing
Bobby Ryan, Anaheim, 3yrs, 5.1M
Alex Tanguay, Calgary, 4yrs, 3.5M
Dustin Brown, Los Angeles, 2yrs, 3.175M
Vaclav Prospal, Columbus, 1yr, 2.5M
Jaden Schwartz, St. Louis, 2yr, 1.17M

Right Wing
Johan Franzen, Detroit, 8yrs, 3.95M
Radim Vrbata, Phoenix, 2yrs, $3.0M
Wayne Simmonds, Philadelphia, 1yr, 1.75M
Ben Eager, Edmonton, 2yrs, 1.1M
Chris Thorburn, Winnipeg, 2yrs, 867K

Defense
Kevin Bieksa, Vancouver, 4yrs, $4.6M
Viktor Hedman, Tampa, 5yrs, 4.0M
Chris Letang, Pittsburgh, 2yrs, 3.5M
Jake Gardiner, Toronto, 2yrs, 1.1M
Mike Weaver, Florida, 2yrs, 1.1M
Adam Larsson, New Jersey, 2yrs, 925K
Andrew MacDonald, NY Islanders, 2yrs, 550K

Goaltenders
Pekka Rinne, Nashville, 7yrs, $7.0M
Robin Lehner, Ottawa, 2yrs, 870K

Cap Space Remaining: $283,788

Line 1: Ryan - Toews - Franzen
Line 2: Tanguay - Bergeron - Vrbata
Line 3: Brown - Sutter - Simmonds
Line 4: Prospal - Stepan - Eager
Reserves: Schwartz, Thorburn

Defense 1: Bieksa, Letang
Defense 2: Hedman, Gardiner
Defense 3: Larsson, Weaver
Reserve: MacDonald

Goaltenders: Rinne, Lehner

2011: Larsson (1)
2010: Schwartz (1)
2009: Hedman (1), Lehner (2)
2008: Gardiner (1), Stepan (2)
2007: Sutter (1), Simmonds (2)
2006: Toews (1), MacDonald (6)
2005: Ryan (1), Letang (3)
2004: Franzen (3), Rinne (8)
2003: Brown (1), Bergeron (2)
2002: Eager (1)
2001: Thorburn (2), Bieksa (3)
1999: Vrbata (7)
1998: Tanguay (1)
1993: Prospal (3)
Undrafted: Weaver



The only players not signed for at least 2 seasons: Prospal, Stepan, Simmonds. Prospal's cap space can be used to re-sign Stepan and Simmonds. Ryan, Tanguay, Toews, Franzen, Hedman, Bieksa, Rinne are signed for 3 or more seasons. I really like my third line of Brown, Sutter and Simmonds. That will be a nasty line to play against. My defense has quite a bit of youth (Hedman, Gardiner, Larsson) but still quite good and will contribute a lot to the offense. My forwards, particularly the centers, are mostly very solid 2-way players so they should off set some of the inexperience on defense.

The basic philosophy I used in building my team was I wanted to control the puck and control the matchups. I built the core of my team around seven guys; my top two centres, my top four defence, and my goalie. From my centres and defence I wanted guys who could push the puck up ice, but who could be trusted in their own end as well. Behind them I wanted a guy I simply don't have to worry about to stop the puck. I then added guys to round out my forwards and defence that could provide offence and cause matchup problems for any team.

Here's the roster, and then I'll explain my choices after the jump.

Daniel Sedin - Jonathan Toews - Justin Williams
Andrew Ladd - Patrice Bergeron - Wayne Simmonds
Pascal Dupuis - Adam Henrique - Mikkel Boedker
Cory Emmerton - Craig Smith - Chuck Kobasew

Ryan McDonagh - Victor Hedman
Francois Beauchemin - Dion Phaneuf
Justin Faulk - Tom Gilbert

Ryan Miller
Ben Bishop

Scratches: Chris Butler, Matt Hendricks, Eric Nystrom

Continue reading this post »