Do I Cut Elliott?
 

I'm having a really tough time keeping perspective on this situation as I recently acquired Elliott in a trade and I would HATE to drop him only to have him blow up again and ruin my handcuff on the St. Louis situation.

Here's the deal. I'm in an eight team keeper league with scoring as follows:

Goals, Assists, Plus/Minus, PPP, PIM, SOG, GWG, Wins, Save%, GAA

I have Halak, Smith, Ward and Elliott in goal and we start two daily. I also have Jake Allen stashed in my minors but this being a Yahoo! league it would cost me one of my two weekly moves if I ever wanted to call him up.

Ideally I would have the sort of goalie tandem where I just have two guys and crush the two averages categories while remaining competitive in Wins but that just isn't going to happen with my goalies so that makes three the more ideal number. I've kind of had to carry four because up until recently I had Kiprusoff instead of Smith. Now that I have Smith and Halak is healthy I am feeling some confidence in my goalies.

Just for perspective here's how the rest of the league shakes out in goal:

Team One

Lundqvist
Brodeur
Crawford
Lehtonen - IR

Team Two

Schneider
Price
Quick

Team Three

Howard
Dubnyk
Nabokov
Holtby

Team Four

Rask
Backstrom
Varlamov
Reimer - IR

Team Five

Niemi
Bryzgalov
Fasth

Team Six

Luongo
Fleury
Anderson
Thomas

Team Seven

Rinne
Miller
Theodore

So as you can see there isn't necessarily a team out there that would scoop up Elliott if I did ditch him but I still hate the idea of losing my handcuff. What are your thoughts? After losing Karlsson and Spezza and trading Semin for Smith I could definitely use the extra skater help.

are there any skaters that require an immediate move before someone else notices

i mean i know i am in a 6 team league an i know there is usually pretty good pickings out there

Emery and Vokoun are both available? If I'm an opposing GM, I am just as likely, or more so, to add them before Elliott.

I personally would keep the handcuff and see if you have any takers on Ward or Smith. Moving one of those guys to get a strong Fwd back might be a good approach. My only concern is that other than (maybe) team 5 there isn't any teams that have a strong need for another starter.

With Halak's injuries and Hitchcock's approach to splitting the workload I would hold on the handcuff approach and test the waters for FWD help via trading Smith or Ward.

There's decent talent available but nothing urgent. Plekanec would have been that guy but he just got scooped.

Here's a list of the top available guys that I would consider:

Hemsky
Wilson
Ott
Clowe
Ladd
Tlusty
Berglund
Brouwer
Boedker
Pouliot
McGinn

There are actually plenty of good D available but I'm sitting on a D comprised of:

Green
Pietrangelo
Streit
Edler
Zidlicky

I'd probably pick up Visnovsky instead of Zidlicky if not for having Streit but I'm not going there with already having Streit. For the sake of it here are the top D available:

Greene
Goligoski
Bieksa
Salo

That's a very good point.

if there is no rush give elliott one game and if its another stinker move on

My sense of urgency is this - I'm in second and playing the team in first in a really tight battle. I've got a lock on 2/3 goalie categories (punting wins at this point even down just one) and could make up some ground in the skater categories with some crafty pickups. I only get one shot at him before the playoffs and I'd like to make it count. There is prize money for the President's Trophy.

i like to keep the handcuff.

If it's urgent, then I think you do it now. Obviously, it's a huge IF about Halak remaining healthy, but I'd cut your handcuff away and pick up one of those forwards. Hemsky, another band aid boy is certainly at the top of that heap for me.

Good luck!