Does anyone remember the three-way trade a few years ago between Nashville, Vegas, and Philadelphia, where former second and sixth overall picks were moved, along with a top pair defenceman on an eight-year deal and another six-foot-five right shot defenceman? 

Well, Cody Glass is the last one of them remaining in the NHL, and yesterday the Predators had to add draft picks to him to send him to the Penguins. That three-way does not look good for anyone in hindsight. 

Looking ahead at what Glass can bring to the Penguins, he’s likely another third-line player, who may get glimpses in the top-six and be fantasy relevant for those brief periods. Overall, he’s better off as a winger than a centre, but we’ll see if the Penguins can actually figure out how to use him where the Golden Knights and Predators failed. 

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Although we seldom see offersheets signed, and even more rarely do we see them go unmatched, we have an excellent strategic play by the Blues here that give us some hope at seeing the rare spectacle. 

The Blues signed both Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to offersheets, and Edmonton has one week to match, without enough cap space to manage keeping both – barring another move. 

The Blues are likely thinking they get one and not both, but either way would be a win for them as they pay a relatively cheap price for a former first rounder who is still developing. 

 The contracts for both Holloway and Broberg are a little high for their owners in cap leagues, but neither is terrible and could be played up to with better deployment in either Edmonton or St Louis. 

More info:
*Oilers have seven days to decide on matching
*If they don't match, will get a second-round pick (Broberg) and/or a third-rounder (Holloway)
*St. Louis made a trade with Pittsburgh to re-acquire their 2025 second-round pick so they could do this with Broberg (you must…

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 13, 2024

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For Bubble Keeper Week I always look at a couple of my keeper dilemmas to talk through my logic and reasoning on why I pick one player vs another. Maybe it's the actual player analysis that helps in your case, maybe it's the method, or maybe nothing helps and it's entertaining nonetheless.

In my 12-team partial keeper setup with H2H Categories scoring, and a decent weight on peripherals, we have limits of six forward keepers, four defencemen, and one goalie – plus a "prospect" keeper slot that has a bunch of intricacies that aren't worth explaining. My team lost in the finals this past year after finishing 5^th in the regular season. That means I'm squarely in a contention window and looking to keep that open.

My goalie is pretty set with Jacob Markstrom, and I am happy with his landing spot in New Jersey. He may be 35, but because only 12 goalies can be kept every year, it's always easy to find a new one if you want.

On defence, I have Roman Josi, Darnell Nurse, Seth Jones, Erik Karlsson and Ryan Pulock who are worthy of consideration here. The first three are holdovers for me from last year and feel like easy locks again this year. The debate then between Erik Karsson and Ryan Pulock is probably not one many see a fair fight in on the surface, but suspend your disbelief for a minute and let me walk you through it.

After the trade to Pittsburgh, Karlsson dropped back down to the 55-point range again this past year, only showing some hints of being a 100-point player in the first 15 games or so. On the flip side of the equation, that means he was only a 50-point player the last 65 games of the year. While the shot volume remains high, and the power play production is solid, the lack of hits and blocks as a defenceman does also hurt in a league like mine. I find for my roster to be successful my defencemen need to produce a minimum of 5.0 Shots+Hits+Blks per game. Karlsson came in last year around 4.0.

Meanwhile, Ryan Pulock provided 5.8 Shots+Hits+Blks per game, on top of a 27-point-pace with a few PPPs. Pulock is more in line with how I build my team, but Karlsson probably continues to provide a bit more value for next year at least. That means that I will shop both of them and see which one I can get a return for while keeping the other. If I had to pick one without moving either, it would likely be Karlsson, but with the mind that I can re-draft Pulock a couple of rounds later than Karlsson as I don't think my league mates like him as much.

Up on forward is where things get really interesting, with only six spots for at least nine viable options: Sidney Crosby, Jack Eichel, Filip Forsberg, Brayden Point, Adam Fantilli, Owen Tippett, Dylan Cozens, Brock Nelson and Seth Jarvis. I'll let you think on that one for a second with who makes sense to keep vs not.

To break it into tiers, the locks in my mind are Crosby, Eichel, Forsberg, and Point. The next tier is Fantilli, Tippett, and Jarvis, with Cozens and Nelson on the outside looking in barring a big move or two. Cozens didn't score nearly as much last year as we know he can, but he still provided excellent peripherals with 200 Shots, 100 Hits, and 10 PPPs to go along with 500 FOWs from a winger slot. Unfortunately, with the scoring floor as low as it is, it seems like he has to be a cut.

Brock Nelson was also great for faceoff wins from a LW designation on Yahoo and has paced for between 67-75 points over the last three seasons. Add in 250 Hits and double-digit PPPs, and there's a bit more overall value and certainty as compared to Cozens. However, Nelson turns 33 just a week after the season starts, so he may start to decline. Even just a little at this point makes a difference and means that it's very unlikely he will exceed his value from this past year, and from keepers you need that kind of possibility from them, unless it's someone like Crosby.

If I'm looking for a bit more upside, then these next three are the perfect spot to start. Fantilli is the youngest of the trio, having been drafted just last summer third-overall to Columbus. Fantilli had his PNHLe (an equivalency number for what a player's eventual NHL upside might be) topped out as 104 in his draft year, before he made the Blue Jackets and paced for 45 points before his season was lost due to a leg injury. He put up over two shots per game in middle-six minutes and added 1.3 hits per game. Unfortunately for fantasy owners, he didn't produce much with the man advantage despite decent ice time and had poor faceoff percentage numbers. With Sean Monahan brought in, Fantilli could be pushed to wing part-time, and that positional eligibility would be big for his value.

Jarvis and Tippett both have tons of upside for very different reasons. Jarvis put up 67 points despite playing nearly the entire season with a shoulder in need of surgery. He's also just past his breakout threshold, and finished the season with 19 points in 20 games. With Jake Guentzel and maybe Martin Necas moving on, there's no reason Jarvis can't push the 20-minute mark next year. Bumping him to 200 shots and over 120 hits would be fantastic on top of what could be a point-per-game player with 20+ PPPs. Meanwhile, Tippet comes at things from the other end, with the volume of hits and shots being elite, and the scoring showing hits that there is room for growth. Over 3.7 shots per game last year, and 1.9 hits per game, all in second-line minutes. A personal shooting percentage below 10%, and a team mark below nine percent means that there is lots of room for a moderately unlucky one to balance out next year, especially with some extra minutes on RW freed up with the departure of Cam Atkinson (though likely most of it is filled by Matvei Michkov). The wildcard here is whether Travis Konecny is moved, and whether there is a piece (or pieces) that come in from the return package and reduce Tippett's minutes.

I would have really liked to keep both, but I made a trade near the end of July that saw both Tippett and Jarvis get shipped out for Timo Meier and a pick upgrade. Meier's peak season is what both Tippett and Meier owners are hoping for as the best case scenario this upcoming season, and really it's possible for both of them. They had similar offensive years last season with Meier slightly edging Tippett, but Tippett had far and away more hits. Luckily, there is real reason for optimism with Meier, as he was put on a line with Nico Hichier and Jesper Bratt at the trade deadline last season which then saw him put up 24 points in 21 games, to go with 72 shots, 10 PPPs, and 43 Hits. It could be that the linemates kicked him into gear, or he was finally getting healthy again after dealing with an MCL injury in both knees. Getting Meier's track record, upside, and a pick upgrade was worth it to me to help make the keeper decision a little easier.

I'll circle back on my final decision closer to the keeper deadline as I'm hoping to trade out at least one more forward, but if I had to make a choice in this moment, it's Karlsson over Pulock on defence, with Meier and Fantilli over Cozens at forward.

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I have another smaller and more casual keeper league with some close friends that I will run through quickly. It's a league where we can keep any six, and very close to a standard Yahoo H2H league – eight teams total.

Jack Eichel, Evan Bouchard, Jason Robertson, Brady Tkachuk, Roman Josi (my favourite player), Noah Dobson, Dougie Hamilton, Jack Hughes, Tage Thompson, Tim Stutzle, and Igor Shesterkin. I need to cut five of these players. While logic may say that Josi could be one of the cuts as an older player, this isn't an incredibly competitive league, and I know if I give up Josi no one here is letting me get him back.

Typically I don't like keeping goalies unless I have to because they are so much more variable from year to year, but Shesterkin is the top player at the position, and it's impossible to say that giving up that advantage is the right call.

With Josi and Bouchard in the fold, it makes cutting Dobson and Hamilton (returning from a major injury), more palatable. If I stick with that, it means three of the six forwards have to go. Tkachuk and Robertson were the top-two ranked players of the set while playing full seasons, but Jack Eichel and Jack Hughes were right behind them while only playing 63 and 62 games respectively. Tage and Stutzle are likely on the outs here, despite being very viable options.

I'm hopeful I can work out a trade or two before the keeper deadline, but if I had to pick today, the last cut may be Eichel.

Yes, I did win that league last year.

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In my one cap league that is nearly a dynasty setup, we do have to throw back a few players every year, though they're mostly end-of-the-bench scrubs. The goalie slot is where we really have to make decisions sometimes as it's a 24-team league, and we limit each team to two "Pro" goalie keepers (with as many minor league goalies as you would like to fit.

I finished the season with Filip Gustavsson, Elvis Merzlikins, Akira Schmid, David Rittich, and Matt Murray (TOR) as my Pro goalies. Gustavsson was traded for Vince Dunn, which left me with two slots for the remaining four. Our keeper deadline was June 30^th, so I didn't have the insight of Schmid being traded before I had to cut him, but it didn't change too much as he only moved from a #4 in New jersey to a #3 in Vegas.

I also didn't know where Murray would sign, but I thought he might end up as a cheaper backup somewhere (maybe taking over from Johansson in Tampa or something). I figured I would roll the dice on him getting an opportunity rather than holding Elvis and his contract which is currently near unrosterable in cap leagues.

Rittich, as I'll dive into later this summer, is someone I think will fare very well next season in LA, on a bargain $1 million contract to boot.

Rittich and Murray were my keepers on the June 30^th date, and after Murray signed to be the #3 in Toronto he was quickly shipped to the Joseph Woll owner for a late pick swap.

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See you next Wednesday, and if you want to keep up with it you can find me on Twitter/X here, or BlueSky here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.