It's time to kick off Bubble Keeper Week! In case you're not familiar with Bubble Keeper Week, we pick a usually dead week during the summer and discuss our players from our keeper league team(s) that are on the bubble. We can't keep everyone and we certainly don't want to keep everyone, but could we discover hidden value in a player before we send them to our league's discard pile?

For my own bubble keepers, I'm going to start with a very very deep multicategory salary cap league. This is the type of league where many players you wouldn't think of as fantasy options suddenly hold value. I like to think of it as something similar to deep cuts from an album – songs that never reached hit status but might be enjoyed by a certain niche anyway. These are players that can provide my lineup with strong numbers in one or more categories without breaking the bank. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you need to target these specific players on your fantasy teams, but there might be similar ones out there you could justify adding for the same reason. Have a look at your league settings to determine what you really need.

Stefan Noesen, CAR (33% rostered in Fantrax)

Noesen seemed like an odd choice to be on Carolina's top power play when he was added there in 2022-23. After all, he had only played at least 50 games just once in a season (2017-18), and he was already age 29. The Canes might have known what they were doing, as they often seem to make the right decision without it always being the conventional one. In the end, Noesen held his own on the first unit, finishing tied for second on the team with seven power-play goals and fifth on the team with 15 power-play points. He was on the ice for just over half (53.1%) of his team's power-play minutes.

A breakdown of his goals and some video might demonstrate his value on the first-unit power play. Noesen led the Canes with four tip-in goals, showing his value in front of the net. This one is from the playoffs, where Noesen scored four more goals in 15 games. Three of those four goals were on the power play.

Noesen is providing this power-play prowess at the bargain basement price of a $762,500 cap hit. He reached a career high of 36 points in 2022-23 while being limited to 12:20 in overall icetime. Subtract the power-play time and he averaged just 9:37 of even-strength time, so he's clearly being used as a bottom-6 forward at evens. Along with the power-play points, Noesen also averages between 1-2 hits per game. He shouldn't generate a lot of interest in a lot of run-of-the-mill leagues, but he's an intriguing player with some value in the right type of deep league.

Philipp Kurashev, CHI (40% rostered in Fantrax)

This might be less about what Kurashev has accomplished and more about what he could accomplish. Kurashev scored a meager 25 points in 70 games while finishing with a dreadful minus-32 (only Seth Jones had a worse plus/minus on the Hawks). Even with regular second-unit power-play minutes, Kurashev also finished with just four power-play points.

It should be noted that Kurashev is currently in arbitration. He has requested a one-year, $2.65 million contract, while the Blackhawks have requested a two-year, $1.4 million contract. The arbitration result will probably be somewhere in the middle of that.

Kurashev profiles on Natural Stat Trick as an average top-six two-way forward, which means the Blackhawks could use him up and down the lineup. Although he may not profile as a pure scorer, he was used frequently with the likes of Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Max Domi, and Taylor Raddysh last season. There's always the hope that he will find his way onto a line with Connor Bedard or that even the trickle-down effect will help him. The main reason he might be desirable from a fantasy perspective is that the Hawks might give him a scoring opportunity that he wouldn't receive on a lot of other teams.

Noel Acciari, PIT (44% rostered in Fantrax)

Now we enter the bangers portion of my bubble keepers. Acciari has provided spurts of scoring in the past, even finishing with 20 goals during the 2019-20 season with Florida. He's more known for his hits totals, having finished with at least 100 hits in a season four teams. In a 2022-23 season split between St. Louis and Toronto, Acciari finished with a career high 244 hits, which was a top 10 number in the league. Surprisingly, his penalty minute totals are low, having finished with over 40 penalty minutes just once in his career.

If you take a closer look, there's at least one other category that Acciari excels at. He has won at least 200 faceoffs four times out of the last five seasons. That won't be the highest faceoff total out there, but when your league counts faceoffs, don't just consider the volume. Acciari has won over 50% of his faceoffs over each of the past three seasons, which is important if your league counts faceoff win percentage or subtracts faceoff losses.

Forwards generally block fewer shots than defensemen, but Acciari adds some more value from his position. His 81 blocked shots total was in the top 10 among forwards, while his 325 HIT+BKS was just outside of the top 5 among forwards. I was considering dropping Acciari before last season, but I'm glad I didn't for all the peripheral value he brings. I will have to account for his cap hit increase from $1.25 million to $2 million per season from his new contract with the Penguins, though.

Mark Kastelic, OTT (24% rostered in Fantrax)

I first saw Kastelic play as a junior, where he was the captain of the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL. At that time, he showed both an ability to score and play a hard-nosed, aggressive style. The latter in particular has served him well in the NHL, where he racked up 154 hits and 102 penalty minutes in 65 games with the Senators. In a time where penalty minutes are on the decline, Kastelic finished just outside of the top 10 in that category.

Like Acciari, Kastelic has been successful in the faceoff circle as well as a frequent hitter. Kastelic's 336 faceoffs won was fourth on the Senators behind scorers that receive significantly more icetime than him (just 8:54 ATOI in 2022-23). Kastelic also deserves to take more faceoffs, as he has a career faceoff winning percentage of 57.2%.

His lack of NHL scoring (15 points in 81 career games) might limit his icetime, but he's the right player to have out there (6-3, 233 lbs) when things get nasty. His eight fights tied him for 10^th in that category in 2022-23. Kastelic is a true banger who can offer more and could receive more attention in fantasy leagues if the Senators can find a way to use him more frequently.

Alexander Kerfoot, ARI (30% rostered in Fantrax)

It seems like Kerfoot is the type of player we had in mind when we first started Bubble Keeper Week. After scoring a career-high 51 points in 2021-22, Kerfoot regressed to just 32 points in a full 82 games last season. As you'd expect, the difference was that Kerfoot spent more time playing on a scoring line in 2021-22, in particular on the John Tavares line. He was still back with Tavares at times in 2022-23, but he was also often in the bottom 6, where the Leafs scoring takes a significant drop.

Could Kerfoot receive a better opportunity in Arizona? Maybe, but he won't have the same potential quality of linemates as in Toronto. As Dobber said in his Fantasy Take, his point total will probably be limited anyway unless he lines up regularly with Clayton Keller. In addition, Kerfoot does not offer the peripherals that other players listed above do, although he may provide a bit more scoring. His salary is also higher than the other players listed above ($3.5 million per season), even if it's not necessarily a bad contract compared to some others out there. For that reason, I might have to consider him a potential odd man out on this team as I try to become cap compliant.  

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I'm looking forward to finding out what other players our writers have on their bubble keeper lists. I'll be back next weekend with some bubble keepers from one of my other teams, which is from a shallower league. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter and now Threads.