how the league begins
Slack Auction. 20 players are put up for auction on Day 1...24 hours later the auctions end highest bidder gets the player and their salary is the price paid, the cap is $250
if you win a player, you put another up for auction.
how the league turns over
after the season you decide which players you want to keep. I don't want this to get out of hand where it get too complicated or where teams can rule the league forever without any sweat so my current idea is this:
-you can keep every player if you want
-but each players price rises $3 every year if they play 10+ games in the NHL (otherwise it stays the same)
-so if you get a star (think Mitchell Marner, worth roughly $40 which is top 30 value) for a discount price, you can probably get 4 or 5 years of value out of him before it becomes a tough decision. If you pay up for Crosby and he delivers what you paid for, it becomes tough to decide next year if you want to keep him or not. If you get a free agent/cheap draft pick for $1, and they are producing like a middle of the pack starter, you have 4-5 years of value on them as well.
but in the end you won't be able to keep your dominant team together year after year as if you wanted to keep all 18 (assuming your minors players all stay in the minors), you'd have to pay $54 more than the year before, and that just won't work with the cap.
the next years auction includes all players new to the NHL plus all players not kept. It will not have everyone with $250, but varying amounts of cap space across the league