Dynasty, salary cap, $20.269 million over, own picks #1 and #2. Help me form my roster!

[tobias]

Hi everyone,

Title pretty sure says it all. Here is the key information:

• Real life salary cap hits and team salary cap
• Yahoo weekly H2H (daily roster changes)
• G, A, PTS, +/-, PIM, PPP, SOG, W, SV%, GAA, SHO
• 3 C, 3 LW, 3 RW, 4 D, 2 G, 6 Bench
• 21 man roster, no farm
• 2 IR spots and 2 IR+ (DTD) spots (players must be kept on there for a minimum of three weeks, regardless of whether they return to action to not; this sort of protects against a Pekka Rinne situation from last season when he was out for 6+ weeks, but Nashville never put him on the IR, and we did not have any IR+ spots, so the owner had to eat $7 million in salary).

• 8 teams, expanding to 10 teams (Expansion teams have already each drafted 10 free agents at the start of the playoffs; Expansion draft, next, allows new teams to pick up to four non-Keepers each, of which we must provide at least two each. Those not drafted go into our free agents draft).

• I own the top two draft picks in our free agents draft (e.g., McDavid and Eichel).
• Kessel is a free agent (for what it's worth)

Here is my team as it stands at the moment (yes, this team was under the $69 million cap last season!):

Roster Spot	Player	Position(s)	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018
1	Ovechkin	LW/RW	9.538	9.538	9.538
2	Tarasenko	RW	7.5	7.5	7.5
3	Letang	D	7.25	7.25	7.25
4	Couture	C/LW	6	6	6
5	Hall	C/LW	6	6	6
6	Schneider	G	6	6	6
7	Saad	LW/RW	6	6	6
8	Quick	G	5.8	5.8	5.8
9	Byfuglien	RW/D	5.2	UFA
10	Backes	C/RW	4.5	UFA
11	Hornqvist	RW/D	4.25	4.25	4.25
12	Johansen	C/RW	4	4	RFA
13	Lee	C/LW	3.75	3.75	3.75
14	Krug	D	3.4	RFA
15	Toffoli	RW	3.25	3.25	RFA
16	Zibanejad	C/RW	2.625	2.625	RFA
17	Barrie	D	2.6	RFA
18	Vatanen	D	1.262	RFA
19	MacKinnon	C/RW	0.925	RFA
20	Vasilevskiy	G	0.925	0.925	RFA
21	Teravainen	C/LW	0.894	0.894	RFA
	TOTAL		91.669	73.782	62.088
	REMAINING		-20.269

In my opinion, Saad is not worth $6 million in fantasy hockey (not right now, anyway), nor is Ovechkin a luxury who I can afford anymore (unless someone can convince me otherwise).

Swapping McDavid and Eichel in for Saad and Ovechkin, I'm currently looking at this situation:

Roster Spot	Player	Position(s)	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018
1	Tarasenko	RW	7.5	7.5	7.5
2	Letang	D	7.25	7.25	7.25
3	Couture	C/LW	6	6	6
4	Hall	C/LW	6	6	6
5	Schneider	G	6	6	6
6	Quick	G	5.8	5.8	5.8
7	Byfuglien	RW/D	5.2	UFA
8	Backes	C/RW	4.5	UFA
9	Hornqvist	RW/D	4.25	4.25	4.25
10	Johansen	C/RW	4	4	RFA
11	Lee	C/LW	3.75	3.75	3.75
12	Krug	D	3.4	RFA
13	Toffoli	RW	3.25	3.25	RFA
14	Zibanejad	C/RW	2.625	2.625	RFA
15	Barrie	D	2.6	RFA
16	Vatanen	D	1.262	RFA
17	McDavid		0.925	0.925	0.925
18	Eichel		0.925	0.925	0.925
19	MacKinnon	C/RW	0.925	RFA
20	Vasilevskiy	G	0.925	0.925	RFA
21	Teravainen	C/LW	0.894	0.894	RFA
	TOTAL		77.981	60.094	48.4
	REMAINING		-6.581

I know not to play too far ahead in the future in fantasy sports, but a glaring issue that I will be facing a year from now is that I have 5 defensemen who are either RFA (4) or UFA (1).

I have a couple ideas of how I could go about solving my remaining cap issues, but I would love to hear from you guys as to what you might try to do. I suppose another question for you could be who would you deem as my absolute keepers to build around and what pieces are expendable trade bait or simply non-Keepers.

[newper114]

If that was my team I would look to keep ovechkin.

I'm looking to trade these guys to get you under the cap:

Horny
Backes
Quick
Let ang
Couture

Hope that helps

[mounD]

I would look to rid myself of guys like Letang, Couture and Quick firstly. Keep Ovechkin, he's the best player you can own.

[RangerFan]

I would look to rid myself of guys like Letang, Couture and Quick firstly. Keep Ovechkin, he's the best player you can own.

These would be the 3 that I would move first as well. They are not worth their salaries. Combined they are about 20M so you should be good.

[tobias]

Any thoughts on guys like Lee, Toffoli, and Zibanejad? How do their contracts look to you guys? If Lee plays with Tavares, I think it's great, and I think that Toffoli is on the rise, while Zibanejad is about as good as you can get for that low of a price. Are they all worth keeping?

Quick and I have a very love-hate relationship (as I am sure every fantasy owner of him does, as well). His salary is currently only ranked 13th among goalies (Holtby could very well pass him on his next contract, too). I have a hard time giving up on that, but I do totally get how he's more of a "real life" goalie than a "fantasy" goalie.

Dropping the following guys keeps Ovechkin gives me $1.631 to play with. There are enough cheap guys who can make that work. Backes is up after next season, so he's probably not in my long term plans. Do you like the looks of that better than originally posted with Ovechkin?

Letang	7.25
Saad	6
Couture	6
Backes	4.5

Roster Spot	Player	Position(s)	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018
1	Ovechkin	LW/RW	9.538	9.538	9.538
2	Tarasenko	RW	7.5	7.5	7.5
3	Hall	C/LW	6	6	6
4	Schneider	G	6	6	6
5	Quick	G	5.8	5.8	5.8
6	Byfuglien	RW/D	5.2	UFA
7	Hornqvist	RW/D	4.25	4.25	4.25
8	Johansen	C/RW	4	4	RFA
9	Lee	C/LW	3.75	3.75	3.75
10	Krug	D	3.4	RFA
11	Toffoli	RW	3.25	3.25	RFA
12	Zibanejad	C/RW	2.625	2.625	RFA
13	Barrie	D	2.6	RFA
14	Vatanen	D	1.262	RFA
15	McDavid		0.925	0.925	0.925
16	Eichel		0.925	0.925	0.925
17	MacKinnon	C/RW	0.925	RFA
18	Vasilevskiy	G	0.925	0.925	RFA
19	Teravainen	C/LW	0.894	0.894	RFA
20
21
	TOTAL		69.769	56.382	44.688
	REMAINING		1.631

[sammynos]

I would put a few feelers out there for Quick, Letang, Couture, Backes and see what you can get in return. Aim for some future picks and/or cheap defensemen who need another year or two of seasoning.

I would also be looking ahead at next season as well because Buff is a UFA, Mackinnon won't be on a sweatheart ELC, and Krug/Barrie/Vatanen also will get raises.

[Zorro]

If I was in a salary cap league Letang would be the first guy I get rid of.. Love the points but his games missed can't be justified for what he is making dollars wise..

You have a solid team but also alot of young studs who are going to get big time raises soon!!

[tobias]

As the season goes on, I will definitely have to look at bringing in a couple defensemen who are signed for the following season(s). The Klingberg owner is thinking of dropping him and has interest in Quick. He does have Tavares, as well, which I doubt he would ever trade, but perhaps I can float a Quick + Hall for Tavares + Klingberg trade by him? With a required 4 goalie appearances per week, I don't know that I can float a Schneider/Vasilevskiy combo, though.

[Jouko-Pouko]

As the season goes on, I will definitely have to look at bringing in a couple defensemen who are signed for the following season(s). The Klingberg owner is thinking of dropping him and has interest in Quick. He does have Tavares, as well, which I doubt he would ever trade, but perhaps I can float a Quick + Hall for Tavares + Klingberg trade by him? With a required 4 goalie appearances per week, I don't know that I can float a Schneider/Vasilevskiy combo, though.

With required 4 goalie appearances per week, you have to have two starters. So keep Schneider and Quick, they're both signed to good contracts.

Saad is easily the first one to go; he's not worth his cap hit. You don't really have other overpaid players, so put them all on your trade block and see which ones generate most interest. Instead of completely dumping a few players, see if you can trade a bunch of them for cheaper options. And trade a couple of them for top prospects. It takes a lot of work when you're that much over the cap, so don't rush it. If you want an easy answer without doing much work, you're going to lose a lot of value from your team.

[tobias]

Not rushing it is advice that I need to listen to. With that in mind, the guy with the third overall pick (I have 1 and 2 already) would probably trade it for either Toffoli or Lee and my second round pick (18th overall). I'm going to likely need two more ELCs, and I'd rather get one right away, than wait until the 18th pick to get my stab at the first of two more who I will need.

Between Lee and Toffoli, who would you rather keep, in my situation? I think that Toffoli is the better player, but given positional eligibility and contract term, plus the opportunity to play with Tavares, is Lee the better keep for my situation? I'll be starting the contract talks with my third round rather than my second round pick.

Or would you not do this sort of trade at all?

[newper114]

I'd be trying to move someone else than those two but then again 3 mil is good to get off the books if needed. The issue is they are signed to good contracts.

If u can do the deal I'd move lee. He isn't locked to play on that top line just yet.

[tobias]

Our league doesn't officially resume from the summer until mid-August (gives us all time to catch up with our wives and kids and find out what they've been up to for the past 10 months). However, I have had some light conversations with some GMs. I think that I can move either Letang or Couture for a late first round pick. I then think that I can flip that pick for Jonathan Drouin (his current owner has all three of the triplets, plus Drouin = too much invested in one team).

My question is, would you do this? The first part (Letang or Couture for a first round pick) is a no brainer, based on the posts above and the massive amount of cap space that I need to clear.

It's the part about Drouin that I am curious about. Will he take off in the next two (ELC) years to make it worth spending a first round pick on? His ELC will be up the same time that RyJo, TT, Vas, Toffoli, and Zib will be up (assuming that they are all still on my roster; two years is a VERY long time in fantasy sports), so it could be a waste of a pick if he doesn't do much over the next two seasons in comparison to someone else who could help me more immediately in the short term (dare I say, Semin...?!?!?!). I do like that he is a LW, which seems to be my most under-represented position at forward.

I think I should do this. What do you think? I do know that I will need to draft a Dman at some point, but I prefer to spend more money on forwards, and could always find a physical Dman on the cheap to get me PIMs, if necessary (not going to spend a first round pick on a Dman, I don't think).

[newper114]

what would the late first rounder yield you?

and yes I would say this is a slam dunk move on your part. id look to move letang bc he will cost you more money.

then yes flip that pick for drouin and hope for him to get on stamkos's wing like most believe will happen this year (or hope)

[tobias]

In two separate trades, I think that I can move Letang for the 9th overall pick, and Couture for Klingberg. That is a net savings of $8.075 million, and I stay positionally equivalent (I think Couture has a C/LW and Drouin is just LW, but I have enough C already, especially with McD and Eich on the way).

As for the ninth overall pick, I doubt that Bennett (a Drouin comparable) makes it that far, and I would want (need) an ELC, or something similar (e.g., Semin sort of thing... but not willing to potentially waste a pick on him). The guys available are your typical second tier young guys (Burakovsky, Dano, Draisaitl, Horvat) and guys who haven't touched their ELC set (2015 draftees, Ehlers, Nurse, Larkin) since we don't have a farm system.

I think that Drouin trumps them all, except maybe Ehlers? Doesn't seem worth going for Ehlers at the risk of not landing Drouin. Probably best to make this trade and have Drouin as a sure thing. If he doesn't get prime line mates next season, then he will the following season when Stamkos, Kucherov, Killorn, Coburn, Pacquette, etc, all get new contracts.

[newper114]

Yes make those trades. 8 mil savings will be huge and I don't see you losing much production either