The SBNation major-domo, Travis Hughes, is pleased to announce that the NHL is faux-spanding to Winnipeg and Quebec City, with the not-actual-return of the Jets and Nordiques to imaginary professional ice hockey.
To lead the franchises, Travis has selected stat maven Gabe Desjardins of Behind the Net for the Jets, and the Globe and Mail's James Mirtle for the Nordiques. (Note to James: do not dress the team in these. Not even at home. Thank you.)
The first order of business is to see which team immediately relocates. (Mirlte's already looking at Hamilton - maybe Ballsillie owns them?) Gabe - Seattle has a nice arena with no basketball tenant that could be refitted into a palace, befitting the first United States city to raise the Stanley Cup in triumph.
The second order is to see which (if any) of our unprotected vets is taken off that splendidly-constructed list we worked on last week.
The third - and we may as well stick to form around here and do this one first - is to speculate ourselves. Based on the most recent lists we have for each team (the links will be at the team pages), whom do you think goes first in the draft, and how does it all shake down? We'll assume for the purposes of this exercise that each team will make twenty picks, since I don't see the actual number of rounds anywhere around. (It may be more, but twenty each will be a good exercise, I think.) Be mindful of a few things:
- The salary cap for the upcoming year is $59.3 million.
- For the purpose of the exercise, no player will refuse to report.
- Likewise, no team will attempt to re-obtain any drafted player
- HOWEVER - if one of the bloggers from the other team sites really DOES want Player X back, and comes to the comments to say so - by all means, work it out!
What say you, Islanders Nation? What moves (besides out of their towns) should the new teams make?