Building a team in the "Cap" world.

So your a good armchair athlete right? Or at least, that's what you think. You know the in's and outs of the NHL, you know each players nickname on "your" team. You know every player in the league by their number. You could talk about that one year that your team made a magical run to the Stanley Cup (yours is half the size and filled with air), but were undermined by some freak accident, debacle, or a referee who should have "had his eyes checked". Either way, you have experienced the ups, and downs following "your" team. You also probably know what kind of money most, if not all, the players on your favorite team are making. Thing is, is you always wonder how a team just hands out this contract to this guy, or that contract to that guy. You wonder why another team has so and so, and why your team cant have, so and so. Well here is your chance to play General Manager, yes, you have finally been promoted from armchair athlete to armchair General Manager. So here's how it goes:

First you need your sources. Here's the best one: nhlnumbers.com This website will give you every NHL players current and future salaries. Also it informs you on who is a pending UFA, and RFA. So based on these "cap numbers" you can begin to get an idea, of who the NHL's bargains and busts are *cough* Dustin Penner *cough*.

Next. Now you need to know what a team looks like. An NHL team roster (all those being paid, contributing against the cap) is made up of 25 players. For most teams that's: 3 goalies, 15 forwards, and 7 defensemen. Now that you have that, you may now take a look at what your up against. The Cap. The NHL cap is currently at $56.7 million (as per TSN). So all that money needs to get spread over all those positions. In any way you wish.

Finally you are ready to step behind the GM's desk. Now you can take those contracts we talked about, and gather the players you wish (according to their position e.g. 4LW, 4C, 4RW). Only thing is, you have to consider how much each player makes, and how much that leaves you to get other players. So fill your roster with your players, and their contracts, and see how they match up to some of ours. Good luck.....you'll need it.

Sporer's "All Canadian" and "World" teams.

a * denotes a rookie. All numbers are in millions of dollars. If you click the image it will come up bigger.

Smith's team:

and with that, it is now your turn...

-Smith & Sporer