Almost every cup winning team these days has players way over those perfect cap structure charts and then they find cheap solutions and guys on ELC's to fill out the bottom roles.
It's a tricky game because in today's NHL you have to have all your bottom guys contributing yet to have the elite top end talent needed to win the cup you also can't go out and pay those guys.
In your scenario, bringing Ovechkin in and saying his cap hit is ridiculous and too much to build a contender is wrong. Having a guy like Brouwer at $4.5 mil in your bottom six is what's wrong, and what stops the ability to have an elite NHL forward at right wing, not the elite right wing's salary.
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