Koskinen or Smith?

[bsarak]

Hey all - I’m looking for some advice on whether to try flip Koskinen for Smith.

I’m worried about the Oilers and Koskinen’s reliability for the rest of the season and I may have the option of handcuffing the Calgary goaltenders. My goalies right now are MAF, Rittich, Saros, Koskinen and Raanta on the IR. I know Smith has not been any good, but does he still have some good stretches left in him?

My league is a 1-year 12 team H2H with categories - G, A, +/-, PPP, SHP, PIM, SOG, W, SV%, GAA, SO. Start 2C, 2RW, 2LW 4D, 3Util, 2G.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[GSD]

Since you have Rittich, Smith makes sense. He will have streaks and have his fair share of starts. Calgary is a far better team. I am worried that Koskinen has hit a wall, as he is not used to this many starts.

[tweetdrivr]

Who is available on the wire?

[MZac]

I'd rather have all the Calgary games than possibly, in a worst case scenario for you and admittedly unlikely, the backup for Edmonton and Calgary. Kind of a risk VS reward where I'm taking the sure thing with the better (as an Oiler fan this makes me cringe) Flames team.

Talbot nabs the shutout and if he can put up a couple more quality starts he could easily win the net back. Even if he blows the next start I see some type of split / goalie battle for the forsesble future in Edmonton.

[Hendu]

I'd rather have the Calgary tandem given how that team is playing. I like Kos, but he's been crap the last few turns and the team in front of him is not playing well.

[ericdaoust]

I say neither. Who else is available? How about going with an extra skater and just 3 goalies? Smith could kill two of your goalie categories in a key match-up.

[bsarak]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! My thought process has been similar - that I’d rather have some confidence of having a starter on a good team rather than the uncertainty of a potentially good starter on a very unreliable team.

There aren’t a fortune of options on the wire, the main ones were saros (but I nabbed him), khudobin, ullmark, McE, mrazek, hart, ward, hill, Campbell. Khudobin is probably who I’d be most interested in. I’m hoping saros gets around 1/3 starts toward the end of the season and that the preds rest Rinne more as time goes on. Khudobin may also get 1/3 to 1/2 of starts.

I’ve been thinking that carrying extra goalies over an extra skater right now would help me most as it’s where my team is weakest. I don’t think it’s forever, but just for the time being. There also aren’t a ton of great skater options on the wire.

My team is pretty strong and I’m in first place by 10 points. My weakest categories are PIM, plus minus and shots I’m somewhere in the middle. My team is:

C - Crosby, Seguin
LW - Connor, skinner
RW - wheeler, granlund
D - reilly, krug, klingberg, petry
Util - Atkinson, o’reilly, reinhart
B - nurse
IR - hall, ehlers, klefblom, raanta
G - MAF , rittich, saros

Settings were posted above. With this extra info, do you think you’d do anything differently?

Thanks again!

[bsarak]

Okay - an update. Varly was just dropped - I’m thinking about picking him up. I know he is wildly inconsistent but when he is on, he’s on. What do you think about picking him up over smith or saros?

I am thinking of going after him and running MAF, rittich, smith and varly. I’d keep varly on the bench until his play hopefully improves and smith would just be for the handcuff in CGY.

What do you think is the best way to go?

[Doug Glatt]

If Smith is sitting on the pile, why do you need to stick him on your roster and waste a spot?
Streaming, son. That is what you want to do here if you have daily starts. If Smith steals a start from Rittich here and there you can pick him up and play him for that day.
I would grab Varly who has the most upside here. But we already know hes not great, so temper your expectations.

[bsarak]

Thanks. It’s a weekly start league, not daily. Saros loses some value I think because of it too.

I’ll be getting smith for koskinen in a trade and then I agree, I think I may drop smith for Varly and run with MAF/rittich/varly/saros.

Do you think saros would even be necessary if I get varly? May be overkill and just take up a roster spot. With weekly starts it’s hard to depend on him for getting his starts.

[Doug Glatt]

In a one year format you should generally choose streaming over sentimentality.

Weekly starts, not sure why you would carry so many Gs. In weekly start format, you almost never use G depth unless injury or a 2 game week. God forbid you do need to use Varly, ratio wrecker and all. Not sure he will help. Which illustrates the whole point of carrying 4 Gs, its not really a good use of roster space.

[bsarak]

Doug- who would you go with in my situation? Thanks for your input! It’s much appreciated.

[MZac]

Thanks. It’s a weekly start league, not daily. Saros loses some value I think because of it too.

I’ll be getting smith for koskinen in a trade and then I agree, I think I may drop smith for Varly and run with MAF/rittich/varly/saros.

Do you think saros would even be necessary if I get varly? May be overkill and just take up a roster spot. With weekly starts it’s hard to depend on him for getting his starts.

Weekly starts in your original post would have been helpful. You need another bonafide starter to go with Fleury in this format. All of the options right now are not good. As dg mentioned you have too many backups and it's a waste of roster spots. Essentially pick one backup, they are all in the same tier with similar team issues right now. Stream them week to week based on schedule and backtobacks. Go with the one likely to get the most starts that week and pray they don't suck. I'd probably prefer Varlamov right now over the others but not by much.