The extras
-Initial teams will have 23 real life players, 16 from a modern era draft and 7 from a historical draft. See the separate league forum for details of the initial draft, but it will be your basic snake style draft.
Modern era draft (seasons 2005-06 to 2011-12) – 16 rounds, snake style draft, 1-24, 24-1 etc. Only nominated players will be available for this draft (more below on nominating players). First two rounds will be off the clock and rounds 3-16 will be on the clock.
Historical draft (seasons 1917-18 to 1969-70) – 7 rounds, snake style draft, 24-1, 1-24 etc. Last pick of the modern era draft will be first pick of the historical era draft. No forward restrictions. Goalies restricted to save percentage <90%. D men restricted to a D rating of 60 or less (with the exception of 69-70 Orr, 55-56 Harvey, and 38-39 Shore). You will need to strategize who you pick in the historical draft as these players will retire during this league. You will also need to fill in the holes in your roster left over from the modern era draft. The historical draft will occur after the modern era draft. First two rounds will be off the clock, rounds 3-7 will be on the clock.
-Retirements - Players will retire at the end of each season based on the decade they played in. Players from 1917-18 to 29-30 retire after season one, 30-31 to 39-40 retire after season two, 40-41 to 49-50 retire after season three, 50-51 to 59-60 retire after season four, 60-61 to 69-70 retire after season five. So be careful that you do not have too many players all retiring at the same time. Or trade retiring players and stock up for the future. Owners will be required to release their retiring players during the off season.
-Draft between seasons - There will be a 32 player draft between each season. Players on the draft list will be nominated players from seasons 1970-71 to 2003-04. Teams out of the playoffs get 2 picks; teams in the playoffs get one pick. Teams out of the playoffs will be randomized for picking order, all with equal weight, and this order will remain for the second round as well. There is no benefit in purposefully losing games and coming last. Teams in the playoffs will go in reverse order of points (lowest first). Drafted players will definitely upgrade your team. This draft will run off the clock.
Free Agency - There will be 16 free agents available each off season. They will be nominated players from 1970-71 to 2003-04. Free agency will occur during the playoffs, after the between season draft, and payers will generally be good enough to crack your starting line-up. Free agency will be run as a silent auction. Bidding continues until there is a 48 hr. break in bids, and then the player goes to the last and highest bid. Each team will start with 200 credits to bid for free agents with. These are the same credits that you will use to bid on waiver wire players. I will keep track of where players go and how many credits each owner has used up. Once your credits are used up no more free agents or waiver wire transactions for you. If you were to average it out each team will pick up 3.33 free agents at an average cost of 60 credits (not quite 60 credits as some credits will go to players on the waiver wire). Free agents will be added during the off season to each team. The players who will become available as free agents each off season will all be announced at the start of the league, and there will be enough star players for the final free agency period to justify keeping some credits for the end.