HFWings Keeper Fantasy Hockey League: Season Five

[Sparty]

Alright, Year Five in our league starts now!

Here's the previous winners:
2018 MD Spartys
2019 Benchworth Bullmoose
2020 Team Martinez
2021 Jasteroids

Team THRILLHOUSE has now become La Goons, so let's welcome NickH8 aboard.

I'm setting Thursday, September 29 as our deadline to set keepers. I figure it's probably better to give people more time to adjust their keepers in case anyone gets hurt during the preseason, but please don't wait until the last minute to set them. Once you have set them, you're able to adjust them, and even after the deadline I can probably still adjust keepers with commish powers if anyone gets hurt before the draft.

Keep eight players. Keep an additional three prospects if you have them. Prospects are position players drafted three or less years ago or goalies drafted five or less years ago. Prospects have played less than fifty games in the NHL. If you have any players that were added to rosters after leaving college last year (Matty Beniers, Kent Johnson, Owen Power, etc), they're not eligible to be selected as keepers because they were not eligible to be drafted previously. This is because Yahoo doesn't add college players until they're signed to pro contracts and that happens after college seasons end.

I'm putting in a draft date as Sunday October 2 at 9:30 PM EST. This is the same time we had last year and it's the last Sunday night before the season starts. @The Zetterberg Era I think you missed last year's draft and ended up getting autodrafted, do you know if this time works?

If anyone has any questions about prospect eligibility or anything else as you set your keepers, let us know in here.

Here's the link to the Season Four thread in case you want to relive any of that

HFWings Keeper Fantasy Hockey League: Season Four

Okay, I just renewed the league with ten teams. ExSeider chose to take ownership of mantha39's team from last year, so all players from these four teams will go into the draft: Bench Bin Cookin Ricelund Sards I set Sunday, September 19 as our deadline to set keepers. I think it's a reasonable...

forums.hfboards.com

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[Hammettf2b]

Alright, Year Five in our league starts now!

Here's the previous winners:
2018 MD Spartys
2019 Benchworth Bullmoose
2020 Team Martinez
2021 Jasteroids

Team THRILLHOUSE has now become La Goons, so let's welcome NickH8 aboard.

I'm setting Thursday, October 6 as our deadline to set keepers. I figure it's probably better to give people more time to adjust their keepers in case anyone gets hurt during the preseason, but please don't wait until the last minute to set them. Once you have set them, you're able to adjust them, and even after the deadline I can probably still adjust keepers with commish powers if anyone gets hurt before the draft.

Keep eight players. Keep an additional three prospects if you have them. Prospects are position players drafted three or less years ago or goalies drafted five or less years ago. Prospects have played less than fifty games in the NHL. If you have any players that were added to rosters after leaving college last year (Matty Beniers, Kent Johnson, Owen Power, etc), they're not eligible to be selected as keepers because they were not eligible to be drafted previously. This is because Yahoo doesn't add college players until they're signed to pro contracts and that happens after college seasons end.

I'm putting in a draft date as Sunday October 9 at 9:30 PM EST. This is the same time we had last year and it's the last Sunday night before the season starts. @The Zetterberg Era I think you missed last year's draft and ended up getting autodrafted, do you know if this time works?

If anyone has any questions about prospect eligibility or anything else as you set your keepers, let us know in here.

Here's the link to the Season Four thread in case you want to relive any of that

HFWings Keeper Fantasy Hockey League: Season Four

Okay, I just renewed the league with ten teams. ExSeider chose to take ownership of mantha39's team from last year, so all players from these four teams will go into the draft: Bench Bin Cookin Ricelund Sards I set Sunday, September 19 as our deadline to set keepers. I think it's a reasonable...

forums.hfboards.com

any word on offseason trades?

 

[Sparty]

any word on offseason trades?

It doesn't look we can make them, I'm just looking at it right now and there's no option to trade players.

I think if people want to make straight up trades I might be able to adjust rosters, but I don't think I can move draft picks around if people want to make trades involving draft picks. I think those deals needed to be made before the trade deadline.

 

[Hammettf2b]

It doesn't look we can make them, I'm just looking at it right now and there's no option to trade players.

I think if people want to make straight up trades I might be able to adjust rosters, but I don't think I can move draft picks around if people want to make trades involving draft picks. I think those deals needed to be made before the trade deadline.

 

[Sparty]

I edited the keeper deadline and draft date in the initial post because I was mistaken about when the NHL Season actually starts, that's why you're seeing different dates in my post and the post that Hammett quoted from me.

 

[jaster]

It doesn't look we can make them, I'm just looking at it right now and there's no option to trade players.

I think if people want to make straight up trades I might be able to adjust rosters, but I don't think I can move draft picks around if people want to make trades involving draft picks. I think those deals needed to be made before the trade deadline.

You should be able to manage all that as commish, including changing draft picks. I'm assistant commish for a long-standing baseball keeper league and I handle all the preseason stuff. We make player and draft pick trades in the weeks leading up to the season all the time, and I process them all with the Yahoo commish powers. Happy to assist with this league as well if you want.

Preseason trades should probably happen either via DMs on this board, or on the chat function of the Yahoo app (which I don't think this league has ever really put to use). Either way, if two managers agree on a player trade, you'll have to process it by dropping and adding the correct players with commish powers. The traditional "trade" function is indeed disabled in the preseason.

 

[Sparty]

Okay, thanks Jaster! I noticed I can't set the draft order until after the keepers are selected, so yeah I probably can figure it out.

I was just looking at my keepers and I think I'm going to roll with what I have there. Not that I don't want to deal anything, but my keepers are set now and I don't think I really need to deal for anyone else. Not sure who I'd bump.

Setting eight keepers in a ten team league is much harder than setting eight keepers in a fourteen team league. There's some players I'd love to keep that I'm gonna lose (Giroux, Talbot, etc), but I guess everyone is struggling with those same decisions now.

 

[jaster]

Yeah, keeper decisions will be difficult. Right now I'm wishing we kept 9... would make things much easier for me lol.

 

[NickH8]

My keepers are set for now.

Forwards: Ovechkin, Lindholm, Forsberg, Kopitar, and Kyrou

Defense: Letang, Trouba

Goalie: Hellebucyk

Prospect: Denisenko I guess

 

[Sparty]

Yeah I'll look over prospects and keepers to make sure people aren't keeping players that no longer qualify if anyone's not sure, or they can just inquire here.

 

[jaster]

I'm probably going to keep Eklund and Rossi as prospects.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

That time should work just fine @Sparty

 

[Martinez]

Makar
Norris
Nylander
Batherson
Thomas
Nurse
Rat
Shesterkin

McTavish
Guhle
Bourque

Edit, saros instead of nurse

 

[turkleton85]

McDavid
Barkov
Crosby

Robertson

Hedman
Carlson

Markstrom
Demko

(No Prospects)

 

[Martinez]

McDavid
Barkov
Crosby

Robertson

Hedman
Carlson

Markstrom
Demko

(No Prospects)

Can we keep two goalies?

 

[jaster]

Can we keep two goalies?

I had discussed drawing up the league rules last season and then I never followed through. I'll take another stab at it this season so we can reference them to answer questions like this. As for the question itself.... I think we can keep more than one goalie? Looking at last season's league I see that @Sparty kept both Talbot and Binnington.

 

[turkleton85]

my bad if it doesnt work. I didn't look at the rules and just kept 8. I'll change it up if its against the rules

 

[Sparty]

I don't think we ever had anyone ask about setting limits for keepers at any one position. Build your team how you want, keep four goalies if you like.

There were discussions for limiting the number of goalies you can carry on your team, but I never had a problem with letting people carry tons of goalies if that's what they wanted. If you don't have a good goalie group then it can be tough to succeed. Not sure how the math works out or if there's an optimal number of goalies you should carry, but if you all want to crunch the numbers and find that number then have at it, lol.

 

[jaster]

I have 5 core keepers that are locked in for me (MacKinnon, Kaprizov, Marner, Ekblad, and Connor).

Beyond that, I can only keep 3 of the following....

F Stamkos
F Zegras
F Stutzle
F Point
F Stone
D Theodore
D Dobson
G Oettinger
G Swayman
G Fleury

Not sure how many teams are looking to upgrade their keeper pool, but I've got some decent guys I'd be willing to part with for the right return. I have a pretty good idea of which 3 I'll keep if there's no trade interest, but I'm also willing to package 2 or 3 up for an upgrade.

 

[Wyzer Plan]

I hope I made the right choices

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Not sure if Byfield, Broberg and Holtz have left prospect status. They let me select them as keepers beyond the normal 8 so I am guessing that is the case...

I will try to check back, hands full with this approaching hurricane and likely without power for a little bit.

 

[jaster]

Not sure if Byfield, Broberg and Holtz have left prospect status. They let me select them as keepers beyond the normal 8 so I am guessing that is the case...

I will try to check back, hands full with this approaching hurricane and likely without power for a little bit.

Yahoo isn't equipped to apply our league's prospect parameters, so it'll let you select anyone. Commish will have to confirm or deny your request

I think the parameters for "prospect" classification are:

- drafted in past 3 NHL drafts
- under 50 NHL games played

That's for skaters anyway. Goalies are past 5 drafts and a different number of games I think.

Although I do strongly recommend we review this. Our league has changed over the years (mainly due to contraction), and carrying these prospects has become largely pointless since there are so few who are good enough at 20/21 years old to keep them over your other keepers after their prospect status expires.

I think a good change would be one as simple as expanding the limits. Like, you can keep X number of "prospects" as long as they were taken in the past 4 NHL drafts and have less than 100 games. This allows a better bridge from "prospect keeper" to "keeper," where you're not holding on to a kid for up to 3 years, having to let them go because they don't have real value yet, and then watching other managers draft them the following year.

And if we do strengthen this bridge so that keeping prospects actually has value, maybe we decrease the allowable number from 3 to 2, so there isn't too much hoarding of youthful wealth going on

 

[jaster]

@The Zetterberg Era, it looks as if Byfield and Holtz are both still prospects (under 50 games and drafted in past 3 drafts), but Broberg was drafted in 2019, so he's no longer a prospect. @Sparty can probably confirm.

 

[Sparty]

Yeah, Yahoo doesn't allow you to input parameters for keepers so we can only let you select 11 and we'll throw them out if they don't meet the criteria. Pretty much what Jaster said.

You're not really required to carry prospects if you don't want to. So many of these prospects, when they finally make your roster they don't end up being worthwhile additions to your team and typically you might prefer a waiver claim over a young kid playing a bit part on a team.

I think the idea of having prospects on our team was great, but seeing how it's executed I don't think it's actually worth doing. It would be different if we were required to play three prospects that might be different, but just carrying them is kind of pointless because you're never going to play most of them. Requiring teams to play three prospects would maximize the value of the top prospects, but it would also make headaches to enforce all year long. When you also factor in that Yahoo doesn't have college players in their system yet, that makes it even harder to get worthwhile prospects.

Ideally we could keep prospects in those NA slots until they have exceeded prospect status, but since we can't then the whole prospect thing is kind of a racket.

I think what we're doing now is probably best, carry them if you want them.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I think my Sabres goalie still counts as a prospect too, so I can just switch to him.