As soon as you mention cap-crunch - you need to take the more useful player now.
There's a risk with Merz as well that he gets brought along slowly this season, but much less of a risk than with Shest.
Merzliking
Shesterkin
Will likely have an opportunity to draft one of these two goalies.
Important consideration: salary cap league where AAV is used. every player's AAV counts towards the cap
Merzliking AAV: $874125
Shesterkin AAV: $3775000
I am very tight against the cap and competing this year.
Merzliking pros: cheaper, better opportunity this year, fantasy relevance sooner
Merzliking cons : not as talented, Torts factor(?)
Shesterkin pros: more talented (arguably) as he put up insane numbers in the KHL last season.
Shesterkin cons: not relevant this season and perhaps next; likely to start being useful in 2021/22 season and that's a long time to keep $3775000 on your bench
So based on all of this, I am leaning towards Merzliking.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
I can't promise I'll try but I'll try to try.
As soon as you mention cap-crunch - you need to take the more useful player now.
There's a risk with Merz as well that he gets brought along slowly this season, but much less of a risk than with Shest.
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Have to go with Merz
How is this his cap hit already?
Edit: Nevermind, I see the AAV with performance bonuses on Capfriendly.
Personally, i'm going with BPA and figuring out my cap crunch later, so it's Shesterkin for me.
There's got to be some other options on your team where you can move salary out?
Evansville Icemen District-5 Ducks LOEGM - 12 GM H2H Keeper
G A PT SOG STA STG TRUC FOW
W GA SV SV% SOWHL - 24 GM H2H Salary
G A +/- PIM SOG PPP HIT BLK FOW
W GA SV SOView Roster View Roster
I'm going with Shesterkin because I firmly believe he's going to be an elite NHL starter, whereas Merzlikins is just a lottery ticket with a good organizational situation.
MounD - Double Threat FHL (18-19 champs)
10-Team Yahoo daily H2H Dynasty
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 6D, 2G, 7Bn (IR)
G, A, +/-, PPP, SHP, SOG, FW, HIT, BLK // W, Sv, GAA, Sv%, SHO
C: Bergeron, Barkov, Aho, Point, Kadri
LW: Marchand, Landeskog, Hertl, Marchessault
RW: Stamkos, Tarasenko, Laine, Palmieri
D: Carlson, Letang, Dumba, Weber, Pietrangelo, Ristolainen, Byfuglien*
G: Bobrovsky, Holtby, Lehner, Greiss-Varlamov
Farm: Turcotte, Cozens, Denisenko, Newhook // Sandin, Jokiharju, Dobson, K'Andre // Shesterkin
Shesterkin and it's not close.
12 Team Dynasty, H2H (points)
Dress 2C, 4W, 1F, 4D, 1G (Daily)
G (3), A (2), STP (1), SHOG (1), +/- (0.5), SOG (0.2), Hits (0.2), Blk (0.2), FOW (0.1); W (5), SO (2), Sv (0.2), GA (-1)
C - Draisaitl (W), Hughes, Larkin, Trochek
W - T.Thompson (C), Pastrnak, Reinhart, Batherson, Nichushkin, Duchene (C), Zuccarello
D - Dahlin, Theodore, Bouchard, Faber, Werenski, Skjei
G - Jarry, Gustavsson, Montembault
Fm - Bordeleau, Barlow, Lucius, G.Perreault, Luneau, Perunovich, Nikishin
I am going with Shesterkin as well. Both come with concerns but I am less concerned with Shesterkin's upside and skillset compared to Merzlikin. Then again, when it comes to goalies, who really knows until the show it and right now, we are going off what we've seen from different leagues.
None the less, Shesterkin is one of my top ranked prospect goalies (which does include both) so I'll go with that for now.
In a years time, Merzlikins could prove us all wrong and he could be the better option. Stranger things have happened.
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, Brink
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
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I voted for Merzlikins as I don't think either of them become very good NHL goalies. One of them costs way less money and is more likely to be in the NHL this season so it's an easy choice for me. Merzlikins is very likely to be one of the two goalies in Columbus this season while there is a good chance that Shestorkin is back in Europe in October since he has a European assignment clause in his contract.
When you are looking at a goalie's stats, you always need to compare them to the other goalies on his team in addition to the other goalies in the league.
Looking at the numbers for Shestorkin from 2015/16 through 2017/18, you will noticed that Mikko Koskinen was better than he was on the same team. Then in 2018/19 Magnus Hellberg played more games that Shestorkin and put up similar numbers (a little worse in the regular season but better in the playoffs). These two things tell me that Shestorkin may not be anywhere as good as people want him to be.
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, Brink
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
"Cleavage is like the sun. You can look, but dont stare.. Unless you're wearing sunglasses."
It's SKA... the imbalance of competition in the KHL is pretty legendary. As J-P has said before there are teams there that couldn't beat AHL teams.
Hellberg had more starts than Shestyorkin... here's his numbers:
24-7-3 1.32 GAA .940 SVPCT 8 SO.
SKA as a team had 18 shut outs in 62 games and had 76 GA for the season.
Hellberg - steps in 1st year - has 6 more starts than Shestyorkin... seems odd if he's as good as some prognosticate
One could argue favouritism of Koskinen over Shestyorkin.. but why wouldn't they run Shestyorkin
they both had 10 starts in the playoffs with Hellberg holding a .919 svpct to Shestyorkin's .904
I mean Hellberg couldn't hold an NHL back up job... yet held more than his own statistically against Shestyorkin.
His numbers are more of a by-product of the strength of SKA as a team.
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I am not disagreeing with your comment about the league, more disagreeing about your comment that his numbers were bolstered because Koskinen faced the tougher competition. Clearly that didn't happen last year and his numbers were still impressive.
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, Brink
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
"Cleavage is like the sun. You can look, but dont stare.. Unless you're wearing sunglasses."
Merzlikins for me.
I've seen him play a fair bit and he IS good. He posted very solid numbers over four seasons as the clear no1 of an average team (and has also been solid as a rock for team Latvia) while Shesterkin was in a sheltered role playing for a dominant team. So give me the more proven guy with the less fanfare but the better opportunity.
With Gs, opportunity is way more important than hype. How many hyped Gs have not panned out and how many have come out of nowhere and been excellent? Lugano is pretty nowhere also for Swiss standarts, but I don't think I should bet against Merzlikins because of it.
24 team H2H dynasty, fantasy points, no cap
Skaters: G 4.5 (5 for Ds), A 3, PPG 1.5 (2 for Ds), PPA 1 (1.5 for Ds), SHP 2, Ft 2, HIT 0.6, BLK 0.6, SOG 0.3 (0.4 for Ds), FW 0.1, Tk 0.5 // Gv -0.3
Goalies: W 3.5, SHO 5, SV 0.5, A 3 // GA -3, L -1.5
4C, 4LW, 4RW, 6D, 2G, 4BN, 4IR
C: McDavid, MacKinnon, Hischier
LW: B.Tkachuk, Ovechkin, Paul(C), Jankowski(C)
LW/RW: Meier, Fiala, Giroux(C), Niederreiter
RW: Reinhart, Anderson, Armia
D: Josi, Matheson, Durzi, Moser, Cernak, Zadorov, Siegenthaler
G: Daccord, Merzlikins, Vanecek, Pickard
44 minors; most noteables: A.Schmid, E.Andrae, M.Kesselring, S.Malinski, B.Pachal, L.Stanley, L.Bichsel, E.Soderblom,...
He only played against the top 8 teams in the KHL a total of six times last year.
Two games vs CSKA - lost both 3-1; 3-2.
One game vs. Jokerit - lost in OT 4-3.
The other 3 teams - Lokamotiv twice - 2 wins...
Hellberg received the lion-share of starts against the top teams last season in the KHL.
It seems clear, he was again sheltered against most of the top teams. When he did face them, his numbers were more pedestrian
One also needs to factor in - by carrying Shestyorkin, you're holding 3.7m in dead cap space for an entire season.
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