All kinds of protection issues, brain may explode! Help!

[Flan]

I've been rebuilding now for 3 seasons after winning the league and selling off all my vets. Now I am at the point where I think my team is ready to compete but my young players are no longer exempt from protection rules and I have to make some hard decisions. My team and league scoring info is in my sig. We are currently doing our prospect draft and I can make trades up until it ends and then my 13 protected player list is due. I have bolded the guys I think I want to keep in my sig.
I am heavy stacked on Defense and am thinking I might have to explore trading one of them in a package for a LW. Also Goalie cats are huge and the teams that win usually have 3 solid goalies. Varlamov is exempt from protection still due to age and games played so I do not have to count him as one of my 13 keepers.
Do I keep guys like J.Staal, Spezza, J. Neal and Voracek over S.Downie, V.Leino, T.Vokoun? Staal, Neal and Voracek all have great upside if they play with the right guys but Downie brings other categories and I probably need Vokoun to solidify the goalie position with 4 out of 10 cats going to goalies.
Sorry my head is all over the place any help or thoughts on what I should do would be appreciated. again my full end of year roster is in my sig. We roster 20 players during the season

[fantasyhockeygeek]

If you're making a push for the title in a league that has 4/11 categories assigned to goalies, I'd recommend keeping Vokoun over Jordan Staal. Heck, in your scoring setup, I'd be keeping Steve Downie over Jordan Staal. You tagged both of these yourself in your post -- your intuition seems right to me.

Clearly you're bursting at D -- that's the place to create the extra roster spot to keep Downie and Vokoun... see if you can package two big names (say Goligoski and Karlsson) for a top-end LW. That would tidy things up for you rather nicely.

[wendelclark17]

Ok so with 4 of 10 cats coming from Goalies you have to keep Vokoun as that gives you some great depth in goal. If you do keep Varlamov who off your prospect roster are you going to drop? I would suggest Lehner (dont think you need 5 goalies so really your pick between Markstrom and Lehner) or Filatov (im not sold that he is really that good but him possibly lining up with Spezza is intriguing) Is there a trade MArket for Golaie prospects? if so see which of Lehner/Markstrom you can get more for. As for the main 13 keepers as I said Vokoun has to be one of them, your D is stacked enough so I would consider trading/dropping one of Suter or Pronger (Prongers trade value is probably pretty low). I woudl try and trade Staal plus one fo your D for an upgrade at either centre or a second left winger.

[Flan]

Thanks for the response guys!
Hockeypoolgeek I guess the thing with Staal is last year he was supposed to get a chance to play with Malkin but do to injury never had the chance so it kind of sucks to drop that potential assuming everyone in Pitt is healthy to start the season. But yea Downie and Vokoun are 2 guys I want to try and work onto the protection list so looks like I am gonna have to try and trade some D and or drop Staal.

Wendel, the way we do our league its a bit tricky. Farm players must be under 24 and played under 100 games to be allowed on the farm that will not be on the yahoo roster. BUT you can have other players that are young that you don't need to protect. If they are under 24 years old or played in less than 200 NHL games by the beginning of the season (whichever comes first) they are exempt from protection So Varlamov I will have on my main roster to start the year but he won't count toward the 13 keepers, I basically will just have one less player to pick in the waiver draft to fill the roster.

[MT319]

replace J.Staal for Vokoun easily

take some D and package w/ forward in 2 for 1's for forward upgrades and then you'll be in good shape