It’s been a wild offseason, and one of the themes has been players who’ve been with one team forever signing somewhere else. Joe Thornton in Toronto. Mikko Koivu in Columbus. Henrik Lundqvist in Washington, briefly. And then the biggest shocker of them all — Zdeno Chara leaving Boston after 14 years to sign with Washington.
It’s been pretty stunning. But it’s not unheard of in the NHL, a league where veteran stars occasionally end their careers with a short stint with a new team. And some teams seem to get in on that action more than others. So today, let’s go around the league and try to answer a question: Which NHL team could build the best starting lineup of legendary players they acquired at the very end of their careers?