NHL 21

UPDATE: This solution is dependent on using early roster listings. Go to 'Rosters' and choose an October roster (if you played near launch then this is likely ONLINE ROSTERS 2 or earlier versions). If you only have later versions then unfortunately this will not work.

Note I know I don't have this achievement unlocked but I am playing the game on PS4 so you will see my linked PSN profile has the trophy

This achievement is currently pretty easy and I would highly recommend doing it now before any adjustments are made that might break this. Currently some players have tried other ways to unlock it such as winning everything with a bad team but noticed that the Minnesota Wild seem to win the trophy nearly if not every time. As such, do not expect to do this during another save file. All you have to do is start a franchise mode as Minnesota and sim the full season. I did not do anything besides sim. There were some popups and this is how I personally did it but I am sure there is flexibility:
- Waiver players - I claimed one but generally ignored
- Trades - I accepted a few but mostly ignored. I noticed players lost morale when you traded a player away so I only accepted ones where I was not giving up any
- Scouts or any other messages - ignored

The team should do very well in regular season. I believe mine got 47 wins and 6 extra time losses to win the division. I was eliminated first round playoffs and that did not matter. After elimination you should get the option to sim to draft day and during that sim it will pause to tell you who won the Stanley Cup and this should pop at that point.

I tried the other guide several times with no luck, so I started tinkering with some things to get this, and here is what I did....

Step 1: Use the rosters from after the trade deadline

Step 2: Go to edit rosters, for this method I used Buffalo because they got rid of some key players at the deadline, but Im thinking you could use New Jersey as well. In edit rosters, I changed Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner contract value to basically nothing creating more cap room for the team. I did this with a few players, also some of those bad contracts make them 1 year and 1m to make them easier to trade.

Step 3: Edit the Rochester Americans(Buffalo farm team, if you decide on another team find their AHL team), I chose to edit every player under 23 to make their potentials Franchise and high for accuracy. I also did this for a few young guys on the NHL team.

Step 4: Start Franchise, I keep salary cap on and turn injuries off. In franchise mode, sign Dustin Bfuflyn(butchered the spelling) and trade away some of the bad players who you didnt edit salary or wont need. You may be under the cap floor, in this instance trade for a player thats good not great, that can fill a hole on the 3rd pair or the 4th line once you make bigger trades later.

STEP 5: Sim the first month and a half or so, make sure your team has a bad record, fire the coach and hire an AHL Head Coach.

Step 6: Make trades, you should have 6-8 Franchise players that are not developed and since this is a 1 season thing you can also trade all your picks. I was able to add Boeser, Kopitar, Horvat all at 50% of their salary, as well as add Larkin, Danault, Keller, Palmieri, Seth Jonesm Alex Edler, Hjalmarsson, and Fleury.

Step 7: Sim to trade dealine, make more trades, I think some of the players listed above came at the deadline, sellers become more desperate then.

Step 8: Depending on your record you may or may not be in a playoff spot, I simmed each game from main screen so I could jump in if i was losing. Do this the last 20 games or so in order to make the playoffs and once you make playoffs you can play or not and then sim to draft and it should pop.

The reason you dont want to make these trades before you start is that you want to have a "bad" team prior to starting. Low expectations to make playoffs so when you fire your coach and get a new one and you make the playoffs he looks like a genius.