The title is pretty self explanatory; I started by taking the highest paid player at every position, and then filled out the best roster I could around them while still remaining cap compliant. I also did not use a single player on an ELC to make this more of a challenge. Those players were:
Those six players took up $66,576,190 of cap space, leaving $16,923,810 to fill out the remaining 14-17 roster spots. This meant I was largely restricted to players making less than $1,750,000 annually. Since I couldn't use anyone on an ELC, the players on this team besides the big money guys were either younger players having delayed breakouts on their second contracts (Hagel, Tolvanen, Luostarinen, T. Raddysh, Thompson, Joseph), late bloomers in their prime (Stephenson, Hartman, Aho, Chatfield, D. Raddysh, Amadio, Noesen), or veterans on 35+ deals (Giordano, Wheeler). Some more interesting facts:
Nationality breakdown: 9 Canadians, 5 Americans, 2 Finns, 2 Swedes, 2 Russians, 1 Czech
Average age: 28.2 (would be the 11th oldest in the NHL)
How do you think this team would stack up against the rest of the NHL? Let me know!
McDavid, Connor
$250,000)
CapFriendly
CapFriendly