Yesterday's Jeff Petry trade was summed up pretty well by Cliffy on the main site here. As a Petry owner in two keeper leagues (one of them a cap league) I have to say I'm a little disappointed by the landing spot. That isn't to say it's a bad landing spot, and I think Montreal may have been one of the worst spots for him to be with there being a lot of young options to contend with and not having a ton of offence up front, but compared to some other situations, Detroit just isn't an exciting spot. He may see some secondary power play time and load up peripherals, but he could have done that anywhere. There just isn't the same ultimate upside here. As of writing this Dobber hasn't updated the guide, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Petry's projections knocked down just a couple points.

The Wings seem to be pulling out of their rebuild mode a little early and a little slowly. They haven't ascended as quickly as one would like to see, and they are running out of runway in some ways by not having added a game-breaking talent in the draft. I like that they do seem to be moving forward, it just seems to be a little slower than ideal, especially seeing how dominant the top of the East was last year and how quickly the Sens and Sabres are building in addition to what the Pens are doing for one last kick at the can. I think Detroit will be lucky to finish above 10^th this season (once again).

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Yahoo finally has their database open, which means a lot of sources have already been diving into where players are ranked, who is too high, too low, and who the sleepers are. The rankings are still going to be tweaked by Yahoo over the next month and a half, and we know they aren't the best even once they're at their final stage. The ADP numbers are interesting at this point, but even those need to even out some with a few hundred more drafts to get players into the right ballparks.

What I do like doing this early though, is just entering a few 14-team mock drafts, and seeing where I feel pinched the most while drafting. All of my redraft leagues are either 10 or 12 team leagues, so drafting in a 14-team mock better simulates having all of the better players gone by the time it's you up to pick for that round. If you only do 12-team mocks for a 12-team league, then you're going to be unhappy come draft time when all your league-mates are targeting the same players you are.

The first think I notice is that after the top couple of plyers this year, it is fairly wide open. We can probably say that Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Nathan MacKinnon are going to be the top-three drafted in most leagues. After that, do you take the scoring upside of David Pastrnak or Auston Matthews, the multi-cat coverage of one of the Tkachuks, the positional advantage of Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, or Cale Makar. Throw in some younger upside forwards in Jason Robertson, Mikko Rantanen, and Tage Thompson, as well as the ever-present Nikita Kucherov and Alex Ovechkin, and there are already more than ten options that should get some consideration for a top-10 pick depending on the league settings.

That's all well and good, but in running through a couple of drafts at various positions, I did find that the middle rounds in the 50-90 range produced a lot less players that I was excited about than I seem to see in yours past. That is likely where I am going to end up filling some of the non-forward positions. Even before that though, anywhere from the number-four pick and on, I think Cale Makar is a very shrewd play. The top defencemen are becoming an even more elite breed, and there are fewer and fewer fantasy-relevant defencemen as the power play time gets soaked up by the top few and then extra forwards. The difference between Makar and a replacement level defenceman may very well even be more than Draisaitl down to a replacement level forward in your league.

Looking at the rest of the top-tier of defencemen, Rasmus Dahlin, and Adam Fox have to be considered top-five options, while Roman Josi, Dougie Hamilton, and Erik Karlsson battle to stay in the conversation as well. After that tier though, it really drops off in terms of both upside and certainty. Miro Heiskanen, Charlie McAvoy, Evan Bouchard, Quinn Hughes, Aaron Ekblad… the list goes on, but the warts are getting bigger. By pick 120 (player 10-12 on my roster in average redraft leagues, I certainly want to have my top four defencemen settled, because trying to mine value after that is going to have you reaching and gambling.

Looking at the goalies, there's a similar top set, and after that things seem to drop off more steeply than maybe they have in previous years. Teams have realized the advantages of having two (or even three) goalies that can split time in the regular season, which has really lowered the number of top-tier volume starters and made it a lot more difficult to find both quality and quantity in fantasy. There is the top tier including Shesterkin and Sorokin, alongside Jake Oettinger, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Connor Hellebuyck. Alexandar Georgiev and Juuse Saros probably round out the top-tier, but they are maybe a slight step below the top-five at the moment. After that, finding a goalie that is on a good team, plays a heavy workload (without consistently getting injured – hello Ilya Samsonov and Frederik Andersen), and puts up good numbers, is pretty difficult.

There are a fair number of second-tier starters though, and that is often where I wait until the end of that tier and grab two. However, in past years that tier seemed to close around pick 120 or so, while this year after pick 80 there seems to be hardly any reasonable goalies left. I think this will be a year that I reach a little earlier on at least on goalie. It may not be in the top-40 picks or so, but if I can finish a draft with the four defencemen I want in the top-120, a forward core I'm happy with, and something along the lines of Saros and Tristan Jarry as my main goalies, then I think that should be able to function as a top-half team.

That's sometimes all you can aim for out of the draft is to have a top-half team, and then manage injuries, slumps, and trades from there to put yourself in a prime position for the stretch run.

Jumping back to the forwards, this is where Yahoo's annual position trim really starts to make people fret, there are tons of centres, and as usual a shortage on both wings, but especially on the right side. Draft an extra centre or two, and when positions inevitably start getting added back, you're up a better player and will still finish the season as positionally flexible as you were at the end of the previous year.

Obviously you don't pass on a top centre if he's the best player on the board. If Matthews is there at number 10, then I'm taking him regardless of what winger is still available.

The difference in forward positions sorts itself out in the middle and late rounds when you want to lean towards the winger on a tie-breaker, but when the top centre slips and extra two rounds, then you take advantage and grab the better asset.

On LW, I think I'll end up with a few Tim Stutzle shares this year, as he is going nearly 20 spots behind Jack Hughes, and I think they have similar upsides this year. The tie would go to Stutzle if you count hits, where he far outstrips Hughes. Add on the fact that Hughes is a C/LW and Stutzle is a LW in Yahoo who should get a C designation soon, and it's a cakewalk there. Chris Kreider, Jesper Bratt, Patrik Laine, Pavel Buchnevich, Jonathan Huberdeau, Nikolaj Ehlers, Evander Kane, and many more will be LW targets for me.

Over on the right side, if I don't get one of the top set of Kuch, Pasta, Rantanen, or Mitch Marner, then I will certainly be targeting the second-tier of Timo Meier, Alex DeBrincat, Clayton Keller, J.T. Miller (another centre), and Alex Tuch. The position drops off sharply after that, so you really want to make sure you get at least two RWs in the first 100 picks or so.

If you're counting at home, that's two RWs, four defencemen, and two goalies that I want to try to have in my first 10-12 picks. Add in at least one early centre as there are so many, and there's your whole draft strategy penciled in right there.

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See you next Wednesday! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter (I will continue to call it that) @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.