Preferred build of a top 6 - Based off their Cap-hit

[UncleRico]

So to be clear, the year that the Bruins won the Stanley Cup doesn't matter, but the years where they didn't win the Cup do?

It’s amazing how you enter a conversation and try to change the scope of the convo. Then tell people to read what you said, when what you said has nothing to do with the topic.

I don’t care what your saying because it’s irrelevant.

 

[Coffees]

Come on now, it’s just courtesy I thought

@waitin425

 

[Akrapovince]

I would want two superstars that make my low cap or entry level players legitimate scoring threats.

 

[Juxtaposer]

It’s amazing how you enter a conversation and try to change the scope of the convo. Then tell people to read what you said, when what you said has nothing to do with the topic.

I don’t care what your saying because it’s irrelevant.

Sue me for thinking that, when determining an optimal lineup, the goal is not to win the Stanley Cup.

 

[PettersonHughes]

One premise may be that it's
Nylander - Matthews - Marner (all line-drivers, with the presupposition that we can ONLY stack them)
Jarnkrok - Domi - Kerfoot (solid 40ish point guys all paid around $3 million during their tenure with TML, but they have to be played together and can't just support the high-end guys by being blended onto shared lines)

As strong as the first line may be, the drop-off between the 1st and 2nd line would be too great since teams can channel their energies to lock down that star line and ignore the rest, which is what happens when teams get too thin and the 2nd line isn't the same kind of threat.

Whether it's the Oilers stacking Leon and Connor when they were the only ones carrying the team, the West Coast Express (Naslund-Bertuzzi-Morrison mid 2000s, these three were the clear-cut stars) Canucks or the Leafs above, I think I'd prefer the composition where it's 6 guys paid around the same.

***************************************************************************************************

My next question is, who would be 6 players at $7.5 million who's living up to that value? Looking at a team like New Jersey for instance, they have a pretty solid distribution of players in the $6-$8 million range (based on last season's scoring stats, excluding Mercer and Palat - for their point total let's estimate 50 points each, which both have reached):

Meier ($8.8, 52 points) - Hughes ($8, 74 points) - Bratt ($7.875, 83 points)
Palat - ( Hischier ($7.25, 67 points) - Mercer

If Palat's last season was an anomaly and closer to his dollar value he's around 50 points, and Mercer rebounds to his breakout amount of 50ish points as well and gets around $6 million, that would be a solid and balanced top-6 (in this case esp. considering Hischier is Selke caliber and Meier brings a power game to balance out the pure skill).

 

[waitin425]

@waitin425

Sorry...not doing the research. Asked a question. Make a decision.

 

[FlappyGiraffe]

You absolutely take the superstars here. McDavid merch on its own would probably double the sales of the entire 2nd team

 

[Coffees]

Sorry...not doing the research. Asked a question. Make a decision.

Well, respect for not backing down.

 

[Trojans86]

I’d take the first because of the power play and ability to trade for cheap talent to replace the $3m via retention or RFAs. If the d is really solid you can be dangerous with a few studs that can score on the power play.

 

[McPoyle]

3 superstars and 3 middle 6 players vs 6 top 6 players.

Option 1 for me.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Sorry...not doing the research. Asked a question. Make a decision.

It’s supposed to be a discussion.

 

[waitin425]

It’s supposed to be a discussion.

Discuss away. I'm not sure why I'm the one to do the research. It's a pretty simple thing to have an opinion on. If someone wants to support their opinion with an analysis of success rates based on the builds, they can put that effort in.

Someone else said it....the optimal build is having players playing above their pay grade.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Discuss away. I'm not sure why I'm the one to do the research. It's a pretty simple thing to have an opinion on. If someone wants to support their opinion with an analysis of success rates based on the builds, they can put that effort in.

Someone else said it....the optimal build is having players playing above their pay grade.

You created a thread, and never stated your position yet, that’s usually done in post 1 and early on. With reasons.

 

[waitin425]

You created a thread, and never stated your position yet, that’s usually done in post 1 and early on. With reasons.

This is a thread in the polls section. I have asked a question with two options to gauge the boards opinion on how they would want a top 6 to be built. Superstar heavy, or balanced.

If you are asking my opinion, I prefer the balanced approach. I believe that the difference between the 13/12/11 million dollar players and the 7.5 million dollar players is not so great to make up the difference between 7.5 million dollar player and 3 million dollar player. So I would rather have 6 x 7.5 million dollar players.

That's my opinion. Does it win cups? I haven't done the evaluation. There are way more than 2 options for determining that though, so I would likely select some option I haven't provided for in my question.

Ill add the purpose of my question, as you seem to be prying for something here.

As a Habs fan, we are accumulating assets in the 7.5 million dollar range (Suzuki, Caufield, Slaf). We recently acquired Laine. I have been grappling in my own mind, just how much success I want him to have with us. Obviously, I want him to be the best he can be, but hear me out. Should he do something crazy like 50+50 for the next two years, he will be seeking a significant raise from his 8.7 into the 11-12 range. So I ask myself.....if that happened, would we want to sign him at 28 to that kind of contract, or would we unload him at the TDL leading up to his UFA summer, for a massive package. It would be an amazing problem to have, no doubt, but one that is frought with risks as well. The flip side, is his production stays roughly where it has been at, and we negotiate our 4th contract in that 7.5 million dollar range with him in 2 years, and he fits wonderfully into our balanced top 6. Would I like to see that? Finally, I think of Dach, who has potential to play into that range and become our 5th 7.5 million dollar player, and of course Demidov, could get the Slaf treatment after his ELC, should he play his way into it.

Before, you scoff and laugh, and say good luck with any of that, I purposefully avoided this type of description to avoid the usual breakdown in threads to fans pissing on other teams players and teams.

Hence......I am asking a very generic question, to see how teams would like to have their top 6 built. To see a general consensus. I hope the Habs are building a balanced top 6 who play above their pay grade, because we don't have (to this point) a superstar who will command 13 million.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

It's incredible to me that this poll is even close. Almost half would be cool with a build of a $13M, $12M, and $11M player, but we've just now had teams win a Cup with ONE $10M player ('23 Eichel and '24 Bobrovsky) on their roster.

It gets even worse when you consider the Top 5 cap hits on a team and how much of the cap they eat up. Cup winners are usually around 40-45%.

 

[Midnight Judges]

There are many ways to win. We've seen that.

I voted for the first option but I think you could win with the second option too under the right circumstances.

 

[Crow]

It's incredible to me that this poll is even close. Almost half would be cool with a build of a $13M, $12M, and $11M player, but we've just now had teams win a Cup with ONE $10M player ('23 Eichel and '24 Bobrovsky) on their roster.

It gets even worse when you consider the Top 5 cap hits on a team and how much of the cap they eat up. Cup winners are usually around 40-45%.

You forgot about Barkov.

 

[Dr Salt]

I'd rather try to make it work with superstars always.

 

[Regal]

It's incredible to me that this poll is even close. Almost half would be cool with a build of a $13M, $12M, and $11M player, but we've just now had teams win a Cup with ONE $10M player ('23 Eichel and '24 Bobrovsky) on their roster.

It gets even worse when you consider the Top 5 cap hits on a team and how much of the cap they eat up. Cup winners are usually around 40-45%.

The Cats won with 2 players making 10 million. And most of that has to do with both the fact that players salaries are going up so it takes time for a roster of 10+ million dollar players to win because there was very few players making that even a few years ago, and the fact that most teams that win have their top players playing above their salaries, but that’s not available here.

 

[biturbo19]

There are so many outside factors to this, i'm not sure why i even bothered voting.