2017-2018 NHL Thread

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Winnipeg and Toronto

You can put together a team that would be a cup favorite while struggling to reach the cap floor, you can then plug in more expensive higher production players from each team.

 

[Kin]

Lunch thought:

Take any two teams/prospect pools in the NHL right now and combine them to form a mega team. Which two teams, and what's your cap-compliant lineup?

The Maple Flames:

Gaudreau-Matthews-Marner
JVR-Monahan-Nylander
Tkachuk-Kadri-Kapanen
Versteeg-Moore-Brown
Bennett

Giordano-Hamilton
Gardiner-Hamonic
Rielly-Brodie
Rosen

Andersen
McBackup

Cap Hit: 70 million on the nose(actually 70,009,210) so there's bonus room

 

[Kin]

The Maple Lightning are also fun.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Bourne has a good article out for The Athletic and he touches on a rule change I've wanted for a long time, not allowing the PKers to ice the puck.

https://theathletic.com/108070/2017/09/22/bournes-takes-call-icing-on-the-pk-zach-hyman-on-the-top-line-and-more/

 

[L K]

The Maple Lightning are also fun.

The winger balance isn't perfect but adding good portions of Minnesota's defense to the Leafs is pretty nice.

 

[bustaheims]

Bourne has a good article out for The Athletic and he touches on a rule change I've wanted for a long time, not allowing the PKers to ice the puck.

https://theathletic.com/108070/2017/09/22/bournes-takes-call-icing-on-the-pk-zach-hyman-on-the-top-line-and-more/

Same. At the very least, make them have to get out of their defensive zone first. Combine that with the team on the PP not being offside unless the puck crosses the redline (so, basically, flipping the meaning of the two lines from ES play to PP/PK play). Would make powerplays more effective/penalties more costly, and would hopefully force players to be more cognizant of their actions, and, therefore, less likely to commit more flagrant/dangerous fouls.

Of course, this rule change would also have to go hand-in-hand with eliminating some penalties, like current faceoff stupidity their dealing with, and the puck over the glass automatic penalty stuff.

 

[Frank E]

Bourne has a good article out for The Athletic and he touches on a rule change I've wanted for a long time, not allowing the PKers to ice the puck.

https://theathletic.com/108070/2017/09/22/bournes-takes-call-icing-on-the-pk-zach-hyman-on-the-top-line-and-more/

Same. At the very least, make them have to get out of their defensive zone first. Combine that with the team on the PP not being offside unless the puck crosses the redline (so, basically, flipping the meaning of the two lines from ES play to PP/PK play). Would make powerplays more effective/penalties more costly, and would hopefully force players to be more cognizant of their actions, and, therefore, less likely to commit more flagrant/dangerous fouls.

Of course, this rule change would also have to go hand-in-hand with eliminating some penalties, like current faceoff stupidity their dealing with, and the puck over the glass automatic penalty stuff.

Increasing the success % of PP might also lead to move diving though?

 

[herman]

Leafs on the Wind
Maple Leafs and Hurricanes​

Nylander - Matthews - Kapanen
Grundstrom - Kadri - Marner
Teravainen - Lindholm - Aho
Nordstrom - Kruger - Brown
Hyman, Johnsson

Gardiner - Rielly
Slavin - Pesce
Hanifin - Faulk
Dermott

Andersen
Darling

51.3M​

Next season when Slavin, Pesce, Hanifin, Lindholm, Nordstrom, Nylander, and Johnsson contracts kick in, it'll be a tighter fit and Kruger will probably go to push Nylander into centre.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Bourne has a good article out for The Athletic and he touches on a rule change I've wanted for a long time, not allowing the PKers to ice the puck.

https://theathletic.com/108070/2017/09/22/bournes-takes-call-icing-on-the-pk-zach-hyman-on-the-top-line-and-more/

Same. At the very least, make them have to get out of their defensive zone first. Combine that with the team on the PP not being offside unless the puck crosses the redline (so, basically, flipping the meaning of the two lines from ES play to PP/PK play). Would make powerplays more effective/penalties more costly, and would hopefully force players to be more cognizant of their actions, and, therefore, less likely to commit more flagrant/dangerous fouls.

Of course, this rule change would also have to go hand-in-hand with eliminating some penalties, like current faceoff stupidity their dealing with, and the puck over the glass automatic penalty stuff.

Increasing the success % of PP might also lead to move diving though?

There is a rule in place to address this already, as long as the officials; or the league retroactively, enforce it, it's not an issue.

 

[Frank E]

Bourne has a good article out for The Athletic and he touches on a rule change I've wanted for a long time, not allowing the PKers to ice the puck.

https://theathletic.com/108070/2017/09/22/bournes-takes-call-icing-on-the-pk-zach-hyman-on-the-top-line-and-more/

Same. At the very least, make them have to get out of their defensive zone first. Combine that with the team on the PP not being offside unless the puck crosses the redline (so, basically, flipping the meaning of the two lines from ES play to PP/PK play). Would make powerplays more effective/penalties more costly, and would hopefully force players to be more cognizant of their actions, and, therefore, less likely to commit more flagrant/dangerous fouls.

Of course, this rule change would also have to go hand-in-hand with eliminating some penalties, like current faceoff stupidity their dealing with, and the puck over the glass automatic penalty stuff.

Increasing the success % of PP might also lead to move diving though?

There is a rule in place to address this already, as long as the officials; or the league retroactively, enforce it, it's not an issue.

Yeah, but they miss a lot of it too.  I also wonder if indeed PP success rates were to increase, it makes PPs more of a game breaker, which might lead to them wanting to call it less tight in close games.

Just spitballing.

 

[Kin]

Next season when Slavin, Pesce, Hanifin, Lindholm, Nordstrom, Nylander, and Johnsson contracts kick in, it'll be a tighter fit and Kruger will probably go to push Nylander into centre.

Man, that team could hit 98-99 points easy.

 

[Kin]

Increasing the success % of PP might also lead to move diving though?

And less actual infractions. Maybe having some more diving(although this would also increase the penalty for being caught diving) seems like a pretty small price to pay for more goals and a more wide open game.

If there were perfect, easy fixes they'd already exist.

 

[bustaheims]

Increasing the success % of PP might also lead to move diving though?

Not if you combine it with legitimate fines/suspensions for diving. I think we'd see an initial increase, but, if the league was serious about about the supplemental discipline there, I think it would taper off fairly quickly.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Maple Lightning are also fun.

Decided to try this one:

Hyman-Matthews-Stamkos
Palat-Nylander-Kucherov
JVR-Kadri-Marner
Pacquette-Point-Brown

Hedman-Stralman
Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Sustr

Andersen
Vasilevskiy

Came in at just over $72mil. Babcock's still my coach so that's why Hyman's there.

Also, I didn't realize how much Tampa's defence drops off after their big 2.

 

[Frank E]

The Maple Lightning are also fun.

Decided to try this one:

Hyman-Matthews-Stamkos
Palat-Nylander-Kucherov
JVR-Kadri-Marner
Pacquette-Point-Brown

Hedman-Stralman
Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Sustr

Andersen
Vasilevskiy

Came in at just over $72mil. Babcock's still my coach so that's why Hyman's there.

Also, I didn't realize how much Tampa's defence drops off after their big 2.

Heard anything on how Sergachev is doing?

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Toronto Penguins:

Sheary-Crosby-Nylander
Guentzel-Malkin-Marner
Hyman-Matthews-Kessel
Leivo-Kadri-Brown

Rielly-Letang
Gardiner-Schultz
Pouliot-Carrick

Andersen
Murray

Comes to $73mil, using Pittsburgh's cap hit for Kessel only. I could bolster that bottom defence pairing if I went with an actual back-up instead of both starters. Again, Babs is the coach so...

Not sure this one could be topped.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Heard anything on how Sergachev is doing?

I saw that he was paired with Girardi earlier in camp, so that sucks for him. It does seem like he'll be making their team though.

 

[bustaheims]

Comes to $73mil, using Pittsburgh's cap hit for Kessel only. I could bolster that bottom defence pairing if I went with an actual back-up instead of both starters. Again, Babs is the coach so...

Not sure this one could be topped.

Definitely could not top that C depth. LW isn't great, but, C and RW more than make up for it, for sure.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Definitely could not top that C depth. LW isn't great, but, C and RW more than make up for it, for sure.

Sheary and Guentzel both scored at about a 70-point past last season. Neither played a full season and probably won't repeat those numbers, but still. I could have kept JVR instead of Kadri and put him with Matthews, but I still like how it worked out there.

 

[herman]

Torombus Blue Leafs or Maple Jackets... either way, the cannon shoots leaves
Panarin - Matthews - Marner
Jenner - Wennberg - Nylander
Hyman - Kadri - Bjorkstrand
Calvert - Sedlak - Brown
Kapanen, Johnsson

Werenski - Jones
Gardiner - Savard
Rielly - Zaitsev
Dermott

Bobrovsky
Andersen

68.1M​