This week Capped looks at situations where buying low and selling high are muddied by salary cap implications.

In fantasy hockey, player values never stop changing. Whether it be based on future potential, past success, line or coaching changes or age, these changes always have an impact on how much you can get out of a player on the trade market. Often we talk about short-term hot streaks or slumps creating opportunities to buy low and sell high. This is especially useful with young players when one of your rival GMs overvalues his supposed potential based on some recent developments.

However, in cap leagues it is much more difficult to buy low and sell high because of the differences in cap hits. When one of your players is overachieving, chances are that he is also producing above his salary level. In order to sell high, you would have to move him for a player normally perceived to be better (and maybe underachieving) but that player probably has a higher cap hit. Unless you can afford the exchange, it may be very difficult to take advantage of your opportunity to improve your squad. And if your team is fairly competitive, chances are that you do not have that much available cap space to begin with.