Offseason plan
I have a busy offseason ahead of me. I am in a fairly good position cap wise since I was able to plan most of my roster so I didn't get too many salary raises at the same time.
Here is my roster:
Centers
Tavares, John - C - NYI $5,500,000 2017-2018
MacKinnon, Nathan - C,RW - COL $6,300,000 2022-2023
Galchenyuk, Alex - C,LW - MON $2,800,000 2017-2018
Spezza, Jason C - DAL $7,500,000 2018-2019
Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan - C - EDM $6,000,000 2020-2021
Zetterberg, Henrik C,LW - DET $6,083,333 2020-2021
Nestrasil, Andrej C - CAR $912,500 2016-2017
Wingers
Pacioretty, Max - LW - MON $4,500,000 2018-2019
Jokinen, Jussi C,W - FLA $4,000,000 2017-2018
Simmonds, Wayne - RW,LW - PHI $3,975,000 2018-2019
Zuccarello, Mats W - NYR $4,500,000 2018-2019
Williams, Justin W - WAS $3,250,000 2016-2017
Jurco, Tomas RW - DET $900,000 2016-2017
Clutterbuck, Cal - LW,RW - NYI $2,750,000 2016-2017
Connolly, Brett - RW - BOS $850,000 2016-2017
Radulov, Alexander W - MON $5,750,000 2016-2017
Defense
Hamonic, Travis - D - NYI $3,857,143 2019-2020
Rielly, Morgan - D - TOR $5,000,000 2020-2021
Ekblad, Aaron - D - FLA $925,000 2016-2017
McNabb, Brayden - D - LA $1,700,000 2017-2018
Klingberg, John D - DAL $4,250,000 2021-2022
Murphy, Connor - D - PHO ??????
Petrovic, Alex D - FLA $1,050,000 2016-2017
Johnson, Erik - D - COL $6,000,000 2022-2023
Byfuglien, Dustin - RW,LW,D - WPG $7,600,000 2020-2021
Total Salary:
$98,773,809
Salary to shed:
$25,773,809.00
Here is my current plan:
Big salaries out through drop or trade:
Spezza (7.5M$), RNH (6M$), Zetterberg (6M$), E. Johnson (6M$)
Fringe players not minor eligible anymore that will probably leave as well:
Nestrasil, Andrej C - CAR
Jurco, Tomas RW - DET
Still debating with Connolly, Brett - RW - BOS (Will he get a chance with the Capitals?)
With Byfuglien losing his winger eligibility, I'm stuck with 1 too many D (we can start max 7) and also a whole lot of cap hit on D.
I'm thinking of trading one of my D for a forward to replace either Jurco or Connolly who are, let's face it, fringe players at best.
Jurco used to be in my minors (100 games before they must be in your lineup) and Connolly was a nice option since he does a little bit of everything with a really cheap price tag.
The players that are gathering trade interest at the moment are Byfuglien, Klingberg and Hamonic.
Byfuglien has the biggest cap hit of the 3 but he is also one of the most valuable player I have with my league's setup.
Klingberg is signed for 6 years at a really cheap price tag.
Hamonic is really good in my pool also because he hits/blocks and still produces at all the other cats. He is also signed long term at a really cheap cap hit.
However, I do have McNabb, Petrovic and C. Murphy who are all really cheap options to fill out those hits/blocks stats.
In my minors, I have a few options also to fill out my roster who are not over 100 games, but will soon (this season or next but I won't have to move them in my roster before next offseason if keep them in my minors all season):
Nylander, William (R) C,RW - TOR
Lindberg, Oscar (R) C - NYR
Mantha, Anthony W - DET
Rychel, Kerby (R) LW - CBJ
Ritchie, Brett RW - DAL
Dumoulin, Brian D - PIT
Reinhart, Griffin (R) D - EDM
Reilly, Mike (R) D - MIN
Would a trade of Hamonic for Reilly Smith make any sense?
Should I try to trade Morgan Rielly instead?
What is the feeling on Justin Williams? I acquired him at the trade deadline to try and push for the win. I was loosing in the +/- cat and he was also producing across the board.
Will Jokinen reproduce something similar to last season's totals? He played a lot on Smith and Trocheck's line. Will Bjugstad take his spot?
I'm tempted to try and deal Clutterbuck. The hits category is really a struggle for a lot of teams and he produces really well in that category, however, his 2.75M$ cap hit is getting expensive for his production. Coupled with the retooling I've been doing over the last couple of seasons by adding grit (Byfuglien, Simmonds, McNabb, Petrovic, Muphy, Pacioretty, Zuccarello, etc.) this might be feasible. However, if I do lose Hamonic and E. Johnson, that's approximatly 300 hits gone... What happened to Reilly last season? He went from 96 and 98 hits to 56 last year?
Lastly, would a trade of Rask for Talbot (++) really make sense? That would save me approximately 2M$ for added depth.
In the end, I'm always trying to win. I finished in the top 4 the past 3 seasons (4th, 3rd and 3rd). It's always a tight race and I feel like I have a chance this year again!
Sorry for the really long post, but I felt like I should provide details to help with the advices!
15 teams full keeper league, NHL Salary cap + 10M$ (Cap hit)
ROTO - Weekly lineups
Cats : P, SOG, PPP, TKA, Hit, Blk, W, SV%
12FW, 6D, 2G
C: Eichel, Tavares, Rasmussen, Zacha
W: Ehlers, Mantha, Caufield, Marner, Raymond, Tippett, Tuch
D: Byram, Clifton, Fabbro, Hamilton, Hughes, Matheson, Schneider
G: Grubauer, Forsberg, Francouz (minor eligible)
IR: Wilson, Couturier, Arvidsson, Chychrun