As we move into September, we hit two milestones. First, we are now less than a month away from to the start of the season. Second, as of now, I have been a part of the DobberHockey team for a full year. I just wanted to say a big thank you to Dobber for bringing me on, and to the rest of the crew for such high quality content that forces me to put in a little more effort to keep up.

This week’s buy and sell covers Philadelphia through Tampa Bay, featuring one player that you should be trying to get onto your fantasy team, as well as one player you should be trying to get off of your fantasy team.

All other buy and sell articles written to date can be viewed here.

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Philadelphia Flyers

Buy: Brian Elliott

Cap Hit: $2,750,000 with two years remaining

*Note: Brian Elliott’s 2017-2018 stats are with the Calgary Flames

Having profiled Shayne Gostisbehere when he signed his new contract last year as a buy, I am sticking to that, but I will profile someone else in this space. Newly-signed netminder Brian Elliott enters as the odds-on favourite to see the most starts for the Flyers this season. With that comes some up and down numbers from the past few seasons. However, Elliott did report that he had a tough time adjusting to the Calgary defence last season, figuring things out about halfway through the season (and his numbers visibly improved). He should be a good bet to provide value both for his contract and the cost to acquire him.

Sell: Jakub Voracek

Cap Hit: $8,250,000 with seven years remaining

I hope that I don’t have to tell you to be selling Jakub Voracek, because there isn’t and won’t be any way for him to live up to that contract in the fantasy world. I could just end the blurb there, and we would have a succinct bit saying almost everything that needs to be said.

Voracek is a good player, don’t get me wrong, but he has his one season of 82 points that got him the contract. Otherwise, he hasn’t topped 62 points. If you’re paying a player to be a point-per-game scorer, and they only pace for 60 a season, then you are not icing a very effective roster. Take whatever value you can get for Voracek, because there aren’t really any signs pointing to a rebound back to 80 points.

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Pittsburgh Penguins

Buy: Connor Sheary

Cap Hit: $3,000,000 with three years remaining

Many people are saying that Connor Sheary’s value is tied to playing with Sidney Crosby, but that’s false. Sheary will have value this season if he can stay on one of the top two lines with either of the all-star centres, Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. The way it stands now, there are really only four wingers to that should be in the running for a top-six forward spot. With four wingers, and four slots, then it would seem Sheary is almost a lock to play with one of Crosby or Malkin.

Sheary did show excellent chemistry with Crosby late last season, but it may be tough to usurp Patrick Hornqvist and Phil Kessel, while Jake Guentzel almost seems like a lock to begin the season with Crosby. However the chips fall, Sheary seems to be in line to outplay his $3 million salary just based on the default of whom he has the opportunity to play with. Buy now while the uncertainty is still clouding the vision of your other managers.

Sell: Justin Schultz

Cap Hit: $5,500,000 with three years remaining

Justin Schultz was quite the bargain in salary cap leagues just last season, but now he checks in as a sell because of his new contract. Schultz’s value rose dramatically last season due to teammate Kris Letang having missed more games than he normally does in an average season (and that is saying something). Can we expect Letang to miss games this coming year? Yes. Can we expect Letang to miss half the season again? No, or at least not safely anyways.

If Schultz can hold onto the top powerplay gig for more than half the season, he may be able to live up to his contract. However, there is just too much downside to this contract, both in points-only leagues, and multi-category ones, for Schultz to be anything other than a sell right now.

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St. Louis Blues

Buy: Robby Fabbri

Cap Hit: $894,167 with one year remaining

Robby Fabbri has quietly managed over a 40-point pace in his first two career NHL seasons. However, he missed almost half of last season with a knee injury, and is entering this season as a bit of an underdog. Fabbri loves that role, and the diminutive winger has always proved the doubters wrong. I remember seeing him back in his days in major junior, and no one worked harder on the ice. Not much has changed since then, and Fabbri is going to keep up the hard work until he is one of the best players on the Blues. Buy-in now while you can.

Sell: Alex Steen

Cap Hit: $5,750,000 with four years remaining

Alex Steen has seen his scoring rate drop each year over the last four seasons, and it very well may continue in 2017-2018. He has had trouble with lingering arm/shoulder injuries as well, which is likely the cause of his cratering shot rate. None of these signs point to someone that stands a good chance to break out of a rut, they point to someone who is just falling off the cliff. With the only major offseason change to the St. Louis forwards being the swap of Jori Lehtera for Brayden Schenn, there isn’t much that should change for the coming season, and Steen’s trends likely won’t either. Add to that the fact that he disappointed last year while still shooting a slightly high 13.7%, and this new contract is just going to look worse as the years go by.

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San Jose Sharks

Buy: Kevin Labanc

Cap Hit: $717,500 with two years remaining.

After scoring 20 points in his 55 game rookie campaign, Kevin Labanc has the opportunity to follow it up with a very good sophomore campaign. After Patrick Marleau left for blue pastures in Toronto, there is a scoring line winger slot up for grabs. Labanc should be given a fair chance to win the spot, and with his talent, there is a good chance he impresses with it. Playing with some combination of the top scorers in San Jose can bring a big boost to fantasy numbers. Labanc may be under the radar in most leagues for now, but he makes a good roll-of-the-dice to try and get a leg up on your league-mates.

Sell: Marc–Edouard Vlasic

Cap Hit: $4,250,000 with one year remaining before his eight year extension kicks in at $7,000,000 per year.

At $4.25 million per year, you could try to justify Marc-Edouard Vlasic on your fantasy team. At the $7 million per season he will be earning after this season, you can stop pretending. Vlasic used a big hot streak (eight points in nine games) at the end of last season to bring his scoring numbers even close to respectability – finishing at 28 points. Add this to the fact that with Brent Burns signed for the next eight years, meaning there isn’t room for him on the top power play unit that is so lethal for the Sharks, and you end up with a pretty bleak picture of the forecast for Vlasic. No matter what the categories are, Vlasic’s new contract is going to price him out of even being owned in most leagues, let alone traded for. See if you can still get something in the meantime.

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Tampa Bay Lightning

Buy: Yanni Gourde

Cap Hit: $1,000,000 with two years remaining

Considering that Nikita Kucherov will be damn near untouchable in your cap league, and that Brayden Point likely isn’t getting moved either, your best bet here might be Yanni Gourde. Gourde seems to slot in the bottom six at the moment, but he has shown a good scoring touch both in junior and in his first 22 NHL games. He has the talent to make things happen, and reminds me of Jonathan Marchessault last year, just needing the right injury to give him the ice time he needs to thrive. He even has a very similar contract to Marchessault, and has forwards in from of him that struggle to stay healthy (Steven Stamkos, Ondrej Palat, and Tyler Johnson to name a few).

Sell: Anton Stralman

Cap Hit: $4,500,000 with two years remaining

The idea here is to cover players not recently discussed in the Capped articles, so that took Palat and Johnson out of the running for the sell tag. Anton Stralman is the winner (or really the loser) of the title in this case. The 31-year old defenceman has had a lot of good, but not great years throughout his career, topped off with the 39 points from a couple seasons ago. Stralman really sees his points increase when Stamkos is healthy and Victor Hedman isn’t, due to the fit of their respective handedness for running the power play.

At this point however, it appears that Nikita Kucherov is taking over the offense of the team, and Stralman is being left behind after Hedman meshed so well with him last season. Add in that the defenceman will be looking for market value based on his defensive abilities once his current contract is up, and we will see his production struggle to even repeat the 30+ point pace he had from 2014-2016.

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All cap related info is courtesy of Capfriendly. All player data was pulled from Frozen Pool.

Thanks for reading. I would be curious to hear if you have any buy/sell candidates on the above teams, and why.

As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean where I post some of my other smaller musings that don’t make it into the articles.