Slightly longer view

[Shoeless]

Team in signature.

Focusing on forwards only (I know where I am at and what I need to do with D and G).

Going into the 6th season with this team and I have never before had the luxury of quality forwards on my farm (Galchenyuk and RJ). I have a pretty competitive set of forwards as they sit with some potential in Mueller and Okposo, but there is certainly room for improvement. Just not completely sure who I should be counting on down the road.

In this league, Sedin, Doan, Pavelski, Ott, Brown are top 100 producers. A healthy Lupul would be as well. Stastny with a bounce back would make the grade as well. Burrows and Vanek are what I would consider bubble guys - good enough but ripe for upgrading. Mueller and Okposo are bench guys worth hanging onto in case they show but ultimately tradeable I think. Stepan I like but he needs to take another step up to be solid for me. Morrow is fluff at the moment. I have two centers as solid prospects.

Don't think I am in a big hurry to make moves but I have a sense that I might be a couple of decent keepers over the limit come season's end and wonder if I should be working the trade wires shortly after the season restarts (if it does).

What do you think?

[Maaaasquito]

I dunno kinda an open-ended question, hahaha...

With out seeing the rest of the league it's hard to compare how your team ranks among the others.

Only thing that jumped out at me right away was 2 G, and you only had Price and Greiss in a 12-teamer, so that was a bit of a woah! at me.

With that said having W and L is different, I don't see very many leagues that have W and L so you have to pick your starts right...

Also I only really see 1 "star" forward, in H. Sedin, which has me scratching my head a bit... so I'm just wondering where all the other forwards have gone, but then again over 6 years things have changed quite a bit.

As for your bench I dunno I think they have a lot of value... Morrow has been hurt, but in your settings he's gold if he can stay healthy... his HITs, SOG, PIM and points aren't too shabby. With the depth that they have, I could see the Stars moving him at the deadline to get "younger", but he could go to a team for a solidified top 6 role and still have plenty of fantasy impact in your settings.

I dunno your prospects are good that in a couple of seasons should replace guy slike Stepan, Mueller, Okposo (if they don't pan out), so I mean there's not much you can really do at the moment.

Would it make sense to perhaps dangle Sedin out there to see what you can land in return? I mean if you can get say a Thornton + a small upgrade somewhere else it might be worth investigating?

[jsuites]

For a better sense of this league, who are the five top forward FAs available with your settings?

[Shoeless]

For a better sense of this league, who are the five top forward FAs available with your settings?

Well if you go on Yahoo rankings its Smyth, Alfie, Dorsett, Umberger, MacArthur, Bert, S. Koivu

[jsuites]

Well if you go on Yahoo rankings its Smyth, Alfie, Dorsett, Umberger, MacArthur, Bert, S. Koivu

If you look at forwards alone, my inclination would be to try and deal Lupul and Doan for an upgrade at LW, since you could bring in a player like Alfie to replace Doan at RW. IMO Doan's best years are behind hm, and there is probably a Leafs fan out there willing to overpay a bit for Lupul.

But if you are going to get a second goalie first, it probably makes sense to wait and see what your overall team looks like after that.

[Shoeless]

I dunno kinda an open-ended question, hahaha...

With out seeing the rest of the league it's hard to compare how your team ranks among the others.

Only thing that jumped out at me right away was 2 G, and you only had Price and Greiss in a 12-teamer, so that was a bit of a woah! at me.

With that said having W and L is different, I don't see very many leagues that have W and L so you have to pick your starts right...

Also I only really see 1 "star" forward, in H. Sedin, which has me scratching my head a bit... so I'm just wondering where all the other forwards have gone, but then again over 6 years things have changed quite a bit.

As for your bench I dunno I think they have a lot of value... Morrow has been hurt, but in your settings he's gold if he can stay healthy... his HITs, SOG, PIM and points aren't too shabby. With the depth that they have, I could see the Stars moving him at the deadline to get "younger", but he could go to a team for a solidified top 6 role and still have plenty of fantasy impact in your settings.

I dunno your prospects are good that in a couple of seasons should replace guy slike Stepan, Mueller, Okposo (if they don't pan out), so I mean there's not much you can really do at the moment.

Would it make sense to perhaps dangle Sedin out there to see what you can land in return? I mean if you can get say a Thornton + a small upgrade somewhere else it might be worth investigating?

Yeah its an open question because I honestly don't know a better question to ask. I am fully aware that I need to fix my goalie situation - there is a finger in the dike thing available in Theo. I kinda was waiting on the Luongo thing and just generally seeing how the season unfolds.

My focus on D is probably the reason I don't have more glitter at forward - had to replace Lidstrom for one and generally have been beefing up on high end D guys over the past couple of seasons. My major move last season was to get Price so again that slows down the forward upgrading as well. Goaltending has long been a weakness as guys in this league really hoard them.

I think you are right that Sedin is movable in the right deal and that is always an option I look at - he is a pretty solid contributor in points, PPP and FOW which keeps me from getting aggressive in dealing him - but a dangle wouldn't do any harm for sure.

I wonder if I am trying to figure out if this team is close enough to making a run if I upgrade in goal and land one higher end forward or if I need to slide along one more year and look to some more development in some of my guys and then make the push?

[Shoeless]

If you look at forwards alone, my inclination would be to try and deal Lupul and Doan for an upgrade at LW, since you could bring in a player like Alfie to replace Doan at RW. IMO Doan's best years are behind hm, and there is probably a Leafs fan out there willing to overpay a bit for Lupul.

But if you are going to get a second goalie first, it probably makes sense to wait and see what your overall team looks like after that.

Yeah I dunno - Doan is pretty solid in this kind of league with a 4 year contract and Alfie is close to being done. I actually think Okposo might be a better fit to replace Doan as a starter. The beauty of Lupul is that when he isn't injured he brings a load and when he is injured he simply goes to IR.

i think I will dangle both as you suggest and see what might come of things. Thanks.

[notoriousjim]

you have a lot of swiss army knife type players, and not enough pure points guys. Really burrows, ott, doan, pavelski, and brown are all good players in this format, but part of what you need is a few guys like hank that really get you the core stats.

[cdubb]

Here's my roster in comparison. In the offseason I took over the last place team which had the 1st overall prospect pick, and made 4 trades.

C: Briere, Desharnais, Gagner

RW: Seguin, Voracek, Havlat

LW: Neal, Lucic, Couture

D: Letang, Campbell, Pitkanen, Carlson, Schultz, Orpik

G: Luongo, Schneider, Backstrom

Bench: Boyle, Clutterbuck, Vrbata, Steen, Prospal.

FARM: Holtby, Yakupov, Kreider, Beaulieu, Dumba, Hamilton

We were talking a potential goalie trade earlier, and I'd be open to doing a deal fair for both of us as I'm in a rebuild.

[Maaaasquito]

Yeah its an open question because I honestly don't know a better question to ask. I am fully aware that I need to fix my goalie situation - there is a finger in the dike thing available in Theo. I kinda was waiting on the Luongo thing and just generally seeing how the season unfolds.

My focus on D is probably the reason I don't have more glitter at forward - had to replace Lidstrom for one and generally have been beefing up on high end D guys over the past couple of seasons. My major move last season was to get Price so again that slows down the forward upgrading as well. Goaltending has long been a weakness as guys in this league really hoard them.

I think you are right that Sedin is movable in the right deal and that is always an option I look at - he is a pretty solid contributor in points, PPP and FOW which keeps me from getting aggressive in dealing him - but a dangle wouldn't do any harm for sure.

I wonder if I am trying to figure out if this team is close enough to making a run if I upgrade in goal and land one higher end forward or if I need to slide along one more year and look to some more development in some of my guys and then make the push?

Yeah I think it depends how the other teams are structured, if most of the top teams are in similar situation as you where every team has their 1 superstar player and filled with star players as compliments then you should be okay to compete, but if there's a really strong team out there then I might taper it back a bit.

Can you post the team's roster that won it last year, just so I have something to compare it to?

[cdubb]

Here are all the rosters copied and pasted. There are a few really stacked teams. Doesn't include farm teams.

Rusty's Ringers
C Sidney Crosby (Pit - C)
C Evgeni Malkin (Pit - C,RW)
C Patrice Bergeron (Bos - C)
LW Zach Parise (Min - LW)
LW Scott Hartnell (Phi - LW)
LW Gabriel Landeskog (Col - LW)
RW Patrick Sharp (Chi - C,RW)
RW Phil Kessel (Tor - RW)
RW David Backes (StL - C,RW)
D Dustin Byfuglien (Wpg - RW,D)
D Zdeno Chara (Bos - D)
D Dion Phaneuf (Tor - D)
D Dennis Seidenberg (Bos - D)
D Stephane Robidas (Dal - D)
D Christian Ehrhoff (Buf - D)
Util Ryan Callahan (NYR - RW)
G Pekka Rinne (Nsh - G)
G Tuukka Rask (Bos - G)
BN Blake Wheeler (Wpg - RW)
BN Roman Josi (Nsh - D)


Scrunts
C Henrik Sedin (Van - C)
C Derek Stepan (NYR - C)
C Paul Stastny (Col - C)
LW Alexandre Burrows (Van - LW,RW)
LW Thomas Vanek (Buf - LW)
LW Shane Doan (Pho - LW,RW)
RW Joffrey Lupul (Tor - LW,RW)
RW Joe Pavelski (SJ - C,RW)
RW Dustin Brown (LA - LW,RW)
D Andrei Markov (Mon - D)
D Sergei Gonchar (Ott - D)
D Erik Karlsson (Ott - D)
D Drew Doughty (LA - D)
D Erik Johnson (Col - D)
D P.K. Subban (Mon - D)
Util Steve Ott (Buf - C,LW)
G Carey Price (Mon - G)
G Thomas Greiss (SJ - G)
BN Brenden Morrow (Dal - LW)
BN Peter Mueller (Fla - C)
BN Kyle Okposo (NYI - RW)
BN Slava Voynov (LA - D)
BN Stefan Elliott (Col - D)


Choppers
C Andy McDonald (StL - C,LW)
C Tuomo Ruutu (Car - C,LW)
C Mike Ribeiro (Was - C)
LW Nikolai Kulemin (Tor - LW,RW)
LW Dany Heatley (Min - LW,RW)
LW Jiri Hudler (Cgy - LW)
RW Chris Stewart (StL - RW)
RW Jeff Skinner (Car - C,RW)
RW Justin Williams (LA - RW)
D Jay Bouwmeester (Cgy - D)
D Tom Gilbert (Min - D)
D Mark Giordano (Cgy - D)
D Niklas Kronwall (Det - D)
D Ryan Suter (Min - D)
D Lubomir Visnovsky (NYI - D)
Util Brad Richards (NYR - C)
G Martin Brodeur (NJ - G)
G Semyon Varlamov (Col - G)
BN Jason Pominville (Buf - RW)
BN Evander Kane (Wpg - LW)
BN James van Riemsdyk (Tor - LW)
BN Jakob Silfverberg (Ott - RW)
BN Michal Neuvirth (Was - G)

Steelheads
C Mikhail Grabovski (Tor - C)
C Valtteri Filppula (Det - C,LW)
C Vincent Lecavalier (TB - C)
LW Kris Versteeg (Fla - LW,RW)
LW Ilya Kovalchuk (NJ - LW)
LW Max Pacioretty (Mon - LW)
RW Drew Stafford (Buf - RW)
RW Marian Gaborik (NYR - RW)
RW T.J. Oshie (StL - C,RW)
D Grant Clitsome (Wpg - D)
D Michael Del Zotto (NYR - D)
D Travis Hamonic (NYI - D)
D Jamie McBain (Car - D)
D Brent Seabrook (Chi - D)
D Brendan Smith (Det - D)
Util Adam Henrique (NJ - C)
G Marc-Andre Fleury (Pit - G)
G Cam Ward (Car - G)
BN P.A. Parenteau (Col - RW)
BN Ray Whitney (Dal - LW)
BN Travis Zajac (NJ - C)
BN Sven Baertschi (Cgy - LW)
BN Craig Anderson (Ott - G)


Smackvillains
C Patrick Kane (Chi - C,RW)
C Tyler Ennis (Buf - C,LW)
C David Krejci (Bos - C)
LW Rick Nash (NYR - LW)
LW Taylor Hall (Edm - LW)
LW Jamie Benn (Dal - C,LW)
RW Corey Perry (Anh - RW)
RW Jordan Eberle (Edm - RW)
RW Martin St. Louis (TB - RW)
D Keith Yandle (Pho - D)
D Kevin Shattenkirk (StL - D)
D Victor Hedman (TB - D)
D Cam Fowler (Anh - D)
D Justin Faulk (Car - D)
D Jake Gardiner (Tor - D)
Util Brad Marchand (Bos - C,LW)
G Jaroslav Halak (StL - G)
G Kari Lehtonen (Dal - G)
BN Alex Burmistrov (Wpg - C,RW)
BN Patrik Berglund (StL - C)
BN Magnus Paajarvi (Edm - LW)
BN Artem Anisimov (Cls - C,LW)
BN Anders Lindback (TB - G)

Unglaublich
C Danny Briere (Phi - C,RW)
C David Desharnais (Mon - C)
C Brian Boyle (NYR - C)
LW Logan Couture (SJ - C,LW)
LW James Neal (Pit - LW,RW)
LW Milan Lucic (Bos - LW)
RW Sam Gagner (Edm - C,RW)
RW Tyler Seguin (Bos - C,RW)
RW Jakub Voracek (Phi - RW)
D Kris Letang (Pit - D)
D John Carlson (Was - D)
D Brian Campbell (Fla - D)
D Joni Pitkanen (Car - D)
D Jared Spurgeon (Min - D)
D Brooks Orpik (Pit - D)
Util Cal Clutterbuck (Min - RW)
G Roberto Luongo (Van - G)
G Cory Schneider (Van - G)
BN Alex Steen (StL - C,LW)
BN Radim Vrbata (Pho - RW)
BN Martin Havlat (SJ - RW)
BN Vinny Prospal (Cls - C,LW)
BN Niklas Backstrom (Min - G)

RockemSockemRobots
C Eric Staal (Car - C)
C Jordan Staal (Car - C,LW)
C Pavel Datsyuk (Det - C,LW)
LW Nick Foligno (Cls - LW)
LW Chris Kunitz (Pit - LW)
LW Johan Franzen (Det - LW,RW)
RW Jarome Iginla (Cgy - RW)
RW Michael Ryder (Dal - RW)
RW Martin Erat (Nsh - RW)
D Kimmo Timonen (Phi - D)
D Ryan McDonagh (NYR - D)
D James Wisniewski (Cls - D)
D Duncan Keith (Chi - D)
D Matt Carle (TB - D)
D Jason Garrison (Van - D)
Util Ryan O'Reilly (Col - C)
G Miikka Kiprusoff (Cgy - G)
G Tomas Vokoun (Pit - G)
BN Viktor Stalberg (Chi - LW)
BN Derek Roy (Dal - C)
BN Troy Brouwer (Was - RW)
BN Tim Thomas (Bos - G)
BN Josh Harding (Min - G)


Lynch Mob
C Anze Kopitar (LA - C)
C Tomas Plekanec (Mon - C)
C --empty--
LW Milan Michalek (Ott - LW,RW)
LW Tomas Fleischmann (Fla - LW)
LW Andrew Ladd (Wpg - LW)
RW Erik Cole (Mon - RW)
RW Brian Gionta (Mon - RW)
RW David Clarkson (NJ - RW)
D Sheldon Souray (Anh - D)
D Dan Girardi (NYR - D)
D Mark Streit (NYI - D)
D Ian White (Det - D)
D Jack Johnson (Cls - D)
D Jared Cowen (Ott - D)
Util Olli Jokinen (Wpg - C)
G Devan Dubnyk (Edm - G)
G --empty--
BN Jamie McGinn (Col - LW)
BN Matt D'Agostini (StL - RW)
BN Chris Higgins (Van - LW)
BN Ryan Strome (NYI - C)
BN Ilya Bryzgalov (Phi - G)
BN Henrik Lundqvist (NYR - G)
BN Sergei Bobrovsky (Cls - G)


Youngbloodz
C Nicklas Backstrom (Was - C)
C Mikko Koivu (Min - C)
C Jeff Carter (LA - C)
LW Alex Ovechkin (Was - LW)
LW Henrik Zetterberg (Det - C,LW)
LW Bobby Ryan (Anh - LW)
RW Ales Hemsky (Edm - RW)
RW Wayne Simmonds (Phi - RW)
RW Devin Setoguchi (Min - RW)
D Andrej Meszaros (Phi - D)
D Shea Weber (Nsh - D)
D Kevin Bieksa (Van - D)
D Brent Burns (SJ - D)
D Nick Leddy (Chi - D)
D --empty--
Util Patrik Elias (NJ - C,LW)
G Ryan Miller (Buf - G)
G Mike Smith (Pho - G)
BN Kyle Palmieri (Anh - C)
BN Brandon Dubinsky (Cls - C,LW)NA
BN Patrick Marleau (SJ - C,LW)
BN Brayden Schenn (Phi - C)
BN Jonathan Huberdeau (Fla - C)
BN Jhonas Enroth (Buf - G)

Saints
C Andrew Shaw (Chi - C)
C John Tavares (NYI - C)
C Jason Spezza (Ott - C)
LW Pascal Dupuis (Pit - LW,RW)
LW Loui Eriksson (Dal - LW,RW)
LW Daniel Sedin (Van - LW)
RW Chris Neil (Ott - RW)
RW Marian Hossa (Chi - RW)
RW Teddy Purcell (TB - RW)
D Dan Hamhuis (Van - D)
D Braydon Coburn (Phi - D)
D Dan Boyle (SJ - D)
D Alexander Edler (Van - D)
D Oliver Ekman-Larsson (Pho - D)
D Tobias Enstrom (Wpg - D)
Util Jonathan Toews (Chi - C)
G Corey Crawford (Chi - G)
G Antti Niemi (SJ - G)
BN Cam Atkinson (Cls - RW)
BN Brooks Laich (Was - C)
BN Matt Moulson (NYI - LW)
BN Steve Mason (Cls - G)
BN Ondrej Pavelec (Wpg - G)

SirKnight's Squires
C Steven Stamkos (TB - C)
C Matt Duchene (Col - C,LW)
C Stephen Weiss (Fla - C)
LW Alexander Semin (Car - LW,RW)
LW Steve Downie (Col - LW,RW)
LW David Booth (Van - LW)
RW Patric Hornqvist (Nsh - RW)
RW Matt Read (Phi - RW)
RW Jaromir Jagr (Dal - RW)
D Dennis Wideman (Cgy - D)
D Luke Schenn (Phi - D)
D Tyler Myers (Buf - D)
D Alex Goligoski (Dal - D)
D Ryan Ellis (Nsh - D)
D Adam Larsson (NJ - D)
Util Kyle Turris (Ott - C)
G Jonas Hiller (Anh - G)
G Jonathan Quick (LA - G)
BN Brandon Sutter (Pit - C)
BN Alex Tanguay (Cgy - LW)
BN Bryan Little (Wpg - C,RW)
BN Ryane Clowe (SJ - LW,RW)
BN Marcus Foligno (Buf - LW)

Getzlaf's Gang
C Ryan Getzlaf (Anh - C)
C Joe Thornton (SJ - C)
C Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Edm - C)
LW Michael Cammalleri (Cgy - C,LW)
LW David Perron (StL - LW)
LW Mike Richards (LA - C,LW)
RW --empty--
RW Teemu Selanne (Anh - RW)
RW Claude Giroux (Phi - C,RW)
D Ryan Whitney (Edm - D)
D --empty--
D Zach Bogosian (Wpg - D)
D Mike Green (Was - D)
D Dmitry Kulikov (Fla - D)
D Alex Pietrangelo (StL - D)
Util Ryan Kesler (Van - C)
G Mathieu Garon (TB - G)
G Jimmy Howard (Det - G)
BN Mike Fisher (Nsh - C)
BN Nathan Horton (Bos - RW)
BN Brian Elliott (StL - G)
BN Evgeni Nabokov (NYI - G)

[Maaaasquito]

Here's my roster in comparison. In the offseason I took over the last place team which had the 1st overall prospect pick, and made 4 trades.

C: Briere, Desharnais, Gagner

RW: Seguin, Voracek, Havlat

LW: Neal, Lucic, Couture

D: Letang, Campbell, Pitkanen, Carlson, Schultz, Orpik

G: Luongo, Schneider, Backstrom

Bench: Boyle, Clutterbuck, Vrbata, Steen, Prospal.

FARM: Holtby, Yakupov, Kreider, Beaulieu, Dumba, Hamilton

We were talking a potential goalie trade earlier, and I'd be open to doing a deal fair for both of us as I'm in a rebuild.

Could you two not look at Briere, Neal, Backstrom for Sedin, Vanek, Greiss as a starting point?

I mean you have Luongo and Schneider so that kinda covers you for at least the Van starting goalies, and if Luongo goes to FLA you're now set with 2 and Backstrom wouldn't really be played anyways.

Plus you have pretty good future protection in Holtby anyways.

Shoe would lose a bit in FW, but you're essentially gaining in everything else with hits, points, PPP, PIM and of course the goalie stats...

I dunno makes sense to me...

Briere, Stepan, Stastny
Neal, Burrows, Lupul
Doan, Pavelski, Brown
Ott
Karlsson, Doughty, Johnson, Subban, Gonchar Markov
Price, Backstrom

Sedin, Desharnais, Gagner
Seguin, Voracek, Havlat
Vanek, Lucic, Couture
Letang, Campbell, Pitkanen, Carlson, Schultz, Orpik
Luongo, Schneider, Greiss

[Maaaasquito]

Yeeesh just glancing at it briefly...

Shoe, I would say you have no chance next year with your roster...

Getzlaf's Gang looks pretty strong, goalies a bit weak and weak peripherally, but still pretty good.

Youngbloodz isn't bad either.

Rusty looks very strong as well... Rask getting number 1 status will really help his team this year.

[Shoeless]

you have a lot of swiss army knife type players, and not enough pure points guys. Really burrows, ott, doan, pavelski, and brown are all good players in this format, but part of what you need is a few guys like hank that really get you the core stats.

Generally I agree with you Jim, at least one more player scoring in the mid 70's would make a difference and more than that even better. Stastny, Vanek, Doughty and Subban didn't post the numbers I expected them to there is some room for optimism there, but 5 more points each isn't going to get it done either. Although the skater side of my roster is competitive with all but perhaps 1 other team in the league - my team beat the two finalists in our league last year in 3 out of 4 regular season matches. The best team finished 3rd - I finished 10th.

I don't know, guys in this league don't trade 70 point + players for increased depth so you have to be forking over studly prospects and picks to get ahead in the short term. I think I need to see what happens for RJ, Galy, Stastny, Mueller, Okposo before I start sinking funds into upgraded forwards actually.

[Shoeless]

Yeeesh just glancing at it briefly...

Shoe, I would say you have no chance next year with your roster...

Getzlaf's Gang looks pretty strong, goalies a bit weak and weak peripherally, but still pretty good.

Youngbloodz isn't bad either.

Rusty looks very strong as well... Rask getting number 1 status will really help his team this year.

I agree Ryan I still think I need another year to massage somethings together. Goaltending is still priority 1.