First off, I hope everyone is staying safe and staying indoors as much as possible!

Over the last two weeks here, we combed over the Eastern and Western Conference teams for some possible picks in the Seattle expansion. This week, we're going to look at the final roster, and discuss some thoughts for fantasy league expansions.

A few notes before we begin:

– I made some assumptions for the selections, knowing there will be player movement in the 15 months remaining until the selection draft. If you have questions, I would be happy to answer – you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean.

– I am using the Capfriendly expansion tool to keep my thoughts organized.

– I tried to keep my biases out of this, but some will inevitably creep in. If you want to give it a try yourself, I would love to see some other options in the comments.

****

Again, here is the final roster that we ended up with from selections discussed over the last two weeks.

Forwards:

JVR – Trocheck – Ryan

Connolly – Kerfoot – Burakovsky

Heinen – Sissons – Virtanen

Sundqvist – Glendening – Armia

Greenway – Bjork

Defencemen:

Cernak – Miller

Johns – Savard

Valimaki – Jensen

Simek

Goalies:

Murray

Raanta

Spares: Schneider, Keokkeok, Jones, Poolman, Grundstrom, Bellows, Gauthier.

Forwards:

If the top line of James Van Reimsdyk, Vincent Trochek, and Bobby Ryan was given the lion's share of offensive zone starts, they could all top 70 points in a healthy season. The other three lines all look like they could hold their own in the defensive zone, with a bit of scoring pop provided as well. It's not a top set in the league, but it's certainly not at the bottom either. The forwards listed in the "spares" section could all be sent to the AHL team in for the time being, and they provide some diverse talents depending on what is needed in a call up. Having the internal competition would also be a good start for Seattle.

Defencemen:

As with Vegas, it looks like Seattle can easily load up with some extra defencemen that they could then flip to boost their draft picks stock and prospect cupboard. Erik Cernak is a favourite of mine for fantasy hockey, and Michael Clifford covered him very well last week in one of his ramblings. The top six looks extremely solid and would be a strength of the team in front of some reliable goaltenders. Colin Miller might get the first crack with the top powerplay, but Jusso Valimaki could stand to be the biggest winner here.

Goalies:

Between Matt Murray and Antti Raanta, the Seattle team would have two solid starting options, both with some injury history. Cory Schneider's last year works well as a stabilizing agent between his AHL experience, and ability to back up (or start regularly) when injuries hit. If Seattle was to go on a run towards the playoffs, it would likely be due to winning defensive games two-to-one as opposed to outscoring their opposition five-to-four.

To me this looks like a better roster on paper than what Vegas had in their first year, so with the right coaching this could be a playoff bubble team. This won't be how everything lines up, but as a baseline, this is a rough estimate of what kind of talent level we might expect to see available for Seattle in the summer of 2021.

****

With Seattle's team set to join the NHL soon, in addition to the Vegas Golden Knights back in the summer of 2017, the influx of new players has added some depth to the league, that a lot of fantasy leagues are trying to match by expanding an extra team or two. In single season leagues, or leagues with a very limited number of keepers, it can be fairly easy to add another team or two to your league. However, in leagues with half or even all of the players on a roster being kept, there are a lot of different options and opportunities for how to manage an expansion process.

As with the NHL, rules need to be agreed upon and reviewed by the league at least a summer before the expansion, in order for every GM to properly prepare their roster the way they see fit. Dumping an expansion process, and a new set of rules on top of GMs in the same summer that you want to put the expansion process underway doesn't give teams the ability to build their teams up, down, or to diversify in the right way to properly approach the expansion. What it does, is it becomes a blindsiding rebalancing of the league by taking much better players away from the top teams and taking free-agent level players from the bottom teams.

Looking at the NHL rosters see anyone with two years of experience or less kept, in addition to half of the active roster being protected. That means players are being selected from the bottom quarter or third of each NHL team – unless a team's hands are tied due to positional eligibility. Comparing that to the expansion rules in a fantasy league, that seems close to what would balance competitiveness and fairness for fantasy expansions. If your league is taking this on, do your research, and plan out what kind of rules you will go with. If you have a little bit of complaining from your existing GMs, then you're probably on the right track.

When you are the team picking players to protect for expansion, obviously the first goal is protecting your best players. The second step though, should be to look at who your team has exposed relative to the rest of the likely players available around the league, and analyze who you should expect to lose. Looking at this, you might be able to find an obvious path through the expansion process. For example, maybe you are a team that is going to leave the best goalie exposed, so you can afford to acquire a few more skaters that you don't have to bother protecting, taking advantage of lower prices from teams not wanting to lose their exposed skater for nothing.

As the expansion team, make sure you do your research(!), and go into the draft with a plan. Know what positions are key to the league, what stats you're going to try and target (as well as contracts and ages if they are relevant). It can also be that the best final team you can assemble means leaving a better player unselected. If there are three solid and generally equivalent goalies to choose from and you can only pick two, then take the two from the teams that offer the least attractive skater options. It is amazing to me how many people aren't able to make these kinds of analytical decisions in fantasy sports, whether it be in drafts, trades, or other situations. There are a lot of chances to take advantage of these kinds of talent discrepancies in your leagues – as long as you keep your eyes open, and your biases to a minimum.

****

While we wait for hockey to return, stay safe everyone, and let me know what you think about the pick options!

If you have questions, comments, or article requests, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean.

All salary info courtesy of capfriendly, statistics are all pulled from FrozenTools.