Welcome back to another edition of the Roos Lets Loose monthly mailbag, where I answer your fantasy hockey questions by giving advice that should be useful to all poolies even if they don't own the specific players being discussed. As a reminder, if you want your fantasy hockey question(s) answered in the next mailbag, check out the end of the column, where I explain the ways to get it/them to me as well as the details you should provide when sending. The earlier you send a question the more likely it is to be included in the mailbag, and the deeper dive I can provide with my reply.

The offseason is when I tend to get the most mailbag questions. In order to answer them all, and to do so more quickly, I'll be running a mailbag as soon as I get enough questions. If you have questions about keepers, draft strategy or anything of interest, definitely send them my way, via the instructions at the end of the column. But time is running out, since once the season starts it's back to usual.

Question #1 (from Andrew)

I’m in a 10-team H2H keeper where we can keep 4 skaters and 1 goalie. Positions are 2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 2Util, 2G, 6Bench with skater scoring categories G, A, PPP, SOG, HITS, and BLKS. My goalie keeper is set with Hellebuyck, but I'm struggling to decide what skaters to keep. I’m leaning towards Martin Necas, Matt Boldy, Tim Stutzle, Jack Hughes and Mortiz Seider and dropping Jake Guentzel, Darren Raddysh, and Robert Thomas as the next best options. 

Every year Yahoo ranks Seider outside the top 70 to start, but then he ends it in the top 20 due to his category coverage. I’ve struggled with Hughes and his band-aid boy status, but the year he actually stays healthy I know I’ll regret dropping him. Is Guentzel worth keeping over anyone? He shoots more than Stutzle, but points are similar and he doesn’t have the hits like Stu. I finished 3rd last year, so I’ll be drafting 8th overall. I’m guessing Guentzel or whomever I drop will be drafted before it comes back to me (not that I’d necessary choose them for that reason). 

I'm a bit confused at the outset, as you say four skaters can be kept, but you list five as your presumed skater keepers. To cover both bases, I'll tell you who I'd keep if you can indeed keep five, but also if you can keep only four.

For sure I'm keeping Hughes. We all realize he gives you nothing in banger categories and has missed 20 or 21 games in each of the last three seasons; however, after the Olympics he went supernova, with 36 points in his last 20 games, 15 of those points being goals and nine of those points on the PP. And he shoots a ton. He's a definite keep, risks notwithstanding.

So is Necas. I happen to think Necas is somewhat overrated in terms of where he's being drafted in one-year leagues; however, the fact of the matter is he has now shown he can be Mikko Rantanen 2.0, in that he got the chance to play with Nathan MacKinnon and was up to the task, making him a safe bet for 100 points each season, with a chunk on the PP, albeit not with a super high SOG total.

Seider is also someone I'm keeping in this league. He made nice strides in terms of scoring in 2025-26, plus will enter 2026-27 right at his 400-game defensemen breakout mark. What's also nice is as his PP time has risen, he's shed PK time. Yes, his OZ% is still very low; however, him being able to produce at the rate he has despite that shows just how great he is and he still could have another gear in terms of scoring. Yes, his HIT total dropped quite a bit last season; but he still will average about four combined hits and blocks per game, and shedding 80 total hits to add 12 points is something I'm sure all GMs who own Seider would take in a heartbeat.

In terms of the fourth and fifth keepers, it gets much closer. The only player I'm for sure eliminating from contention is Guentzel. He is very good, but it seems like Tampa is playing him and Nikita Kucherov apart from each other at ES, which is not ideal. He's a monster on the PP, but his SOG rate has dropped a good bit from its peak and he's also older than the other forwards in the mix, which does matter.

Thomas had a superb Q4 due to clicking with Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud. The problem is his SOG rate dropped, plus he's not great in terms of PPPts, the latter having a lot to do with the fact that St. Louis believes in running two PP units, rather than a true PP1. Even at ES, he has seen his TOI drop each of the last two seasons by about a minute. If Thomas was put into different circumstances he might be a keeper, but given his current reality, he's not.

Nor is Raddysh. I do not think he will be a one hit wonder; however, a lot had to go right for him to have done as well as he did last season, notably a nearly 11% SH despite 2.9 SOG per game. That is simply not sustainable. Also, he's not good in banger categories, and would be the easiest to redraft.

I you keep five, the other two would be Stutzle and Boldy. But what if you can keep only four, meaning just one of these two? I think most would choose Boldy, but not me. Stutzle is an unquestioned #1 center, and William Eklund could help Stutzle more than Brady Tkachuk did. Also, Stutzle provides a nice amount of hits, plus shoots and gets PPPts. As for Boldy, I realize he's coming off a 92 point scoring pace season, but his SH% was very elevated, plus no other forward with as low an OZ% as Boldy had last season was even a point per game player. Also, Boldy managed to see major gains despite adding a full minute of PK time, and a high – for him – team SH% at 5×5. Although it's a close call, and indeed close enough that if you preferred Boldy over Stutzle I'd be okay with that, if it was me and I could only keep four, my last of the four would be Stutzle, not Boldy. Good luck!

Question #2 (from Mike)

I'm in a nine team keeper where we have 20 starters and 10 bench. We're only allowed to start two goalies and must start at least six defensemen. The categories and scoring are, for goalies, two points per win plus another two points per shutout, for defensemen, one point for each goal or assist, 0.01 per hit and 0.05 per block, and for forwards just one point per goal or assist. Each team can only protect 20 going into our draft in September, where we redraft 10 players to make up our 30 man roster. My projected 20 keepers are:

G: Jesper Wallstedt, Juuse Saros, Lukas Dostal

D: Roman Josi, Charlie McAvoy, Jakub Chychrun Adam Fox, Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton, Cole Hutson, Noah Dobson

F: Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Mitch Marner, Mathew Barzal, Filip Forsberg, Beckett Sennecke, Mika Zibanejad, Dylan Strome, Andrei Svechnikov

For the draft, I have the 2nd and 8th overall picks, but also an offer on the table of Svechnikov and those picks, a pick during our Christmas draft, plus a second round pick in 2027, in exchange for Clayton Keller, Dylan Guenther, and Mikhail Sergachev. The Christmas pick refers to a draft that occurs over Christmas where any team can draft any available free agent, as long as they also drop a player. As an added wrinkle, I also have another trade offer of Ilya Sorokin, J.T. Miller and Thomas Harley for Dostal, Marner and Fox. I like Fox and Marner, as the Rangers had a down year but Fox still thrived, plus I think Marner will do better having adjusted to Vegas. And I see landing the Utah skaters as helping me get to the top. Would you do either deal? If you don't like the deals as they are now, but think they could work, how would you reshape them to be more in my favor?

When evaluating the first deal, it's not just those picks plus Svechnikov you'd be giving up, but also your two "worst" keepers, which, in your case, likely would be Hamilton or Dobson, plus Strome. If you make this trade, you'd be putting a lot of your eggs in the Utah basket, this on top of having three guys from Florida and three from Nashville. I'm not generally a huge fan of loading up on players from the same team, as it can be hit or miss, and if it's a miss, it can be very bad.

Still, not only are those three from Utah, an up-and-coming team, but they're three of its top guys. Also, although Svechnikov was a point per game player after a very slow start, I don't like that he's never been able to up his TOI, is very dependent on the PP for his scoring, plus shoots less than he did in the past. All things considered these suggest Svech likely will not be a point per gamer, whereas Keller already is, plus Keller's season-long scoring rate for 2025-26 disguises the fact he was scorching in the second half, with 52 points in his last 40 games. As for Guenther, his TOI has yet to be much higher than Svechnikov's; however, it is ticking up and Guenther also is seeing his scoring and shooting rates climb, yet still with room to grow more, and he's just past his 200-game breakout threshold. Sergachev is an entrenched defenseman who gets ample PP time and is a proven scorer, so although you'd actually be giving up two of your 20 keepers in addition to Svech and some early picks, plus getting a third trio all from the same team, I feel this is definitely a trade I'd make in your shoes.

The other deal, however, is not one I think would make you better. I realize Sorokin led the league in Shutouts, and gets wins, so I'd be thrilled to land him; however, I worry we've seen the best of Miller, who plays a rough and tumble style where the farther past age 30 he gets the more he's at risk of seeing his production drop, and often the drop can be precipitous for that type of player. As for Harley, he seems to have taken a step back after it looked like he could still produce despite Miro Heiskanen being Dallas' "the guy" defenseman. I also agree Marner could see gains in the normal course, especially on the PP, plus Fox had a superb 2025-26, punctuated by 24 points in 21 Q4 games, with 15 coming on the PP, stepping up to fill an offensive void left by the departure of Artemi Panarin. I think Fox will have a career year in 2026-27. Dostal will get wins, even if his SO total will pale in comparison to that of Sorokin. Perhaps you counter with Dostal, plus McAvoy, who had an unsustainable point per game and makes him a good sell high, and Aleksander Barkov, who even before he got hurt was seeing declines, to get Sorokin plus a better forward and defenseman? Good luck!

Question #3 (from Chris)

I'm in a 20 team, keep 8, roto league. Each team rosters and starts 9F, 5D, 2G, meaning no IR spots. Categories are G, A, PPG, SHG, +/-, Hit, PIM, W, SV, with each category having equal weighting and point totals from 1 to 20, based on where you rank versus the other teams. Last season I traded away all my early draft picks for a late season push, leaving me with no picks in the first three rounds, but two in each of the fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth rounds. 

My strategy is usually to prioritize D and G, as Fs are more readily replaceable, especially since we have no positional requirements. Plus, with 20 teams, that means 100 defensemen are rostered, so top tier defensemen are hugely valuable. I ended the season with a roster of:

F: Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Sam Bennett, Owen Tippett, A. J. Greer, Gabriel Landeskog, Mason Marchment, Evander Kane, Ivan Barbashev

D: Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse, MacKenzie Weegar, Sam Malinksi, Devon Toews 

G: MacKenzie Blackwood, Casey DeSmith

My locked in keepers are McDavid, Eichel, Bennett, Bouchard, and Blackwood. The other three I was envisioning are Nurse, Weegar, and Malinski. I've dangled Eichel in a trade offers for a goalie or D, but found no takers. The reason I've been thinking about moving Eichel is I figured his name recognition would get me a solid return and he is assists-heavy plus just not that well suited for our categories. As I write this, I'm waiting to hear if my offer of Eichel and Tippett for Juuse Saros will be accepted. I like Saros for this league since he's a workhorse and SV% and GAA don't matter. What are your thoughts on my keepers, trading Eichel, and my overall approach?

First off, I do think the five you named are indeed guaranteed keepers for you. Blackwood has question marks given what Scott Wedgewood did last season; however, if indeed goalies are coveted, he's a keep, especially since there is a large drop off after those five.

As for your non-keepers, I certainly I agree with not considering Greer, who you obviously added for banger categories, or Kane, whose NHL future is uncertain. Marchment has proven to be able to do well despite low TOIs, and could find his way onto a line with Macklin Celebrini. Still, it's highly unlikely he'll get a coveted spot on PP1, meaning his ceiling, even alongside Celebrini, still would be 60-70 points, and that won't cut it. Barbashev already has one of the best possible ES gigs, but that has not translated to higher scoring or PP time, making it so his floor and ceiling are basically identical, and not enough to be keepable despite his good banger stats. Landeskog is tempting; however, I think Colorado will do with him again what they did in 2025-26, namely keep him safe and rested during the season, to then be able to lean on him come playoff time. Although if healthy he should have a spot on PP1, he likely will be in the middle or even bottom six at ES and with low overall TOI, translating to a scoring pace in the 60s at best. And no matter how important goalies are, clearly DeSmith is not a keep.

That leaves Tippett, Nurse, Weegar, Malinski and Toews for the last three spots. Toews would've been a slam dunk keep prior to last season; however, his scoring cratered. If we look beneath the surface we see his SH% and IPPs were far below his norms, suggesting he is still at or near a 45-point guy due to being tethered to Cale Makar at ES, which also makes him always a lock for being hugely plus. I like him more than Malinski, who seemingly overachieved given his TOI and strikes me as no better than a third pairing guy. Nurse makes sense as a keep due to landing in San Jose, where he will still do great in banger categories and might even have a shot at running PP1. Or at minimum, his offensive potential is much higher entering 2026-27.

For the last spot, I like Tippett, and, importantly, so does Rick Tocchet it seems. However, I can't rate him higher than Weegar given the emphasis on defensemen, Weegar's locked in banger stats, and Weegar having realistic bounce back potential, as his 5×5 team SH% was a meager 6.6% and his secondary assist rate was low. Weegar rising back to 40 points is realistic, which, with his huge banger value, would be very solid. Weegar's the third keep.

As for whether you should keep trying to trade Eichel, I can see the logic. After all, the chances of him seeing scoring gains are low, having duplicated his 100-point pace from 2025-26. The issue is it seems other GMs in your league are wise to Eichel's lack of upside plus shortcomings. But here's the thing – it might be a blessing in disguise that you've not found success, since I think Saros no longer has as much of a lock on the crease in Nashville, as toward the end of the season Justus Annunen was alternating starts with Saros. Yes, Saros has the big contract and experience, and his worsening GAA and SV% won't hurt your team given your categories; but I'm no longer certain of his value going forward. Don't get me wrong – I would deal for him, but not with Eichel included or only if getting more of a return. Good luck!

Question #4 (from Rick)

I have to select 4 winger eligible players to keep in my points only dynasty league. My issue is I can't seem to narrow my list from these six: Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, Ivan Demidov, Juraj Slafkovsky, William Nylander, and Nikolaj Ehlers. I'm leaning toward not keeping Nylander and Ehlers. Who would be your keeps?

I'll say right from the start that Ehlers for sure would not be one. After signing a large UFA deal, he didn't even gain a minute of overall TOI versus 2024-25, and barely saw an uptick in PP time. It took a career high in PPPts for him to even get to his 71-point end of season pace. If Ehlers was going to have "made a leap" it would've been last season; and with him not doing so, plus now being 30 years old and playing for a team that prioritizes winning in real life such that it's players, especially wingers, don't get a chance to thrive, I can't see a universe where Ehlers is a keep over two of these six.

The other non-keep is a bit tougher. Nylander stormed out of the gate last season, with 23 points in his first 15 games. What that means though is over the remainder of the season he had 56 points in 50 games, for a scoring rate of 92, which is far closer to his norm. An argument could be made that he was able to do better given the exodus of Mitch Marner, and indeed it is possible that Nylander is a player whose floor is now in the 90s, rather than the 80s as it had been with Marner as a Leaf. If indeed his downside is 90 points, that is quite strong, especially since his weak banger stats don't matter.

In Demidov and Slafkovsky, you have two players on a team that looks to be poised to thrive. Owning both would be great if indeed that happens, although it's riskier to put two of your eggs in the same basket. Still, I like what Demidov did in his first season despite suboptimal deployment, and Slaf took a huge step forward and has not even reached his 400-game big guy breakout threshold.

Stutzle has a high floor but has yet to rise back to the 90s. Still, he's been inching upward, and now has William Eklund to help boost his points. I also like that he's 100% entrenched as a top line, top PP guy who gets tons of minutes.

That leaves Tkachuk. Of course, points only is not best suited to what he brings to the table. He's also past his 400-game big guy breakout threshold and still has yet to rise to better than point per game scoring. There is temptation to predict great things for him in coming to Florida; however, even if he's put on a scoring line and PP1, I have concerns in that his 5×5 team SH% has been below 9.0% in the last four seasons, meaning scoring does not happen a lot when he's on the ice. Also, he's not been very good on the PP, as since 2021-22 he has cumulatively the 20th most PP TOI among all forwards, yet his PPPt during that time ranks him 45th among forwards. Scoring doesn't happen a lot when he's on the ice at ES, and he's not a points magnet on the PP.

All things considered, I think Tkachuk is the other non-keep in addition to Ehlers. I realize it's tough to not keep someone who seems to be walking into an ideal situation where lots of goals should be scored; but him never having done better than a point per game, and only doing that once, might result in him being lost in the crowd in Florida, with lower points than most are predicting. Good luck!

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To get mailbag questions to me either (1) email them to [email protected] with the words "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line, or (2) send them to me via a private message on the DobberHockey Forums, where my username is "rizzeedizzee".

When sending me your questions, remember to provide as much detail about your league/situation as possible. Examples of things I need to know include what type of league you're in (i.e., limited keeper, dynasty, or one-year; roto vs. H2H; auction – if so, what the budget is – or non-auction), how many teams are in the league, does the salary cap matter, how many players are rostered (and of those, how many start at each position as well as how many bench and/or IR spots there are), what categories are scored and how are they weighted, plus other details if pertinent. If your question involves whether to pick up or drop a player, give me a list of top free agents available and let me know if the number of pick-ups is limited or if there is a priority system for pick-ups. If you're thinking of making a trade, it would be good to know not only the roster of the other team you might trade with but also where you stand in your categories. If your question involves keepers, in addition to giving me the options for who to keep, let me know if offseason trading is allowed and to what extent it is a viable option given your league. In sum, the key is to tell me enough for me to give you a truly proper answer, and for readers of this column to benefit from the answer/advice I provide. When in doubt, it's best to err on the side of inclusion since I can always omit or disregard things that don't matter.