It feels like trade-deadline day was yesterday. Cliffy had his hands full with a ton of fantasy-relevant deals that he broke down all of the value changes for. Stick taps to him, and we'll see how busy it is for me today.

The general feeling is that there isn't a whole lot left for deadline day, but between the Capitals and the Predators not holding pat in the mushy middle, the Eastern playoff teams all continuing to try and one-up each-other, and a handful of teams all racing to the bottom for Connor Bedard,

There are still plenty of names that we know are on the board, including Jakob Chychrun, James van Riemsdyk, John Klingberg, and others. There will also be a few names traded that were not expected or rumoured, and those deals are sometimes the most fun. We have seen Nick Schmaltz's name whispered, but what about Boone Jenner, Victor Olofsson, or even Dylan Larkin – Steve Yzerman hasn't shied away from making bold deadline deals before. This is why I much prefer having my fantasy trade deadline after the NHL deadline, as the shifting NHL landscape can lead to the need (or at least the opportunity) to adjust and try to benefit from the NHL's shifting landscape.

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The Leafs brought a big part of the excitement on the day as well, making three separate deals to bolster their blue line, their cap situation, and to put a first-round pick into their back pocket. You get the sense the team isn't done, and they could certainly upgrade on Alex Kerfoot as a scoring third-line winger.

The Capitals were on the other end of one of the Leafs trades, and made a high-upside play trading for Rasmus Sandin. While John Carlson is out, Sandin should have a good, long chance on the top power play unit, and the rest of the Washington group on defence can more than handle themselves in their own zone, including Nick Jensen, who was just locked in to a three-year extension.

A perfectly reasonable deal for Nick Jensen, a strong defensive defender. pic.twitter.com/pFd25gNTqf

— dom 🕰️ (@domluszczyszyn) March 1, 2023

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I have to admit a bit of an oversight on my part. I didn't even have Jake Walman in my spreadsheet, and as a result he didn't make it into the salary projections. I have added him though, and his projected number was $2.9 million, which fits in fairly well with his new $3.4 million cap hit on his three-year extension. He has performed very well with Mo Seider on the top pairing for Detroit, and may sit there for the next few years, which would make it a bargain contract for a top-pairing guy.

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The Flames goalies have been atrocious of late. The team needs to call up Dustin Wolf ASAP, because what is there right now isn't working. Wolf has been absolutely incredible at the AHL level this year, and there isn't much left he can prove outside of the NHL. I'll say keep an eye on him in one-year leagues, because he should already be owned in dynasty setups.  

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The Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar notched a hat-trick (plus a fourth goal for good measure), bringing him up to a 75-point pace, his highest since his 92-point campaign back in 2017-18, and his second-highest in the past decade. Scoring is up around the league though, and this is maybe the best supporting cast of forwards that Kopitar has ever had.

In fact, he's up to 17 points in his last 12 games, and it's interesting to see that Quinton Byfield is one of his most frequent linemates of late. Byfield hasn't had luck on his side, but he does have the upside to have it all click. His stock just keeps falling after how high it was at the 2020 draft, and it's a good time to check in on the acquisition cost.

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This goal from Claude Giroux was fun. It's not the hardest shots that are best, it's the ones that get to the net.

Claude Giroux floats one home on the power play for his 25th goal of the year, extending Ottawa's lead to 4!#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/1kIB8wgjbd

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) March 1, 2023

Giroux, along with most of the top Ottawa forwards, has been on a roll of late with seven points in his last three games, and 18 in his last 13. He's scoring at a point-per-game pace for the first time in four years, and finished last season hot as well – albeit after a trade to the offensive juggernaut Panthers.

Giroux mainly plays on a line with Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk, who have also been equally as impressive on the season. His next-most-common linemate Alex DeBrincat has also picked up his play a little lately, though it's flying a little under the radar in the shadow of the top line. He's just past his breakout threshold now, and has 13 points in his last 12 games. He may not score much more than he did when playing alongside Patrick Kane, but the 88-point full-season pace is certainly something he can, and likely will, do again. It's not exactly a buy-low window before your fantasy trade deadlines, but certainly someone I would be confident in paying full price for.

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I like the Mattias Ekholm deal for both the Oilers and the Predators. The Oilers need reliable defencemen, and Ekholm is a very reliable and steady presence on both ends of the puck. He has some good offensive instincts too that should play well when he's out with the top players, but he has also shown very well in his own end of late with the Predators (who spent a lot of time there this year).

For the Predators, they get out from another big contract, and continue their reset with a nice package in return. Barrie can be sheltered alongside the rest of the defence core, and could still be flipped for more futures anytime in the next year (he's a UFA again in 2024).

Sticking with the Predators for a second, last night was the NHL debut for their top skater selected in the 2020 draft, Luke Evangelista. It's good to see that he was being assertive with the puck, recording two shots in less than 12 minutes of ice time. With the Preds looking to reset, there could be a full-time spot for him next year, though he will have to contend with Juuso Parssinen, Philip Tomasino, and others.

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I was thinking about draft picks in my dynasty, and wanted to run a few numbers just to try and get some more depth and breadth on the perspective value of draft picks.

I have found in my experience that 24-team leagues seem to be the sweet spot for dynasty and large keeper formats. It allows for the majority of NHL players to be owned without the talent pool becoming too shallow. In these leagues, managers keep enough players that there is then a draft at some point which covers mainly the upcoming class of prospects. Sometimes there are other prospects from previous years included in the draft, or various other formats, but the general feel is it's a rookie draft for the current year's class.

What makes that interesting, is that there has been a lot of research going into the NHL draft, and how players grow, develop, and perform at the NHL level based on draft position. Separately, if you have been in a fantasy league for a couple of years (or can at least look back on the trade history) then you have a good sense of the value of a draft pick in a fantasy trade for your league. However, there are discrepancies, and that's what I want to dive into.

Every year, we see (about) 224 players drafted across the seven-round NHL entry draft. With a maximum 23-man rosters across the NHL, in addition to those on IR, we even out to about 770 relevant players in the NHL at any one time. There are 32 starting goalie spots, and maybe only 20 on good teams, and goalies really don't make an NHL impact until at least the age of 25. Moving up the lineup, there are 64 top-pairing defenceman, and only about 50-defencemen that see very fantasy relevant power play time. There are 96 top-line forwards spots, and around 110 top-power play spots filled by forwards. Round up a little to account for league size plus leagues with peripherals, and you have 200-250 fantasy relevant players, before you end up with things really levelling off.

There are two statements I want to lay out before moving on:

1. You can trade draft picks and acquire players inside that top 200-250 player group.
2. You can use draft picks and have them potentially develop into top-250 players.

Based on those two statements, you can probably get a sense of where I'm going with this. It lines up fairly well with Julien Brisbois' comments from after the Lightning traded for Tanner Jeannot.

JBB on the cost the #Bolts paid to acquire Jeannot. pic.twitter.com/Qr1VseP2eD

— Chris Krenn (@Chris_Krenn) February 27, 2023

While I agree with the premise, wat gets lost in the translation is the opportunity cost of the picks, because even though I broke things down into two option, Brisebois actually had a third option here between overpaying for Jeannot and waiting on the picks – and that is using those picks in a trade elsewhere to extract what could have been much better value for those same picks.

I am trying to keep this more general though, and in that space either re-think or re-enforce some of our conceptions regarding draft pick value. Circling back to the numbers we totaled up about 200-250 fantasy relevant players. We'll use the lower end of 200 to be conservative, as there are some players that jump into the fantasy relevant tier without being drafted.

The next stage is sorting out how those 200 players turn over year after year, because the frequency with which they change shows us exactly how many fantasy relevant players come out of the draft every year. Having looked into averages for career length, stats for each draft class, and changing fantasy rankings, it seems as though the turnover range of fantasy relevant players is about 15-17 in the top-200 every year.

Now, not every player from a draft class makes it in the same year, but over time, each draft class then produces on average 15-17 fantasy relevant players. Taking a quick step back, that sounds about right with about three busts in the top-20 every year, and the vast majority of players picked after pick-20 being depth players.

What this means, is that unless you have a stellar track-record when it comes to fantasy prospect drafts, you can stop over-valuing the picks after #25, and ship them all off for the best NHL players you can find.

Within those top-20 picks, you might expect to find fantasy value at 10-times the number of the pick, so with a first-overall pick, you have a shot at a top-10 fantasy player. With a fifth-overall pick in any given draft, you might expect to have a player develop into a top-50 fantasy option a few years down the line.

It's a bit of a crude outline, but it should work for most fantasy leagues, and provide a template for how to value some of these picks. If you're able to trade a player like Elias Lindholm at the trade deadline this year in your dynasty league, and recoup a pick in the seven to 10 range, then that would be about right. However, if you're taking on the pick you likely want another player added in to ensure there is some immediate value in the return, and to cover off the range of outcomes where the pick doesn't pan out. Having a young player like Owen Tippett (who was a first-rounder in his time) added in as part of the return, is exactly the kind of thing you want to be looking for when you're a seller.

The teams that move picks early every year and are always looking for NHL talent instead of picks are like those friends of yours that were the first to invest their money, and are now just continuously living off of the interest.

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See you next Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.