Would "Team German" be good enough to compete for a cup?

[K1900L]

There have been numerous interesting threads/posts in the past where hypothetical teams were created by focussing on certain non-existing nations/nationalities or on linguistic/cultural connections (teams Yugoslavia, USSR, Scandinavia, North America etc.).
Currently, the German-speaking part of the world has produced some very talented hockey players and probably for the first time ever would be able to ice a whole squad made up of players situated in North America (=who are (close to) NHL skill level).

What were my requirements?
1. The player must have the nationality of a country where German is the main-language (being able to speak German would not be enough, which excludes players like Nikolaj Ehlers, Drake Batherson, Josh Norris and others)
2. The player has to be able to speak German
3. The player must be situated in North American hockey (=play in the NHL or a farm team; former NHL players or very talented players in the European leagues do not meet requirements)

This is what I was able to come up with:

Timo Meier — Leon Draisaitl — JJ Peterka
Nico Hischier — Tim Stützle — Kevin Fiala
Nino Niederreiter — Marco Rossi — Philipp Kurashev
Pius Suter — Marco Kasper — Nico Sturm/Lukas Reichel

Roman Josi — Janis Moser​

Jonas Siegenthaler — Moritz Seider​

Lian Bichsel — David Reinbacher​

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Joey Daccord​

Philipp Grubauer​

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If this team were to be an additional NHL team due to an expansion, how many franchises would you rank ahead of it and for what reason, and what do you perceive the chances of this team to win a cup?

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[Czechboy]

Definitely a cup contender but also probably not cap compliant.

 

[tarheelhockey]

They’d be a threat for sure… they have two really good players at C, LW, D and a couple of decent RWs too. I don’t completely love that D group which could bring them down a bit, and the goaltending seems unpredictable. But that’s a top-5 regular season team easily. Playoffs I think they’d be the sort of group to burn out against a more complete team.

 

[BLNY]

They might, if you threw the salary cap out the window.

Definitely a cup contender but also probably not cap compliant.

More than $95 million.

 

[Czechboy]

They might, if you threw the salary cap out the window.


More than $95 million.

Is that before the drai and seider raises?

 

[BLNY]

Is that before the drai and seider raises?

Current for Seider, next year for Draisaitl. Even with Leon's current salary, it's still over.

 

[Czechboy]

Current for Seider, next year for Draisaitl. Even with Leon's current salary, it's still over.

Thanks that was my hunch too.

Any team would love seider, Josi and drail.. but that has to be over 30 million just for those 3 next year.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Might as well just make it "Team Germany + Switzerland". As some others have said, this team wouldn't be cap compliant.

After the decrease in overall talent from making the team cap compliant, and once injuries start to creep in I'm not sure they'd be able to have the depth to continue competing. Assuming in this hypothetical situation they can't just magically re-acquire other German/Swiss players that they had to move to become cap compliant.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I'm not sure why you would consider the cap given it's a completely imagined fantasy scenario.

 

[EdJovanovski]

Matt Rempe is German so yes

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I'm not sure why you would consider the cap given it's a completely imagined fantasy scenario.

Well if the scenario is asking if the team would compete for a cup in the NHL you kind of have to put it in the scope of possibility within the league to compare fairly to the other teams.

I get that it's a hypothetical situation, but there still has to be some kind of parameters to make the scenario worth considering.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Is every Swiss nhl player Swiss-German? Any French speakers?

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Well if the scenario is asking if the team would compete for a cup in the NHL you kind of have to put it in the scope of possibility within the league to compare fairly to the other teams.

I get that it's a hypothetical situation, but there still has to be some kind of parameters to make the scenario worth considering.

Well yes the parameter is the quality of the players, that's sort of how that has always worked. It doesn't make sense to think about the cap given that a league where such a team could exist certainly isn't one in this universe.