A fun summer time thought experiment.

It wasn’t the strongest UFA crop the NHL has ever seen this off-season, which is why guys like David Clarkson were cashing in with major long-term contracts. Complicating matters is a dropping salary cap that has caused a few teams to buy-out NHLers and a few others not to shop too seriously for bodies.

As a result, even though there wasn’t a lot of elite talent available, there is actully more than a few useful NHLers still looking for work. There’s so many, in fact, that you could probably build a whole team out of them that could at least compete on a nightly basis. Take a gander:

C: Grabvoski, Antropov, Wellwood, Lombardi, Steckel

LW: Prospal, Morrow, Raymond, Gagne, Cleary, Latendresse, Ponikarovsky

RW: Mueller, Boyes, Brunner, Knuble, Kobasew, Larose

D: Gilbert, Kuba, Redden, O’Byrne, Murray, Fistric, Zanon, Martinek, Kaberle, Eminger, Eaton

G: Bryzgalov, Mason, Garon

Let’s build some lines:

That’s not great. The blueline in particular is underwhelming. Still, Im willing to bet we’ve seen a few worse line-ups put together on purpose by NHL GM’s in the past few years. Added amusement: this roster would probably struggle to make the cap floor as well.

Build your own rosters in the comments.