We're halfway through the year, so we are now at the point that trends have emerged, injuries are playing a role, and rookies have likely shown whether or not they will make an impact this year. This is the main update to take you through the trade deadline, the end of the season, and the fantasy playoffs.

I first always like to check and see which players off the previous top-200 list made the jump in for this iteration. Notable among the risers are Mark Giordano, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Alexander Holtz. 

Giordano has settled in with the Leafs after a slow start, though with Reilly back from injury, and the defence core overall getting back to full health (minus Jake Muzzin) it could be that the 38-year-old Giordano fades a little in the second-half. Regardless, his extremely cheap production and good Fantasy-Playoffs schedule does make him worth checking in on as a roster filler for a fantasy team with championship aspirations.

Kuzmenko finally has a large enough sample size to have jumped into the rankings, and jump he did. The issue with Kuzmenko is not only that he is a free agent, but also that he is solid defensively and looking for a contract to cover his prime years. It likely won't be a cheap one, so a lot of his value stems from his healthy production this year on what is an extremely cheap contract, relatively speaking. Rick Roos also has Kuzmenko as part of this week's fantasy hockey poll over on the forums, and the write up is out as of this morning as well.

The third member of the risers is Holtz, who hasn't done as much as the other two this year, but his value lies in the future, not the present. At best, there will be an injury or a trade that will provide an opening for Holtz to get a chance in a top-six role, and he can showcase some talent for a stretch, but more likely is that his opportunity in the top-six doesn't come until next season at the earliest. Whether in New Jersey or elsewhere, Holtz has shown an elite shot, and an ability to find space to get it off.

Hotlz still has two years left on his current ELC, and if it's not your year right now, then looking for players that still have term left on a good contract, in addition to a likely exponential increase in production is exactly where you want to start shopping. Holtz checks all the boxes as one of the best young players with pedigree, opportunity, quality linemates, and talent to be able to make a quick impact.

Looking ahead to next year, the one-year contracts on this list are all likely to get raises, and as a result will fall down the rankings by the summer. Building wisely for next year requires some looking ahead, and if it hasn't already for the non-championship contenders, then it starts now.

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. The assumed league setup is for points-only leagues, and I have made an effort to balance it for a range of league and roster sizes. 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.

Comments help with optimizing the values, because they're not perfect and they never will be.

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.