Welcome back to another edition of the Roos Lets Loose monthly mailbag, where I answer your fantasy hockey questions by giving advice that should be useful to all poolies even if they don't own the specific players being discussed. As a reminder, if you want your fantasy hockey question(s) answered in the next mailbag, check out the end of the column, where I explain the ways to get it/them to me as well as the details you should provide when sending. The earlier you send a question the more likely it is to be included in the mailbag, and the deeper dive I can provide with my reply.

Question #1 (from Travis)

I'm in a 14 Team, Keep 3, H2H League with rosters of 2C, 2LW, 2RW, 3D, 1Util, 2G, 4BN, 2IR, 1IR+ and categories of G/A/P/PIM/PPP/SHP/SOG/FOW/Hits/Blocks/Wins/GAA/SV%/SHO. I read Alexander MacLean's Ramblings about top 12 fantasy players in the future, and it got me thinking about upgrading my keepers to younger players. Who do you think would be the top 3 players to keep from my roster given my categories? Do you I could/should try to make a deal to land one or more of Kirill Kaprizov, Mitch Marner, Jason Robertson, Mikko Rantanen, David Pastrnak, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk or Andrei Svechnikov? What do you think about these players as targets? Here is my roster as of when I submitted my question:

F – Nikita Kucherov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Artemi Panarin, Travis Konecny, Joel Eriksson Ek, Boone Jenner, Jake Debrusk, Mark Scheifele, Alex Killorn, Nick Schmaltz

Defense – Filip Hronek, Noah Dobson, Darnell Nurse, Jake Sanderson 

Goalies – Linus Ullmark, Jake Oettinger

First off, don't take this the wrong way, but what you need to do is ask yourself this – if you owned one of those players you listed as targets, how would you respond if a GM approached you offering one of your players in return? What I'm getting at is you have three standout players in Kucherov, Panarin, and Huberdeau. Each one has something that could turn off another GM. With Kucherov, it's his recently injury woes, while with Panarin it's that he's not very young, and with Huberdeau it's him having struggled to find his footing in Calgary.

If Kucherov stays healthy all season, his value probably will be back close to where it was and should be. In that case, do you want to trade him? He could produce at this pace for many seasons; then again, he could get injured and this time to an extent he doesn't come back as the same player. I think Kucherov is talented enough and still young enough to risk holding. As for Panarin, he's low risk to trade because he's almost assuredly peaked. So although he probably won't see his production wane for a while, he's most likely not going to take it to another level. As for Huberdeau, not to toot my own horn but I had pointed out in one of my columns that despite his production last season he was no better than the 90- to 95-point player he'd been for several prior seasons. It has happened before that great players simply don't do as well on a new team. The problem is Huberdeau already signed to stay in Calgary, who probably can't do much more to surround him with other top tier players given how much they're paying him and the rest of the team. With Huberdeau you need to hold and hope.

My advice would be to try and trade Panarin and see if you can get one of these guys in return, except for Svechnikov, who, despite making strides this season, is still someone I feel is heavily overhyped. The hope is you might lose Panarin's locked in floor but gain a younger, more complete player. I'd target Brady Tkachuk, Pastrnak or Marner, as all of them are younger than Panarin or, in the case of Tkachuk, brings a more complete multicat package. Good luck!

Question #2 (from Justin)

I'm in a very competitive 14-team league with 20 player rosters and categories of G, A, Pts, PPPts, +/-, SOG, FOW, Hit, Blk, W, SV, SV%, SO. We can keep 5, and the notable players on my roster are Nathan MacKinnon, John Tavares, Tage Thompson, Brady Tkachuk, Jason Robertson, Cale Makar, and Ilya Sorokin. The top teams always have tons of FOW (this season I have 6Cs and 4CW who get FOW). And the goalie market is VERY THIN because all good goalies are kept, with most of the teams having three netminders. Who should I plan to keep, and who would you consider trading?

First off, the clear "step down" player among these seven is Tavares; he's an easy non-keep given your options; but you probably had surmised that. After him, it's more difficult to decide. Ideally offseason trading is allowed, as you have too much talent to have to toss another player back into the pile for free. What you want to do is a two for one deal. The problem is your players are so strong such that any two you package together likely will be almost guaranteed to be better than a single player you'd get in return. Still, you need to do what you can to trim this roster of six superb keepers to just five or all you'll be doing is making another team better while netting nothing in return for doing so.

Who to target? I think Leon Draisaitl is the best option. He's outstanding, but probably not untouchable like Connor McDavid. If you can turn two of your players into him, plus perhaps a draft pick, I'd go for it, as you'd have so far and away the best five keepers. With that out of the way, now comes the tough part — who to trade? Not Sorokin, who is a star in the making, plus is key if indeed goalies are coveted. It can't be Makar, who's a generational talent. I'm also not moving MacKinnon, who's still young and checks so many boxes.

That leaves two of Tkachuk, Thompson and Robertson, who happen to be arguably the three forwards who've raised their fantasy values the most this season. That's a good thing for purposes of trading them, as even if they play this well in future seasons, they might not fetch as much of a return as right now when they're a "shiny new toy." Yes, some poolies might be skeptical because they're less proven. I can virtually guarantee you there are GMs in your league – hopefully the Draisaitl owner being one of them – who see these guys and think they can do even better than they are now when in truth that, if anything, is as unlikely as likely, if not more so.

The guy I'm definitely trading is Thompson. Yes, I realize he may be one of those coveted C/W players in your league who gets you FOW from the wing, but in the end that's just one of 12 categories and it's not worth placing on a pedestal. Also, avid readers of my column know I like to consider player comparables; and of the total of 13 centers who were as tall or taller than the 6'6'' Thompson and played 200+ games between 1990-91 and 2020-21, a mere two averaged over a point per every other game, with the best being Nik Antropov, who posted 465 points in 788 games. Also, Antropov, as well as the second best producer, Martin Hanzal, both had injury issues, which I worry could befall Thompson too due to his height and the demands of playing center at his size. To me, that is enough concern/uncertainty to have him be one of the two who you deal.

The choice between Robertson and Thachuk is a lot tougher. In the end I think I'm trading Tkachuk. Yes, I realize in the previous question he was one of the players I touted to acquire, but this just underscores that in fantasy there is no "one size fits all" situation. Plus, I do worry that Tkachuk's style of play leaves him at risk for injury or, failing that, of slowing down a lot earlier than Robertson, who's doing what he is now despite not even being close to maxed out when it comes to SOG or ice time. Good luck!

Question #3 (from Corey)

I’m in a 12 team, keep 10 (max 2 goalies) league. Forwards get 1 point for a goal or assist, but defensemen get 2 per goal and 1 per assist. Goalies get 2 points per win or 4 points per shutout. It's not a H2H league but points are awarded to teams based on their points totals for the week, with the team that gets the most points receiving 12 points and the team with the least getting zero. We don't have specific requirements for roster sizes or starting line-ups, provided that the point total for all of your players – based on our scoring and last year's totals – has to be 1050 or less, which is equal to the total points accumulated by last season's winning team. All your players are active every week, but only the top 2 goalies, 4 defensemen and 6 forwards count towards each team's weekly point total.

My team did decent last year but I am near the bottom this year. Here is my line-up:

G: Jordan Binnington, Darcy Kuemper, Eric Comrie. 

D: Zach Werenski, Morgan Rielly, Rasmus Dahlin. Alexander Romanov, Jake Walman

F: Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Mitch Marner, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Yegor Sharangovich, Stefan Noesen, Kent Johnson, Brandon Tanev, Peryton Krebs, Rudolf Balcers, Eeli Tolvanen, Taylor Raddysh, Juuso Parssinen

My question is how bad do you think my goalies are? Is there any hope for them? My defense is good, or at least I think so; and I was toying with the idea of moving Dahlin to get a goalie in return. But on the other hand I'm also tinkering with the idea of a rebuild, in which case I'd want to keep Dahlin. For what it's worth, the Dahlin trade I've been offered is him, Kuznetsov and Raddysh plus a 4th round pick in return For Alexander Georgiev, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust and a 2nd round pick.

If you're looking for me to give you a glimmer of hope about your goalies, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Binnington is on pace to see his really bad start percentage rise and, at the same time, his SV% and GSAA drop, for the fourth straight season. It really can't get much worse than that. I think the Blues will move on from him for next season, eating his contract if they must. Comrie could've stepped into a great spot and seized the starting role for an upstart Sabres team, but he's looked lousy and seemingly is just a back-up goalie in terms of his upside. Kuemper is an entrenched starter, but hitched his wagon to a Caps ship that looks to be slowly sinking.

As for your skaters, you have some nice pieces, but nowhere near what you'd need to compete even if your goalies weren't albatrosses. I do give you credit for realizing you might need a rebuild, as that is the viable path forward I see for your team.

If embarking on a rebuild, you can't make that Dahlin trade, and in fact he'd be a centerpiece keeper, as would Marner, Rielly, Werenski, Gaudreau and Tkachuk. That makes six of ten. Krebs has not done as well as hoped, at least not yet; however, for a rebuilding team he probably passes muster as a keeper, a does Johnson. That leaves you two more spots to lock down.

Who can you trade that will give you any semblance of a decent return? Kuemper still can net you an asset, as could Kuznetsov. Other than them though, your prospects – literally and figuratively – are pretty bleak. All it takes is for you to trade each of those two for another player, and you're set on keepers. If you need a sweetener, try to move Sharangovich, who seems to be projecting to be a middle six guy at best but still might entice another GM due to his age and team. Good luck!

Question #4 (from Kevin)

What do you make of Bo Horvat's performance so far this season? Can he sustain this production, or even improve upon it? Or is this a temporary surge to boost his UFA value?

Many a Horvat owner in keepers is wondering the same thing, that's for sure. And you're not wrong to be skeptical about the timing of his upped production. After all, Horvat, a former ninth overall selection, started his career by upping his scoring rate every season through his sixth campaign. After that though, he got stuck in neutral, with a scoring rate of 57-63 for four straight seasons. Now suddenly he's a point per gamer, in his ninth season?

The question, however, has always been whether Horvat was being held back by being unselfish and/or by being deployed in ways not conductive to scoring. Looking beneath the surface, in three of those four seasons where he produced in the 57-63 range, his OZ% was under 40%. So the fact he fared as well as he did was a marvel given circumstances that were so non-conductive to scoring, and perhaps foretold that he had this in him all along?

On the other hand, he wasn't doing himself any favors, most notably on the PP. In the four years prior to 2022-23, Horvat had cumulatively the tenth highest PP TOI of any NHL forward. Where did his PPPts rank him through? Try tied for 63rd! There is no other way to spin that except awful. Yet this season he's faring much better on the PP. Is it a case of his overall effort level increasing and having a spillover effect on the PP? Or might he be due to see his PP production fall back to his usual disappointing levels?

An even bigger concern is Horvat's SOG rate is a career high, as is his SH%. And this despite similar ratios of SOG from 0-15, 16-31 and 31+ feet. If Horvat's SOG rate was the same yet his SH was 13.1%, as it was entering this season, then his scoring rate would be 63 points, or right in his usual wheelhouse.

Still – Horvat is all but assured to be leaving Vancouver and will be paid enough to not be pigeonholed as a purely defensive-minded center. Accordingly, the question becomes whether Horvat would do better in the long run with better deployment. Already this season he's seen his OZ% rise to 45.3. How much higher could it realistically be? Even on a new team he'd likely not be used as a first line, offensive juggernaut mold of center but rather as a Jonathan Toews or Sean Couturier type, and as we know they mainly produced in the 65-75 point range.

Horvat upping his effort level because he's a UFA to be – that might just be a red herring. Instead, he's seemingly faring better due to an unsustainable SH% and a PP scoring rate which, although less inherently suspect, still is not in keeping with multiple seasons of man advantage struggles. Long story short, if you can sell Horvat and get point per game or perhaps even higher value in return, I'd not hesitate to do so, as, if anything, you'd be selling high. Good luck!

Question #5 (from Liam)

As an avid reader, I enjoy – and finally think I understand – all the metrics you use when evaluating skaters, like IPP (overall and on the PP), Offensive Zone Starting Percentage, Secondary Assists Percentage, Percentage of PP time, and shots taken from various distances. What are similar stats one should focus on when assessing goalies?

Although I usually only devote one edition per calendar year of Goldipucks and the Three Skaters to covering netminders, I still look at goalie stats carefully. I think it's wise for you to do so too, as it can be very enlightening.

First are the basics, namely Quality Start and Really Bad Start Percentage. What defines a Quality Start? The goalie has to have a save percentage above the league average at the time, or, if, facing fewer than 20 SOG in a game, he has to have saved 88.5% or higher of the shots he faced. A Really Bad Start is one where a goalie has a SV% less than .850 – that's all there is to it. Is it as simple as all good goalies have high QS% and a low RBS%? No, it's not so absolute. What you're looking for is if a goalie diverges from expectations given his team. A low QS% or high RBS% isn't as bad when one is on a poor team, or when coupled with a fair share of shutouts or one goal games, as that means the goalie is likely better than the situation he's in. Conversely, if a goalie is on a great team, especially one that is solid defensively, and has just average QS% and RBS%, then that is concerning. If a goalie plays for a high scoring team though, that's when things also can get interesting, as if a goalie only does well enough to win, his QS% and/or RBS% most likely won't be great, and he might be a risky own for the long haul, especially if peripherals count.

Something else I like to consider is High Danger SV%. What constitutes a High Danger Save can only be defined by looking at a diagram, like here. As one would imagine, high danger saves are not easy to make as often as regular saves. And the best goalie in the entire NHL had a .883 HDSV% last season, and that was Ville Husso. Number two and number three were Igor Shesterkin, who was first in 2020-21, and Ilya Sorokin. So seeing those two names you know it's a meaningful stat. Anyone who's over 0.850 is pretty solid, while those who fall below the 0.820 mark are ones for whom there should be some concern. I know that's not a big spread, but trust me it's enough to be impactful.

Another stat I like to consider is goal support per 60 minutes. It's not the same as team goals per game, as remember that no goalie starts every one of his team's games and some games go to overtime. If a goalie is getting more than 3.5 goals scored for him per 60 minutes, he better be doing well, and even then he might be a risky own since that is not a team scoring pace which is easy to sustain. On the other hand, if a goalie's team is unable to muster even three goals per 60 minutes and he's still faring well, then he's likely winning games despite his team not due to them.

Lastly, I look at GSAA (i.e., goals against, minus goals against if goals against was league average), not in and of itself though, but rather – as tracked by Frozen Tools – as GSAA/60 minutes. Goalies who are negative should be of serious concern, while those who might have a lot of wins but sit below 0.33 are ones who should raise eyebrows, and not in a good way. Good question!

Question #6 (from Bobby)

I know you love to cite past comparables, so I'd like you to find a few for me in terms of players who will be able to produce well once they reach the age when most slow down. Since 2000-01, a total of 13 forwards played 41+ games in a season while scoring at a point per game pace in that same season despite being 35+ years old: Teemu Selanne, Martin St. Louis, Daniel Alfredsson, Mats Sundin, Joe Sakic, Mario Lemieux, Joe Thornton, Pavel Datsyuk, Rod Brind'Amour, Brett Hull, Adam Oates, and, for still active players, Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. Which other active forwards do you think are most likely to achieve the feat?

Let's divide those 13 into styles of play, as that can help find analogous forwards from today. First off, there were the pass first players like Oates and Thornton. Although these two aren't centers like Oates and Thornton, I'd draw comparisons to Artemi Panarin, who, at 30, seems to be poised to succeed at a high level for at least another five seasons, plus Johnny Gaudreau who I realize is a little younger but plays a style that should lead to him being productive for many years to come.

Then you have the just plain elite centers, like Lemieux, Malkin, Sundin, Sakic and Datsyuk. For them, I draw parallels between Sidney Crosby and also John Tavares and perhaps even Claude Giroux, Mika Zibanejad, and Mark Scheifele, plus, if surrounding talent helps him, Anze Kopitar.

Then there are the wingers who were either complete packages or snipers, like St. Louis, Selanne, Brind'Amour, Alfredsson, Ovi, and Hull. They bring to mind the likes of Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Brad Marchand, and perhaps even the ageless wonders that are Joe Pavelski and Blake Wheeler, and the situationally great Mats Zuccarello.

Just as important as making comparisons though is who isn't on the list, and that is rough and tumble players who play a predominantly physical game. I've said many times that although you'll find some exceptions, chances are those players peak before 30, so owning them on the other side of that number is risky business. Yes, Ovi likes to hit; however, he's an otherworldly talent who also has had his fair share of protectors over the years, preventing him from receiving in return what he likes to dish out.

Question #7 (from Karl)

What are your thoughts on Tyler Bertuzzi and Alexis Lafreniere going forward? Do you think either or both get traded? If not, how do you see their next few seasons unfolding? Is it too soon to consider Laffy a player who will never live up to first overall expectations? Can Bertuzzi be someone who one can bank on getting 70+ points per season if healthy? Or does he have another gear?

I'm not great at predicting trades and who will or won't get moved. Beyond that, how either of these two would fare on a new team would depend son where they land and how they'd fit on the depth chart. Both would likely cost enough that they would be likely to go to a squad that would give them deployment that is at least as good as now, if not better. For Laffy in particular though, he could be thrust into a role with greater expectations, which I feel would either cause him to rise to the occasion or fail, with little room in between. For Bertuzzi though, I suspect it'd be more of the same.

What if they don't get moved though? With Laffy playing for a winning team, that does a lot to keep the fans and press from giving him grief. Not only that, but Laffy is doing better than Kappo Kakko, who was drafted second overall a year earlier and certainly helps take at least some of scrutiny spotlight off Laffy. Still though, I'd label the success that the Rangers are experiencing as a Catch-22 when it comes to Laffy in that he doesn't need to be relied upon, so the pressure is somewhat off; but that also means he's not being put into situations where his feet are being held to the fire to produce, as shown by his healthy scratch this past week. If we look at him like a normal player, he is seemingly improving, albeit not by leaps and bounds. His SOG rate and IPPs are on pace to improve for the second straight season. And his IPP on the PP is 100%, showing that he likely could thrive if given a shot on PP1. His SH% is less than half his career rate, such that if it was his usual rate he'd have double his goals and his productions and trajectory would look at lot better. Long story short, I think it is still possible for Laffy to thrive, even though he might not be a true superstar as originally envisioned.

As for Bertuzzi, going into 2022-23 he was one of only two NHLers (Pavel Buchnevich being the other) to see an increase in his scoring and SOG rate every season of his career for a total of at least six seasons. Of course that wasn't going to continue forever; however, it's impressive and seemingly signified that Bertuzzi was rounding more and more into form with each passing season. Yet his career high in games played is just 73 and he's missed big chunks of time now in two of the past three seasons. People worry about the cumulative effect of injuries on fellow Detroit winger Jakub Vrana, but I'd say at this point that same concern arguably now exists for Bertuzzi. I'm also worried that Bertuzzi, despite being a staple on PP1, has barely averaged one PPPt per every five games. Yes, to some extent that reflects the failings of the Red Wings' PP1; however, part of that blame has to fall on him as a centerpiece. And until/unless he can fix that issue it puts a ceiling on his production. The good news though is even as his SOG rate was increasing his SH% was stable. If he sticks with the Wings, I think his role is unique enough to continue to command a top line spot, where I'd peg him as a player who should be able to produce in the 70s, with a better chance of rising to 80+ than falling to 60 or less. Good luck!

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For those reading this now, it's never too early to start providing me with mailbag questions, which you can do in one of two ways: (1) by emailing them to [email protected] with the words "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line, or (2) by sending them to me via a private message on the DobberHockey Forums, where my username is "rizzeedizzee".

When sending me your questions, remember to provide as much detail about your league/situation as possible. Examples of things I need to know include what type of league you're in (i.e., limited keeper, dynasty, or one-year; roto vs. H2H; auction – if so, what the budget is – or non-auction), how many teams are in the league, does the salary cap matter, how many players are rostered (and of those, how many start at each position as well as how many bench and/or IR spots there are), what categories are scored and how are they weighted, plus other details if pertinent. If your question involves whether to pick up or drop a player, give me a list of top free agents available and let me know if the number of pick-ups is limited or if there is a priority system for pick-ups. If you're thinking of making a trade, it would be good to know not only the roster of the other team you might trade with but also where you stand in your categories. If your question involves keepers, in addition to giving me the options for who to keep, let me know if offseason trading is allowed and to what extent it is a viable option given your league. In sum, the key is to tell me enough for me to give you a truly proper answer, and for readers of this column to benefit from the answer/advice I provide. When in doubt, it's best to err on the side of inclusion since I can always omit or disregard things that don't matter.