Mandatory Team Dissolution #
When a league exceeds the critical threshold of 50% of caretaker teams, one or more teams must be dissolved for the following season in order to bring the percentage of caretaker teams below 50%.
Example 1: A 24-team league reaches 13 caretaker teams during the season (54.2%, more than 50%). The following season, the league must dissolve 2 teams, reducing to 22 teams with 11 caretakers (exactly 50%).
Example 2: A 12-team league with 7 caretakers (58.3%) must reduce to 10 teams, leaving 5 caretaker teams.
Voluntary Contraction #
A league may reduce the number of teams if at least one team is left unfilled after the postseason.
Setup and Configuration #
At the Postseason stage, the league president must configure the parameters of the next season to comply with the maximum number of teams.
- League Office > Dashboard, Configuration tab,
- Select the upcoming season from the dropdown list
Adjusting the Number of Available Players
Depending on the player pool used by your league, you have access to a maximum number of teams. For leagues using the official WebSim Hockey set from the current year, it is possible to adjust player accessibility criteria.
Protection Lists
Activating the protection list system allows you to redistribute players across teams. These players become available in a dispersal draft.
Although less common in cases of contraction, this option remains available for leagues that want to redistribute talent more evenly among the remaining teams.
Dispersal Draft (with or without Protection Lists)
The dispersal draft is automatically added before the usual offseason draft. All players from dissolved teams, as well as unprotected players (if applicable), are available.
Prospects from dissolved teams are automatically released and will be available in the entry draft that follows the dispersal draft. Prospects not selected in the entry draft and already in the league for 2 seasons will be completely removed. Prospects in the league for 1 season remain eligible for the following season’s entry draft.
Draft order: determined by the reverse overall standings (no lottery), repeating each round.
- Drafts with 6+ rounds follow a snake/serpentine order.
Draft Rules
If protection lists are active, the president configures the draft rules. Adjustable parameters include:
- Maximum number of players drafted from the same team
- Number of rounds
- Guaranteed minimum players
- Option to send undrafted/released players to free agency after the draft
If protection lists are not active, parameters are determined by a formula.
Drafting an Unrestricted Type 3 Free Agent
Unrestricted Type 3 free agents available in a dispersal draft will accept to sign a new contract with the team that drafts them, even if they had refused to re-sign with their former team.
Adjustments to the Entry Draft #
When teams are dissolved, their draft picks are lost and removed from the league. Remaining teams may also hold acquired picks from dissolved teams. To correct this, the entry draft is generated with special rules:
- Draft order is generated as if no teams had left, including the lottery for pick #1.
- Picks belonging to dissolved teams are deleted.
- Additional picks are added in reverse order of last season’s standings to complete the final round. Example: if after 2 rounds there are only 36 picks for a 13-team league, 3 extra picks are added to complete 3 rounds.
For future seasons, there are 2 options for handling traded picks from dissolved teams:
Reset Option
This cancels all traded picks. Every team regains its original picks for future seasons (rounds 2 to 5).
Recommended when several teams are dissolved.
Minimal Option
For future seasons (rounds 2 to 5), picks are redistributed as follows:
- For each round, picks are ordered by the previous season’s standings.
- Picks are divided into 3 groups: Group 1: Original picks of dissolved teams, Group 2: Picks of dissolved teams that were traded to surviving teams and Group 3: Picks traded by surviving teams to dissolved teams
- Group 1 picks are deleted.
- Group 2 picks are replaced one-by-one by Group 3 picks, in ascending draft order. Once Group 3 is empty, any remaining Group 2 picks are deleted.
- If a round is short on picks (more Group 3 than Group 2), missing picks are assigned one-by-one to surviving teams, in reverse order of standings.
Recommended if you want to compensate surviving teams that had acquired picks from dissolved teams.
