Off-season roster cutdowns and makign minors room.

[stevegamer]

16 team multi-cat roto league, no playoffs, daily starts. GP limits of 82 per slot, and we have 4 C, 4 LW, 4 RW, 6 D, and 1 G.

Skater cats: G A +/- PIM SOG Shot% PPP SHP Hit Blk FOW FOL
Goalie cats: W GAA SA SV% SHO


Category notes:
FOW and FOL are separate, and FOL is fewest. It's very hard to get much more than 18-19 combined category points in these 2, so they mostly offset.
I tend to mostly ignore +/-, just hope for nothing too terrible. It's of course partly driven by my NHL associated team, see next point.

I need to cut 2 main roster players, and currently have no minors space for draft picks. Team is absolutely a contender. First and 4th the 2 years I've been in the league. I do not rebuild in fantasy.
My NHL associated team is the Winnipeg Jets, players on that NHL team in Italics - must have 6 minimum
Bubble guys in Bold.

G: Hellebuyck, Swayman
D: Pionk, Burns, Gostisbehere, Hanifin, Trouba, Dillon, Gudbranson

C: Scheifele, Hertl, Jenner, Cozens
LW: Connor
RW: Wheeler, Nichushkin, Nylander,
C,RW: Goodrow, Seguin
LW,RW: Ehlers, Coleman, Jeannot, Tkachuk, Vatrano
C,LW,RW: Copp

Minors - 100/50 game limit for skaters/goalies. Players can be moved up and down until that limit.
F: Sillinger (CBJ), Perfetti (WPG), Macceli (ARI), J. Perreault (ANA)
G: Annunen (COL), Dostal, (ANA), Vladar (CGY)

I'm thinking that I will drop Gudbranson, who was an injury fill in on D, and at least one more roster player.
Dillon could go, as I can make up D games when I have forward injuries, but he is a useful depth D, and is a Jet.
Cozens is weak at faceoffs, but is young, and Buffalo is on the rise.
Vatrano is decent, but Sillinger will require promotion early this year.

All thoughts appreciated, and rep given of course!

[Bubba55]

Gudbranson is the easy drop. Vatrano has always been sneaky good and he now finds himself in a pretty good situation in Anaheim in fact if the stars align he could well be in for a career year. I think you have to jump on that bus and see where it goes. Accordingly, Dillion would be my last drop. As you say, you can go after the banger cats when the inevitable injuries happen. Not sure when you have to bring Sillinger up, but I'd cross that bridge when I come to it not before.

[YzermansLegacy]

Have to try and respond here just because SG is one of the first (and most consistent) on helping everyone else out on the forums.

I'm in agreement that Gudbranson and Dillon are the main roster cuts here.

That still leaves you with 5 of 6 Dmen rostered and (likely) similar H+B+PIM producers on the waiver wire if you can't redraft Dillon. That also leaves you with 6 main roster Jets so you're hitting the minimum.

As for minors, I'd have no problem letting Maccelli go in this format for a new draft pick/minors slot. I'd personally be fine letting Annunan go too - and use that spot for guys who are minors-elig but can contribute in cats you need THIS year.

As for a guy like Cozens (or other 'graduating' prospects), I'm likely holding them but stashing them on my bench and not actually 'using' them much this year. I'd backfill with streamers who deliver on needed categories but are easily droppable assets.

Your team has some GREAT balance for a league that requires 6 players per associated team - so much so that I'm not worrying too much about your "depth" pieces knowing you'll be able to unearth the next T.Jeannot/etc. as needed!

[ross10019]

If Hits were a cat I’d recommend keeping Dillon (beast) and dropping Vatrano. But under the circumstances I think the two dmen are your droppers. That said with half your skater positions being D, you’ll be quite thin there numbers-wise, so I assume D will be a focal point in your redraft.

Good luck!

[J0e Th0rnton]

Im dropping Gud and Dillon here. others have already given good reasoning

[Belexus75]

To me Cozens is a keep and other 3 can be thrown into a mixer to see what comes out

I would probably keep Vatrano but I don’t think there is wrong answer here

[stevegamer]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I'm glad to see that Gudbranson/Dillon seem like the drops to you all. Once I drop them, I won't be drafting anyone to take a spot on the main roster; the draft is solely for minors-eligible players. Note that Francouz was eligible last year, so there are some sneaky options available, particularly in net. Sadly, I had a Francouz vs Swayman problem late last year, and Swayman needed promoting. The league doesn't allow healthy goalie hoarding on the main roster, limited to goalies just on one team, plus one more goalie that isn't on IR.

The team is naturally strong in the grit cats of Hit/Block/PIM, and some of you note that those can be picked up off the wire as injury fill-ins, and that's my take as well.

Seems like Macceli is the guy I let go to free up minors space.

There's a chance I can swing some kind of a deal, however, so I will work on that front once things start up in earnest, which should be soon.