Official NHL Homegrown Series: Introduction and Rule Explanation

What if the NHL adopted a no-trade, no-free agency protocol where teams obtain exclusive rights to players throughout their careers after they are selected in the draft?

CBS's MLB Homegrown Teams examined how MLB teams would look if players could not leave teams once they were drafted (http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/homegrown). It was a very interesting look at how certain teams have drafted well and would be powerhouses under this format (i.e. Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks), while others would not look so different from where they are today (i.e. Baltimore Orioles, Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics).

While MLB draft picks are not traded very often, NHL draft picks are treated as hot potatoes and are frequently included in transactions. For this particular series, once teams have selected a player in the draft, that particular player must stay on that team throughout their career. In order to examine the past decade's worth of drafts, I will allow trades that only included draft picks prior to players being selected (i.e. the series of trades that landed the Vancouver Canucks the Sedin twins would be allowed), but once the player has been selected, any subsequent trade would be forfeited (i.e. Boston Bruins would not have been allowed to trade Phil Kessel to Toronto, thus Tyler Seguin would be a Toronto Maple Leaf). 

Each day, I will write about the forwards, defencemen and goaltenders of one particular NHL team. Each lineup will consist of 14 forwards, seven defencemen and three goaltenders. Once I have examined all 30 NHL teams, I will input each roster into an NHL 12 season simulation and post the results to see which team would become Stanley Cup Champions. If I can learn how to use hyperlinks on this site, I will update this article so that it would be easier to visit the team of your choice. 

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to use the discussion box below.