You asked, and then you asked again. I have listened, and finally had time to re-jig the whole cap rankings system. Regardless of league, Connor McDavid should be the first overall player, the highest rated player, and the first player ranked in any kind of trade or draft. I know that, you know that, and that was why the previous iterations of this list have been based on a single-point value for money that you are getting out of your players. You can't win a cap league without a bunch of those guys on your roster. However, without the actual top players, you're even farther away from winning.

The single-point value system is useful in its own way, but I lost sight of the purpose of these rankings, which is to have a list that fantasy managers can tweak with a couple of their own preferences/biases/strategies, and then use as a list to draft or value trades from. That is what I have created here with the re-design. No one needs to take this as absolute gospel, and every league & situation will be different, but as a base list, I would be comfortable going into a new cap-league fantasy draft with it as my base, and then adjusting in the draft as necessary.

The "Rating" column displays this ranking system for drafting/trading value, showing the best players to build your team around, and to try to acquire first. Over on the far right now, there is a new "Value" column, which now displays the numbers from my old rating system. This is the single-point value of a player's production versus their salary cost. The higher the number, the more bang for your buck that you get. Once you have your core in place, these are the best players to look for to fill out your lineup in the most cost-efficient manner.

The players are all settled into their proper rankings below, and there weren't too many surprises for me with the new setup. One name that did jump out a little was Matty Beniers, down at #33 below. Having two years left on a rookie deal, and already putting up excellent point totals as a top-six centre, it shouldn't be surprising, but it was interesting to see how much that extra year of cheap value brings him up close to Tim Stutzle, and launches him ahead of others such as Tevor Zegras, Matt Boldy, and Cole Caufield.

I've rambled enough, and I will cover some further thoughts in my next set of Ramblings, but in the meantime, enjoy the rankings.

Standard pre-rankings note:

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 value of some players, especially on their ELCs. 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 trends.

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.