Deciding on 19 keepers

[grimey22]

I'm trying to decide what to do with my team heading into the offseason. Our H2H league has 10 teams with 19 players each. I currently have a couple of extra players stashed on my IR plus I'm picking 2nd overall in next year's draft so I'm likely going to have to find room for Eichel on my team, meaning I'll have to dump 3 players. There are also some interesting prospects still available as FA at the moment (Pastrnak, Domi, Draisaitl, Wennberg, Duclair)

Categories - G, A, P, PIM, PPG, PPA, SOG, Hits - Wins, GAA, Saves, SV%, SO
Active Roster - 2C, 2L, 2R, 4D, 2Util, 2G
My current team (have a lot of multi-positional players, so I'll separate them for clarity):
Centers - Stepan, Scheifele, Granlund, Sam Bennett
C/LW - Couture, Schenn, Teravainen
LW - Landeskog, E. Kane, Ehlers
C/RW - Stamkos, MacKinnon, Nylander
RW - Yakupov, Toffoli

D - Karlsson, Pietrangelo, Ekblad, Trouba

G - Quick, Lehtonen

If this were your team what would you do if you weren't able to pull a trade that would clear space?

[Dobber]

If it were my team, I wouldn't like the idea of dropping any of those players. I also don't like the idea of seeing Pastnak, Domi, Draisaitl and Duclair sitting there as FA. So I would be hard at work trading my players away - two for ones, three for twos, players just for picks. Without being in your league and understanding the value of picks, I'd be making offers that people couldn't refuse - Granlund, Teravainen, Nylander would all be traded for draft picks. I'd package Stepan and Lehtonen for a better goalie. Then I'd claim either Draisaitl or Pastrnak.

There are players I'd "wish" to get rid of (Kane, Yak) but now is not the time to move those two.

[grimey22]

Thanks Dobber! After finishing 9th in a 10 team league, it's nice to get a little confirmation from an expert that I'm on the right track! To give you an idea of our draft, two years ago looked something like this

1. MacKinnon 2. Drouin 3. Barkov 4. Nichushkin 5. Jones 6. Read 7. Monahan 8. Schwartz 9. Enstrom 10. Rielly 11. Hertl 12. Grabovski 13. Jenner 14. Boedker 15. Barrie 16. Krug 17. J. Jokinen

The year before that:

1. Yakupov 2. Kreider 3. Galchenyuk 4. Granlund 5. Silfverberg 6. Marleau 7. Schultz 8. Michalek 9. Tarasenko 10. Brunner 11. M. Foligno 12. Hodgson 13. Barrie 14. Scheifele

As you can see, things get sparse after the first round. Since it's a full keeper, picking up a player requires dropping one so sometimes the second round can nab a sleeper that someone dropped but for the most part first rounders are the only thing with value. I've tried trading Lehtonen several times but with only 10 teams, it's tough to get anyone to bite! I guess I could try to target someone with extra tenders and offer two or more skaters, then just drop Lehtonen or hold on to him and see if Dallas ever gets a decent system in place.

[Oakville Squires]

If I had to drop three players from your roster they would probably be Schenn, Lethonen and Granlund. I would also seriously consider picking up Pastrnak and dropping Teravainen.

[grimey22]

Thanks, I'd drop Lehtonen outright but I need 2 tenders on my roster. So I'd have to pick up a goalie to replace him which doesn't reduce my roster size. I was leaning toward Schenn and Teravainen - Teravainen simply because he may have a little bit of work to crack the Hawks' lineup. Schenn seems to be taking a while to hit his potential and this year was technically supposed to be his magical 4th year, but he's really only played 2 or 3 full seasons-worth of games so I'd hate to drop him and have him explode next year on a line with Giroux and Voracek. Plus Schenn puts up a lot of hits, which my team tends to struggle with. Granlund is going into his 4th year next year as well and seems to have found a spot on the top line with Parise and Pominville so it's tough to say goodbye to him too. I guess the problem is a lot of my players are being evaluated more on potential rather than actual output. Maybe if I can't find trading partners, I'll have to go to a 'what have you done for me lately?' mindset.