New to Dynasty - Joined an Ongoing League - Team Advice?

[ResArk]

Just joined into a league that is a few years in and adopted a team.
Have only dabbled in normal redraft and a bit of larger scale sim hockey as of recent. Looking for advice at a quick look at my team to gauge where I need to look. Pretty happy with my main roster, but mostly unfamiliar with minors aside from a few of the names I have.
Feel like I'm weak on defense, but have a pretty steady offensive setup with this roster.
Definitely not a contender this year as the team was left for a bit and is currently 1-8, ranked 16th of 18 in the league.

League Settings:
18T Dynasty Cap H2H Points
Salary Cap: $99,000,000.00
Active 20, Reserve 6, IR 10, Minors 18
4C, 4LW, 4RW, 6D, 2G(5 Max)

Scoring:

• Skaters: G: 3 | A: 2 | BLK, HIT, SOG: 0.5 | FOW: 0.1 | STP: 1
• Goalies: GA: -1 | SV: 0.2 | SHO: 5 | W: 3

Team

• Centers: M.Barzal(RW), C.Cizikas, S.Stamkos(LW), J,Tavares(LW), E.Haula (LW)
• LW: J.Farabee, Z.Hyman(RW), T.Moore(RW), M.Boldy(RW)
• RW: O.Bjorkstrand, N.Kucherov, T.Terry
• Defense: B.Faber, J.Hakanpaa, J.MacDonald, J.Schultz, Z.Whitecloud
• Goalies: F.Gustavsson, K.Lankinen
• Reserve: S.Noesen(LW/RW), T.Jarry(G)
• IR: L.Couture(LW/RW), C.Sheary(LW,RW)

Minors:

• Centers: B.McMann, F.Minten(LW), M.Samoskevich, B.Yager, A.Beckman(LW), E.Cowan(RW), L.Stankoven(RW)
• LW: E.Soderblom(RW), S.Pastujov(RW), D.Rashevsky(RW),
• RW: J.Snuggerud
• Defense: H.Grans, Z.Jones, S.Mukhamadullin, W.Wallinder
• Goalies: D.Commesso, A.Schmid, D.Wolf

Salary:
98,725,000/99,000,000 (275,000)

Draft Picks:
2024: 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7
2025: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7

Any insight/guidance on the team is appreciated! Just a little overwhelmed looking at it on day one being unfamiliar with being a part of dynasty leagues. Excited to dig in!

[stevegamer]

Welcome to the world of dynasty, and cap leagues - all at once, it looks like! The good news is that you've got almost nowhere to go but up!

Important things to know for me, that have varied in leagues over the years:

1. How does moving players up & down work? Do you have free movement from minors to main roster, and back or not?
If the league allows free movement up & back (many don't) you can do well by rostering a larger number of minors eligible guys, and moving them up & down. This is particularly good with goalies.

2. Do IR players count against cap? I'm assuming minors don't, but that may not be true, but would be weird. If so, Couture is hamstrining you.

3. Are you rostering only 5 of 6 D and 2 of 6 reserves intentionally, or is that the way you got the team? That's a big problem, playing 5 players short. If it's due to IR players counting for cap, you need to deal with that, but it may just be the prior GM sucked.

4. Are all the teams tight against the cap, or not? Clearly the team was poorly managed before.

On to what to do.

I'd shop Tavares. He's

Trade these guys if you can, or just drop and replace with younger/cheaper guys:
- Schultz can go away. That's $3M you can use to find a couple of guys who will combined do more, and be younger. I doubt he has trade value.
- Czikas, Haula, & Sheary are sort of useful at cheap cap hits, but not a fit with your timeline.

Guys I'd put on the block are Tavares, and when/if healthy, Couture.

[ResArk]

Thanks for the welcome! As much as I am starting with a handicap and a bit of a lack of knowledge, I am super excited to get into a more detailed leagu
Let me go ahead and answer your questions.

1. Yes, we can move players from minors to roster without issue and whenever it seems.

2. IR players do not count towards our salary cap. Minors also do not. The only players that count on our salary are the ones rostered in our main lineup & reserves.

3. This is how I received the team. It was already short a D and only had the one player in reserve.

4. Most teams are fairly tight on cap, but I am one of the closest. Seems to be a range of 100k to 7million off cap.

Thanks for all the tips on the trade block players as well. I'll see who's available on our wire that I can fill up some of the cap space with dropping Schultz in the mean time while seeing what I can get shopping around the other players.

[Gerb]

16 out of 18 sounds bad, but with a neglected team running 5 guys short and probably not cycling in his minors guys, id bet your total points is less bad than your h2h record. Id look closely at points per game of your whole team (most fantasy platforms should have some option like that) and decide how far off you actually are. If it’s not so bad as 16 out of 18, then a full scale selloff might not be the best approach. You obviously need some cap space to fit 5 more guys, so i agree tavares is a trade target, but you might be able to add a few minors guys who are on the cusp, or half decent young guys, and have an actual decent team next year. I could be wrong, and your team could be a legit 16 out of 18, but all im saying is take a minute to look at more league stats than just the record before you commit to selling everyone over the age of 30.