First Cap Team Feedback, Prospect Draft Advice

[Melinobuds]

Just finished my first ever cap league draft (2nd team in sig, about a half million under the cap with no one left to be signed). Prospect draft is starting this weekend. I own 9th overall as well as 32nd, 49th, 72nd etc for 15 rounds (20 teams). All drafted players from this years draft along with all skaters with 40 or less games played and goalies with 25 or less games played are available to be drafted. I was just looking for some feedback on my first salary cap team I've drafted and some suggestions on what players I should be targeting with my prospect draft picks (at least for the first few rounds).

Thanks!

[tobias]

My initial thoughts:

- Looks like a pretty well-balanced team; almost too balanced, at the expense of pure offence.
- NEED ANOTHER GOALIE! I am not sold at all on Hutchinson. I am also not sure of what prospect goalie you could draft to give you any sort of consistent starts this year. If you have a weekly mandatory goalie appearance number, you might need to make a trade for another goalie.
- It scares me that your stud forward is Taylor Hall. You're one, very likely, injury away from losing a lot of offensive flare in your lineup. I'm a Hall owner myself (also in an AAV league, mind you, only 10 teams), and I go back and forth every day about whether I should capitalize on the McDavid hype and trade him myself. You might want to explore trade options that involve Hall+ for a goalie+.

Who to target? I'd probably just click my way through here and make notes and decisions based off this as a good starting point: http://www.hockeysfuture.com/article...king/#/slide/1

[JagrBomb]

it looks like you might have spent some high draft picks on D. not sure if that's a good ideas as those guys will be eating a chunk of your cap.

personally i would have loaded up on offense, and used the later rounds to grab cheap D that perform very well in Hits/Blks.

dont take this the wrong way but i dont think you drafted a championship team.

[Moses]

I echo the goalie comment. In a 20 team league with 5 goalie CATS tenders are HUGE! There will be a class divide of goalie have teams and goalie have not teams, Right now you are barley in the middle. You are going to need more goaltending. Draft as many goalies as you can, especially in the middle rounds. With the 9th pick you could probably grab a good young goalie. You could think about Zatkoff in Pittsburgh to match up with Fleury - at this point it looks like he could be the back up this year. Think of the goalies you draft as assets, not ones that may necessarily play for you. In any "goalie trade" in your league you are going to have to give a goalie(s) back in exchange. If you try to upgrade to 'goalie X' you are going to have to surrender a really good skater and a lesser goalie (or two). When it is all said and done you are going to want 2 stud goalies and a third goalie who is the best you can get (for a 3rd guy).

[Melinobuds]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I've got a lot to work with here. Lots of time to made some moves as well. For the goalie issue, we can only start one at a time so I feel like that de-valued many goalies in our initial draft. There are many serviceable goalies still left unclaimed like Howard, Lehtonen, Smith, Miller, Hammond, Stalock, Reimer and a few others. I went with Hutchinson because of his miniscule cap hit but I'll look into shoring up that position with a trade and/or a pickup if it works for my team.

[jmouland]

NHL cap in a 20 team league means LOTS of high priced free agents. With that cap and those stats I think you've got a very good team actually. The team in my sig has virtually the same categories but an 85 mil cap. I think your team is a playoff team in my league even with the significant cap constraints.

In leagues with FOW (or FO%) as a category I try to build my team around strong C. They have a category to themselves plus they contribute to all the categories the wingers do too. I think praba's suggestion of depth Dmen that crush hit/blk is the way to build a D in a deep league like this too (Stone, Despres, Lovejoy etc.). I probably wouldn't roster a guy like Ellis who has some marginal potential to put up good point totals but won't really get you anything else. I might also try to capitalize on Reilly (I'm assuming Morgan) hype at some point but you aren't likely to find a better contributor for his price right now.

I don't think the other commentors noticed your tight cap situation and I would say you have done a very good job getting key contributors on entry level deals.

Players I would target in the prospect draft: forwards - because they tend to be able to jump into the NHL and adjust a little quicker than Dmen. They'll also get you more points generally. lots of good options at 9. You could nab a guy like Ehlers, Bennett, Teravainen with that first pick. After that I'd take high upside guys that might fall to you like Mantha, Pulkkinen, Barzal, Nylander, etc. Once the high upside guys are gone I'd go for mature guys that haven't played any games and may slip past some GMs; Panarin, Moses, Plotnikov, those types.

It's a bit long-winded but I hope it helps!

[Moses]

I echo the goalie comment. In a 20 team league with 5 goalie CATS tenders are HUGE! There will be a class divide of goalie have teams and goalie have not teams, Right now you are barley in the middle. You are going to need more goaltending. Draft as many goalies as you can, especially in the middle rounds. With the 9th pick you could probably grab a good young goalie. You could think about Zatkoff in Pittsburgh to match up with Fleury - at this point it looks like he could be the back up this year. Think of the goalies you draft as assets, not ones that may necessarily play for you. In any "goalie trade" in your league you are going to have to give a goalie(s) back in exchange. If you try to upgrade to 'goalie X' you are going to have to surrender a really good skater and a lesser goalie (or two). When it is all said and done you are going to want 2 stud goalies and a third goalie who is the best you can get (for a 3rd guy).

You would know your league best. I still think that you want to have another goalie option even at only one start per night. Before grabbing any other goalie I would look at what nights the Penguins play and cross reference against other teams. Find the team that has the 'opposite' schedule as the Pens and get that team's goalie. Which ever 'that' goalie is will have much more fantasy impact for your team on a week-to-week basis than Drew Stafford.

[Melinobuds]

Legit advice everyone, thanks!