White, Jost or a pair of veterans

[lusshouse]

Hi,

I'm in three fantasy leagues (two in signature). This one is from my second league.

18 teams. Points only. Top-10 forwards (no position), top-4 D and top-1 G count in our points. Keep all. Max 28 players, no other specific rules about stashing prospects except...

... we have this 'steal two players' intra-league draft we do before we draft rookies/undrafted. We protect 10 players + all rookies who haven't played 83 games are automatically protected. We all lose two guys, we all gain two guys.

--

So last year, I finished 6th. Top-5 gets money. Finished 3rd in the playoffs. Top-2 gets money. I'm... well... bleh...

My intention is to clinch 5th at least. Dobber predictions right now have me 6th again.


Right now, I intend on protecting the following players :

Rask
Trouba
Scheifele
Kessel
Couturier
Teravainen
Schenn
Miller


I've got two more players to protect. At first I thought I could go and protect Stastny and Pacioretty. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like whatever I'll do, my worst case scenario is losing/choosing the wrong guys for 50+upside guys.

Also, my league is REALLY into owning a bunch of prospects, often at the risk of losing a 60-point player. They just love to see their picks blossom onto their rosters into legit protection guys, but have to go through the suffering of leaving free a Skinner, a Couturier or something like that.

Thus, in my league, it would make sense to protect Nolan Patrick and one of Colin White or Tyson Jost. Because such guys will not be replaceable with my (late) intra-league picks. Whereas getting another 50+ point guy, it's actually possible some end up there.


--

So, for the sake of challenging me, what do you think?

Do you guys see Stastny and Pacioretty as legit, solid 60 point players?
Should I just go all in and sacrifice two of my three unprotectable prospects (By all means, Patrick will be taken first and White fourth, knowing the GMs of my league)?

If I take the route of protecting a prospect, although White is the best of the three short-term, what's your 3YP for him compared to Jost (no point in seeing beyond 3 years).


This is my easiest of three. I'll provide the other two in the following weeks!


* NB : Demko, Dahlin and Donato all auto-protected for likely their final year.

[stevegamer]

I wrote this part reading "Colin Wilson" in your text:

I'd protect Wilson/Jost over Patrick. The Flyers added depth down the middle, bumping Patrick down the lineup, while Colorado shed some depth. Flyers added Hayes on a big money deal, while shedding Lehtera & Varone. Avalanche added Kadri in trade, while shedding Soderberg & Kerfoot. Patrick is very likely to be a third line center who gets PP2 time for the near future, unless they shed Couturier and Giroux - which would be dumb, but it's in the realm of possibility. That would move Patrick up to #2 behind Hayes.

Additionally, Colorado is way more offensively oriented, so keeping the 2 Colorado players means you're more likely to hit on one.

Now for Colin White:

White has a real shot at PP1 on Ottawa. Given that, I think he will see better deployment than Patrick. The team will likely be worse, but not so much worse that the amount of icetime I'd think he'll see couldn't make up for it. I can't bring myself to say that I have more faith in Ottawa moving forward than the Flyers, but it's far closer than I'm comfortable with, given the 2 teams relative financial situations. Philadelphia is a lot larger market than Ottawa. I think White/Patrick is sort of a tossup.

[lusshouse]

TBH, I did write Wilson once in my text!!!

Will edit right away.