In case you still have a trade deadline that has yet to pass, the cap rankings are still in the 2021-22 season mode. As of the next update, coming on May 25^th, I will have the contracts updated to the 2022-23 season, including FA projections, and new season scoring rates/projections for the players, so expect some large movement there!

In the short term, Cole Caufield and his mid-season resurrection have jumped him above another high-flying scorer who is on the smaller end of the weight scale. That New Jersey Devils scorer is Jack Hughes whose cap league stock is about to drop in the summer once his $8 million AAV extension kicks in. That being said, don't just completely off of that boat, as he will still be ranked among the top-200 come the summer, he's that good.

Maybe the most unexpected name in the top-70 here is Jack Roslovic, who my rankings just seem to love. He's not on his ELC, he's due a raise next summer, and he's only scoring a point every other game, so what gives? Well, first off he's dropped down under 13 minutes per game this season. As soon as he starts getting played more often, he's going to pop. He has good results in sheltered minutes, none of his underlying numbers are skewed, and his IPP is above 70% for the second year running. There's some cheap production coming here soon, and all the slump this year is doing is bringing down the cap hit on his next deal.

Standard pre-rankings note:

This isn't meant to be a be-all and end-all rating system for you to use without thinking and just trade your players for anyone above them on the list that you can find, but used with some foresight for managing salaries, I'm hoping that the list can help you mine value in trades, and at the draft table.

The assumed league setup is for points-only leagues, with a salary allotment of approximately $73 million per team (10% of the NHL's $81.5 million being allocated for goalies), for 12 forwards and six defencemen per roster, amongst a range from eight to 14 teams (completely covered by the top 200 list). Cap hit is used for the player cost, so if your league uses salary or AAV, please account for that, as it can greatly change the impact of rookies. The rankings are set up so as to provide the most value in the current season, while providing some value in future years, based on modeling for predicted salary increases and production growth.

For those of you with variations from this setup, whether in terms of number of teams, salary space, roster positions, or scoring categories, you can make your own personal tweaks to move players up or down as necessary. This list is made to be a baseline guide for player evaluation, and to promote discussion and understanding of how to optimize rosters in a cap league setting.

If you note a mistake, or have any further questions about the ranking system, please let me know. You can find me on Twitter here @alexdmaclean.

I'm not perfect, and the rankings won't be either. Comments help with optimizing the values.

We're sticking with the +/- 5.0 rating that Dobber uses on all of his rating schemes as the range for approximately equivalent value. The skater and goalie rankings are synched so that the value of a skater against a goalie can be compared, though the scale of the ratings has changed a little since the last update.

All salary info is courtesy of capfriendly. Without further ado, the rankings: