this team would be the worst in the league

look at the draft picks. The amount of cap dumps to generate picks is far more opportunity than Vegas had. Those can be flipped for assets if need be. Also, who saw guys like Smith, Karlsson, Haula and Eakin stepping up immediately? When players are given ice time and opportunity, they flourish. I think Wennberg will blossom as soon as he gets out from CBJ - it is evident he clashes with Torts. These guys will have different identities on this team.

All of what you just said are hypotheticals and what-ifs that could work out or fail for Seattle. And all incredibly disrespectful to the team that just beat you to head to the WCF.

Isn't everything on this website hypothetical? But, Whatever. I decided to make a thread based on the trend this league is going.

- Flat cap
- Loads of bad contracts, mostly from the 2016 free agency class that are blocking teams from reaching the next level of contention
- SEA already has Vegas to use as an example on how to get these assets

If you don't see it, then you don't see it. You don't have to make a snarky remark when you disagree with something, or try and go on the offensive to start an argument. Others on this website might bite, but I'm here to discuss hockey, not deal with foolish arguments on "disrespecting XYZ".

A "smh" moment to have to say this to a veteran poster on here.

Yes i agree what seatle must use flat cap as opportunity. But can they sell this idea for their future fans? (Fans may want successful first season).

I understand that this website is largely hypotheticals but you cannot have it both ways. You cannot argue Seattle will be better than Vegas of all teams while simultaneously using hypotheticals as an out. Either they're going to be better than Vegas or not.

Everyone saw Vegas riding the basement of the league and that's with a smaller array of picks than I see Seattle getting. Also, I made this thread based on where players are now. None of this year's UFAs are on this thread due to uncertainty, and already this is a pretty decent team. I see a few better players potentially being available with time.

But these cap dumps allow SEA to be scary. They will have a deep prospect pool in no time and draft picks to build a deep team or go all in right away. They have all the workings to form a better team than Vegas.

Seattle has Vegas to use as an example yes, but so does the rest of the league. While I think there’s the chance they could be better than Vegas, realistically they likely aren’t going to be contenders off the hop like Vegas was. Teams are going to be more reluctant to make trades with Seattle as they were with Vegas, as they’ll have witnessed first-hand the mistakes they made in 2017. You likely aren’t going to see trades like Florida made this time around, unless a team is incredibly desperate to protect someone (Minnesota trading Tuch to essentially protect Dumba) or for cap space.

Seattle is going to be more of a middling team with solid up and comers to start, I think at least.

And they can use this bunch of picks for trades (like mtl).

My argument is that Seattle can take advantage of the league's status in a year to build a better team. take into consideration the points in the post above this, I left current UFAs and expiring players out of this mix. That's a pretty large set of guys. So, comparing it to the roster I have here, it will even be stronger.

VGK had no flat cap. The league's cap dumps weren't nearly as bad as they are now. And teams didn't have the same urgency to move their bad contracts this year. With the last year of behemoth contracts in Eriksson, Okposo and others and a high price to each dollar... they have a chance to take advantage to get a super team straight away.

Sure I used a clickbaity title... but who doesn't? I really think though that SEA will have a stunning roster, prospect pool and pick depth... yes, even stronger than Vegas' on day 1.

More reluctant, but more strapped to. There's minimal choice. 2016 will be 5 years ago from this point, and that's the year multiple 5, 6 and 7 year contracts were signed in the worst FA year in league history. If these teams want to compete without losing key assets, these awful contracts will have to be moved. Somebody will do it, and I think many teams will have no choice to. If they evaluate their options to a greater extent, they will see that this is one of the only ways out from these contracts. Other teams won't have the room. Nobody will have cap. This flat cap scenario will hurt 31 teams in this league, but its a goldmine for the newcommer.

Where I think you are right is, Seattle making the finals in year 1 and copying vegas is slim-to impossible. Although the team's roster might be improved to the Vegas one, and I think more dangerous long term... there's no repeating that historic run.

Panthers will pay Seattle to take matheson not one tear of stralman.

Thank you for putting this together. It's great to get a preliminary idea of what players might possibly be available for Seattle to select (subject to change) between now and the expansion draft.

They may get more picks and futures, but that team is just atrocious, i love Mahura, but him paired with Montour would not be a good third pairing, individually they're trainwrecks at best in their own end... on the third pair, tho you do probably get better goalies than that (and WPG protects Copp over Lowry)

Why would you use Detroit as a template to build this from? There's an option to do a generic team that makes a lot more sense for something like this

I don’t think teams will be giving up picks to take a lot of guys, I think a lot of teams have learned their lesson. Then again maybe they haven’t 🤷🏼‍♂️

You can't do trades in that, and as such no draft picks. Detroit simply be cause they don't have many signed assets in 2021 so I didn't have to do much to get a blank template.