And here's my humble little team full of nobodies
Stillman - Rolston - Jagr
Cole - Staal - Williams
Whitney - Avery - Ortmeyer
Ladd - Adams - Adams
Wesley - Smith
Tverdovsky - Ward
Wallin - Eminger
Lundqvist - Gerber
Backups in the system: Commodore for D, Nordgren LW, Cullen C, Boulerice R. None of the others can really be even considered for that. If the *beep* hits the fan in the form of injuries, I still have some picks left for trade, along wth the majority of my unsigned prospects. Not to forget Whitney who can be cut loose if I need room for salaries.
As a result of these transactions I am now sitting at 30M$ total salaries with 29M$ budget (28,25M estimate cost) which places me exactly at the maximum allowed without minus points.
Transaction details:
Jed Ortmeyer --> Rights to Ed Hill and Tim Kunes, CAR 4th round pick 2006
Jaromir Jagr --> Brind'Amour, rights to Jakub Vojta, CAR 2nd round pick 2006
Jason Smith --> Rights to Justin Peters, TOR 4th, CAR 6th and CAR 7th round picks of 2006
ATL 4th pick --> Mike Zigomanis
Sean Avery --> Frantisek Kaberle
Brian Rolston --> Pavel Brendl and Radim Vrbata
LA 2nd pick --> Bret Hedican
Hutchinson dumped to waivers, claimed by Oilers
Steve Eminger --> Josef Vasicek, rights to Kyle Lawson and Nicolas Blanchard
Henrik Lundqvist - -> Cam Ward, rights to Jack Johnson, CAR 1st round pick 2006
As can be seen I changed the team ALOT. First priority was to get more reliable defensemen who's fitness wouldn't be that big concern so that they could actually play 1st or 2nd pair roles. With the addition of Smith and Eminger I feel that I'm capable of doing that. On top of this the salaries on defense were cut by almost a million. Second thing that I wanted was reliable penaltykillers, that's where the Adams-Adams-Ortmeyer trio step in. I've previously used both Adams' succesfully for this purpose and while then I've had to trade for them, now I had to trade only for Ortmeyer. The fourth penaltykiller, Avery, was a spur of the moment thing when LA wanted Kaberle off from me. I didn't want the loser they offered but instead chose to ask for Avery and they were fine with it. On top of this I felt that I just had to let Brind'Amour walk. His salary was way too big and I just knew he wouldn't put numbers good enough to warrant that. The Rangers were the only team interested in him so I chose to go for Jagr, who'd be a sure bet to put those numbers, despite my dislike for him otherwise. Rolston was simply the center suitable for #1 spot that I could get my hands on, and he was easily pried away from Wild.
As for that Lundqvist deal...perhaps that was sheer insanity, perhaps it was because I was tired, who knows. Either way after making the other deals I noticed that I still had my 1st round pick, and I still had Jack Johnson unsigned. Those two were perhaps my most valuable assets in terms of trading so I chose to go for the jackpot first. To cut the story short, Crosby wasn't available for 1st pick, LA's 2nd pick, Johnson and Staal, Phaneuf also wasn't available for 1st & Johnson so I went for the 3rd alternative; Lundqvist. Rangers accepted it without hesitating one bit. Both the board and the fans hated me for doing the deal and I can easily see why though. Trading away one of the top defensemen prospects in the game, my 1st pick which is likely to be top 10 pick (if the media is to be believed), along with the bluechip prospect in Cam Ward. Since this is a one season challenge however, I chose to ignore all those aspects and go for it.
I'm not too worried about the leadership on the team as both Wesley and Smith bring loads of it, the defensive side of the team looks pretty solid even though it could be improved loads still, same with the forwards. Not a topline that would compete as the best line on the NHL, in the conference or even the division. Yet I'm not too worried about that either, they should be good enough to score.
)
Just re-downloaded and reinstalled the unfake 1.0 to make sure no files are modified also.
. I'm pretty glad to finally get round to some NHL managing rather than the same old SM-Liiga stuff.
](./images/smilies/wallbash.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
