Leftovers vs. 2019 Class in Multi-Cat League with Shallow Prospect Roster

[rj45lan]

League setup:

• 12-team H2H league with a 22-man main roster (3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G, 6Bench) and a 10-man prospect roster (28-yo or under on NHL opening day, 80GP for skaters, and 50GP for goalies).
• Skater categories: G, A, PPP, SOG, PIM, HIT, BLK, FOW. Identifying prospects with good peripherals has always been a challenge.
• Goalie categories: W, SV, SV%, GAA.
• Keep 17 veterans and 5 prospects. Annual 5-round prospect and veteran drafts are held to replenish roster back to 22 + 10. There are no positional limits for keepers, so goalies are often at a premium.
• There is an in-season auction system for prospects undrafted in the league. Auctions are mostly used for undrafted minor league goalies who emerge to play NHL games, e.g., Binnington and Delia from last season, because there aren't many mid-season call-ups for undrafted skater prospects who are worthwhile.
• Prospects can be shuttled between main and prospect rosters in-season, so a team can own more than 10 eligible prospects through trades or auctions, as long as at most 10 are on the prospect roster at a time. Prospects who graduate in-season can stay on prospect roster until keeper declaration for next season, when he needs to be either dropped or kept on main roster. If in-season graduates aren't demoted to prospect roster before they graduate, they stay on the main roster or have to be dropped.
• Part of the auction budget for the upcoming season can also be used to keep extra prospects beyond 5. If the extra prospects are kept on the prospect roster, then the owner would forfeit late prospect draft picks. If the extra prospects are kept as part of the 17 veteran keepers, then no picks would be forfeited. Auction budget can't be used to keep extra veterans on the main roster. If an owner chooses to spend auction budget on an extra prospect keepers, then they usually wouldn't be in the position to win more than 1 in-season prospect auction.

Historically, around 4 to 5 of the 12 owners would choose to keep 1 or 2 extra prospects and forfeit picks. The prospect draft turns to be current-class heavy in the first 2 rounds, with a 2:1 ratio between current class and leftovers. The remaining 3 rounds would be more leftover heavy, with a 1:3 ratio between current class and leftovers. The total number of current-class prospects drafted each year works out around 23 ~ 25, with most being real-life 1st rounders (only 1 ~ 3 real-life 2nd rounders and beyond get drafted in their first year). Due to the goalie premium, the few available prospect goalies who would be backups in the NHL that season get picked around rounds 3 and 4. Positionally, the picks go about 65% F, 20% D, and 15% G each year.

Some noteworthy leftovers for the upcoming draft are:

• F: Ryan Poehling, Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Luke Kunin, Emil Bemstrom, Alexandre Texier, Taro Hirose, Vitali Abramov, Ilya Mikheyev, Victor Olofsson, Sasha Chmelevski, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Akil Thomas, German Rubtsov, Max Jones, Jesse Ylonen.
• D: Erik Brannstrom, Erik Cernak, Filip Hronek, Dante Fabbro, Adam Fox, Noah Juulsen, Rasmus Sandin, Dennis Cholowski, K'Andre Miller, Kale Clague, Olli Juolevi, Jake Bean, Alexander Alexeyev, Nicolas Beaudin, Scott Perunovich.
• G: Elvis Merzlikins, Alex Nedeljkovic, Kaapo Kahkonen, Daniil Tarasov, Josef Korenar, Eric Comrie, Tristan Jarry, Lukas Dostal.

The soft limit of 5 prospect keepers makes wait time a bit tricky. For leftovers, the draft historically favors players who are immediately in the NHL except for high-upside prospects such as Morgan Frost, Aleksi Heponiemi and Drake Batherson last year.

Within this context, how would these leftovers be ranked relative to the 2019 class? Thanks!

[Axeman33]

There's a lot of excellent leftover players. Way too many for me to sit down and rank vs this year's picks. It's Saturday and I've got too much to do to try and rank them all but I can give you my thoughts on the 1st rnd or two quickly.

Depending on where you are picking (I didn't see that info in your post), I may say screw this year's picks and simply draft leftovers. If you're picking early I'd take someone from this year's draft and focus on leftovers from there. The first five fwd leftovers you listed are all money for me. The quality of D prospects is scary. Small league that only starts 4D is the reason for that I suppose.

Where exactly are you drafting and what picks do you own?

[als_revenge]

While your post is very detailed, it's missing two key things: (1) your draft slot (as mentioned above); and (2) your signature showing your team. I have no idea who your current 5 prospects are, nor do I know where your team has relative strengths and weaknesses.

If immediate production is what you are looking for, then (G) Elvis; (D) Fox, and (F) Hintz jump out to me the most.

[rj45lan]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry that I forgot some critical info.

Realistically, my team was probably the 3rd or 4th best in the league last year, but I got lucky and won due to the top 2 teams having key injuries late in the season. As a result, my original picks are the last picks of each round, and with some late-round trades I have #12, #24, #27, #36 and #42.

The main reasons why there are a lot of good D leftovers are:
* The limit of the soft 5 prospect keepers favors short wait time and D-men tend to take longer, so they often get sacrificed when other needs arise. For example, Brannstrom was originally drafted but then dropped when the owner had to auction for a prospect goalie due to injuries.
* The starting lineup only has 4 D's, so you have to get a couple of D-men in your top 5 who are good in BLK (and HIT to a lesser extent), and it's difficult to know how prospect D-men would do in those departments before they are actually in the NHL. Guys with high offensive upside but are pretty clear not to be able to contribute to peripherals would often be left undrafted if there's no clear path of them to get prominent PP usage quickly in the NHL, e.g., Fabbro and Girard in past years.

16 of the 17 currently planned vet keepers are:
* F: Eichel, Pasta, Gaudreau, Aho, Johansen, Palmieri, Mantha, JT Miller
* D: Burns, Pietrangelo, McAvoy, Weber, Pulock
* G: Bob, Rinne, Saros

The bubble keeper candidates are Buchnevich, Dustin Brown and Klefbom.

I'm a bit thin at center, while having an abundance of D. I usually try to make the keepers pretty balanced across most categories, and focus on getting more peripherals from vet draftees and streamers in season.

As for prospects, I've been focusing on ready-to-show guys in the past few years, so don't really have any truly high-end ones at the moment. I have 6 guys I'm trying to decide between: Kupari, Valimaki, Cal Petersen, Montembeault (if he's re-signed to be Bob's backup), Kunin and Abramov.

I listed Kunin and Abramov as part of the leftovers list because I might let one of them go if I don't forfeit a pick, so would like to know where they would go if put back into the draft, and whether it's worth forfeiting my last pick and spending some auction budget to keep them. I can also choose to spend auction budget without forfeiting a pick by keeping one of Valimaki and Kunin as my 17 main keepers, but I don't think they are really ready to contribute at that level yet, especially with MIN signing Zuccarello and CGY still not trading Brodie/Hamonic away yet.

In general, the objective is to restock the cupboard a little bit, without hurting the competitiveness too much. I'm actually interested in Podkolzin at #12 due to his multi-cat potential and wouldn't mind a two-year wait, but two Canucks fans pick right ahead of me, so I don't think I'll get him.

[mounD]

League setup:

• 12-team H2H league with a 22-man main roster (3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G, 6Bench) and a 10-man prospect roster (28-yo or under on NHL opening day, 80GP for skaters, and 50GP for goalies).
• Skater categories: G, A, PPP, SOG, PIM, HIT, BLK, FOW. Identifying prospects with good peripherals has always been a challenge.
• Goalie categories: W, SV, SV%, GAA.
• Keep 17 veterans and 5 prospects. Annual 5-round prospect and veteran drafts are held to replenish roster back to 22 + 10. There are no positional limits for keepers, so goalies are often at a premium.
• There is an in-season auction system for prospects undrafted in the league. Auctions are mostly used for undrafted minor league goalies who emerge to play NHL games, e.g., Binnington and Delia from last season, because there aren't many mid-season call-ups for undrafted skater prospects who are worthwhile.
• Prospects can be shuttled between main and prospect rosters in-season, so a team can own more than 10 eligible prospects through trades or auctions, as long as at most 10 are on the prospect roster at a time. Prospects who graduate in-season can stay on prospect roster until keeper declaration for next season, when he needs to be either dropped or kept on main roster. If in-season graduates aren't demoted to prospect roster before they graduate, they stay on the main roster or have to be dropped.
• Part of the auction budget for the upcoming season can also be used to keep extra prospects beyond 5. If the extra prospects are kept on the prospect roster, then the owner would forfeit late prospect draft picks. If the extra prospects are kept as part of the 17 veteran keepers, then no picks would be forfeited. Auction budget can't be used to keep extra veterans on the main roster. If an owner chooses to spend auction budget on an extra prospect keepers, then they usually wouldn't be in the position to win more than 1 in-season prospect auction.

Historically, around 4 to 5 of the 12 owners would choose to keep 1 or 2 extra prospects and forfeit picks. The prospect draft turns to be current-class heavy in the first 2 rounds, with a 2:1 ratio between current class and leftovers. The remaining 3 rounds would be more leftover heavy, with a 1:3 ratio between current class and leftovers. The total number of current-class prospects drafted each year works out around 23 ~ 25, with most being real-life 1st rounders (only 1 ~ 3 real-life 2nd rounders and beyond get drafted in their first year). Due to the goalie premium, the few available prospect goalies who would be backups in the NHL that season get picked around rounds 3 and 4. Positionally, the picks go about 65% F, 20% D, and 15% G each year.

Some noteworthy leftovers for the upcoming draft are:

• F: Ryan Poehling, Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Luke Kunin, Emil Bemstrom, Alexandre Texier, Taro Hirose, Vitali Abramov, Ilya Mikheyev, Victor Olofsson, Sasha Chmelevski, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Akil Thomas, German Rubtsov, Max Jones, Jesse Ylonen.
• D: Erik Brannstrom, Erik Cernak, Filip Hronek, Dante Fabbro, Adam Fox, Noah Juulsen, Rasmus Sandin, Dennis Cholowski, K'Andre Miller, Kale Clague, Olli Juolevi, Jake Bean, Alexander Alexeyev, Nicolas Beaudin, Scott Perunovich.
• G: Elvis Merzlikins, Alex Nedeljkovic, Kaapo Kahkonen, Daniil Tarasov, Josef Korenar, Eric Comrie, Tristan Jarry, Lukas Dostal.

The soft limit of 5 prospect keepers makes wait time a bit tricky. For leftovers, the draft historically favors players who are immediately in the NHL except for high-upside prospects such as Morgan Frost, Aleksi Heponiemi and Drake Batherson last year.

Within this context, how would these leftovers be ranked relative to the 2019 class? Thanks!

It's really hard to do a detailed rank with all these players to slot in relative to the 2019 class, but I think at your draft slot you're probably better off taking someone like Hintz, Robertson, Bemstrom, Texier, Brannstrom, Hronek, Cernak, Fox, Sandin, Elvis, Nedeljkovic, etc.

These names are the most interesting to me from the prospects you listed.

[rj45lan]

Thanks for the reply. One risk about older leftovers such as Hintz (and Heinen, Sikura, Zykov, Roslovic and so on in previous years) is that they get drafted as high as the 2nd round in our drafts after a few games or even half a season of good performance in the NHL the previous season, but don't really pan out in the following season.