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 the 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.

Question #1 (from Dave)

I'm in a 12 team, keep-4 H2H league with skater categories of G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, GWG, SOG, HIT, BLK and FW. Going into each of the last three seasons, I've kept the same four players: Auston Matthews, Mikko Rantanen, Evan Bouchard, and Tage Thompson. But now in the mix I also have Dylan Holloway and Logan Cooley. Do you think either one merits keeper consideration, either in general or to prompt me to trade one of the other four to make room to keep one of them? Bouchard I see as a for sure keeper, but Matthews has disappointed for two seasons and I'm not confident he'll return to full-form. Rantanen on Dallas has been very good but not nearly as great as he had been in Colorado, and Thompson is solid and has good peripherals but I wonder if he's hit his ceiling and the other two may have higher upside. What would you do in my shoes?

It's good to consider whether guys who you've kept for several years should continue to be kept; but this is a 12 team league where fewer than 50 players in total are being kept. You need to keep the best possible guys, and most costly to redraft, which, in both cases, are the four you've been keeping.

Matthews has disappointed of late; but he is still capable of rebounding, and the downside of letting him go far outweighs the risk of keeping him. As you noted, Bouchard is a must keep. Rantanen might not be as great as in Colorado, but he's 80-90% as solid, making him still an easy keep. Thompson stuffs a lot of stats, plus he is the unquestioned #1 center for the Sabres, an up and coming team where a rising tide could lift his boat to more points in the normal course. 

Yes, Holloway is great in multicat and was thriving as part of a line with Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud in Q4; however, he is not proven enough to be keepable over these other players and with so few keeps overall. As for Cooley, things are murkier for him in the near future due to the addition of Vincent Trocheck, with Cooley possibly being relegated to PP2 and the middle six.

Kudos for doing the smart thing in not reflexively keeping the same four guys, and at taking a long look as to whether you should instead keep one or more different players. But with there being so few keepers, and your other options either not quite proven enough (Holloway) or having a near term picture that is too cloudy (Cooley), you should keep the four most proven, most difficult/expensive guys to draft, who happen to be the same you've kept in the past. Good luck!

Question #2 (from a different Dave)

Who do you see as young goalies with some but not much NHL experience that are most likely to make a fantasy impact this season? Is Cossa the only realistic possibility?

First off, in fantasy, goalies are voodoo. By that I mean with few exceptions anything can, and often does, happen. Interestingly though, when the unexpected occurs, it doesn't normally involve young goalies making a major mark. Here's the data to back that up.

Going back to 2000-01, there have been 682 instances of a goalie playing 41+ games in a season. Of those, only seven were by a goalie age 21 or younger. Raise the age to 22, and that adds 12 more instances, while upping it to 23 adds another 22 instances. The age 24 group has 37 instances, and the age 25 group has 50 instances. If we count all instances of an age 25 or younger goalie playing 41+ games in a season, the total is 138, or barely 20% of the 682 total instances. Keep in mind, many of the 138 were the same goalies in two or more years, as these are just instances of an occurrence, not 138 unique young goalies. Although making goalie predictions is growing increasingly difficult, it remains the case that the younger the goalie, the less likely he'll appear in even half his team's games. 

All that having been said, those who could be impactful this season include Devon Levi, who at one time was considered a top tier goalie prospect and is getting a new lease on life with Edmonton, having only Frederick Andersen and Tristan Jarry ahead of him. There is most definitely a universe where Andersen gets hurt and/or Jarry performs poorly, leading to Levi getting a chunk of starts. Jacob Fowler is seen by many as the true goalie of the future for the Habs, and that future could be this season if Jacob Dobes is unable to play at the level he did in the second half of 2025-26. Though a bit older, don't sleep on Justus Annunen, who toward the end of last season was alternating starts with Juuse Saros. He could do to Saros what Joel Hofer seemingly has done to Jordan Binnington in St. Louis. With no true #1 in New Jersey, Nico Daws should get a chance to step up. Leevi Merlainen also was once pretty highly touted, but thus far been unable to translate that to NHL success. Still, Linus Ullmark has not been a top tier goalie, and Samuel Ersson has had a rough go of it, such that there is a universe where Merlainen could fit within Ottawa's goalie picture. Pittsburgh is similar to New Jersey in that they have no clear #1; but Sergei Murashov, although younger than Daws, has had more success in his brief career, giving Murashov a chance to rise to be a 1A or 1B. For San Jose, there's Yaroslav Askarov, but I'm not sure he should be included given how much he's already played. That brings us to Cossa, who as of now is slated to be the back-up for Utah. With Karel Vejmelka showing he can be a workhorse in starting 63 games last season and winning 38, chances are the team stays with that approach, leading to Cossa paying 20-25 games tops.

To me, the most likely goalies to emerge and play enough games to be fantasy relevant this season are Murashov, Levi, Daws, Cossa and Merlainen, in that order. Again though, this doesn't count Askarov since he's already made a mark. Good question!

Question #3 (from JP)

I'm part of a salary cap keeper league where each team must start 3C, 3LW, and 3RW. In using the Fantasy Guide, I see that forwards do have positional designations. How are those determined, and do they change year by year? 

For purposes of the Guide, it is known that readers use a wide range of sites for their leagues. As such, and given the fact that in some cases those sites differ on how they designate the position(s) for which a player is eligible, for purposes of the Guide a player's position(s) is/are based the position(s) that player was eligible at the end of last season on most sites, presuming things will stay the same, or, in some cases, having been adjusted based on offseason movement of a player to a new team where they are likely to be deployed in a different role.

If this is your first time in a league with forward positions, know that wingers are more coveted than centers due to those positions being less deep. The good news is quite often wingers will be eligible at both wing positions, or wing and center. But for certain a player who is center only eligible will have less value than any other forward from a positional scarcity standpoint, meaning you should downgrade them in terms of drafting. Also, positional eligibility often changes on some sites as the season unfolds, usually to add, rather than subtract, positions, although the latter can occur.

If FOW is a category in your league, wingers who take draws will have enormous value. Everyone in your league will realize this, and I've found in many cases that will drive their value higher than it should be, even factoring in FOWs. Make no mistake – it's great to have these guys on your team; however, you should resist the urge to reach for them and overpay in terms of drafting them too soon or trading too much to get them.

Often a good approach to drafting in leagues like this is to have tiers for each forward position. Your goal is to not be the first to draft a player in a lower tier, but also to recognize when nearly all of those in a tier are gone so you can try to grab as many as you can, factoring in wings versus centers as noted. Of course you'll need to mix in d-men and goalies, but hopefully this advice should help you. Good luck!

Question #4 (from Richard)

I'm in a 12-team, H2H, 1-win categories league with G, A, SOG, PPP, SHP, Hits, Blks, PIMs as skater categories, and Wins, SOs, and SV% as goalie categories. Rosters are 20-players with 3 each of LW, C, RW, and D, one Util spot, 2 G spots and 5 bench positions. Somewhat unique is this is a partial keeper league where we can keep 15 players with a maximum of 2 goalies. This means that we only draft 5 players each year and goalies fly off the board in the first two rounds.

I won the regular season and playoffs last year, trading away my 1st round pick in the process to acquire a third reliable goalie, and picking up a couple of talented youngsters out of free agency. Now I'm questioning which one of three goalies I should abandon / trade, as well as which player I should use my final keeper spot on. I'm intending to keep Tim Stutzle (LW/C), Dylan Holloway (LW/C), Kirill Kaprizov (LW), Brady Tkachuk (LW/C), Seth Jarvis (LW/C/RW), Matt Boldy (LW/RW), Adam Fantilli (C), Andrei Svechnikov (LW/RW), Joel Eriksson Ek (C), Cale Makar, Moritz Seider, Evan Bouchard, and Andrei Vasilevskiy, plus one of Kevin Fiala, Porter Martone and Jimmy Snuggerud and one of Igor Shesterkin and Ilya Sorokin.

Given my abundance of LWs, the injury he's coming off of, and his age, I'm leaning towards cutting Fiala loose. Do you agree? If so, which of Martone or Snuggerud should I use my final keeper spot on, or should I consider letting a different listed player go? And regarding goalies, which of Sorokin and Shesterkin should I select as my second goalie keeper? Both their team situations and individual numbers make it look like a toss-up in my eyes.

Let's start with Fiala. There was a time when Fiala was a second half star; but then he rose to point per game levels in two straight seasons, including one for LA. Yet since then he's been doing steadily worse. Most worrisome was last season before getting hurt he was unable to thrive despite his highest career TOIs, both overall and on the PP, instead seeing his scoring rate drop to a seven season low, and his SOG rate to an eight season low. His team SH% at 5×5 was 6.4%, which for sure was unsustanably low; however, it had been trending down as well, from 11.1% in 2021-22, to 9.7%, to 8.1%, to 7.8%, and then to 6.4% last season. Maybe it rebounds, but likely not too much.

Interestingly though, Fiala still had 70%+ IPPs both overall and on the PP, indicating he continues to find a way to factor into scoring. If his 5×5 team SH% is low, that means he might get points on a large share of the goals scored with him on the ice, but there just aren't that many being scored. Also, Fiala is primarily a LW, the same position as Artemi Panarin. If I'm banking on one of them to be given the best minutes, it's Panarin. Given this, and considering your other choices, I'm on board with not keeping Fiala. Also, this lets you retain Snuggerud, for a Holloway/Snuggerud stack, with that duo plus Robert Thomas, being among the best lines in all of hockey in Q4. Martone does not come without risks; but he's great with your categories and is a Rick Tocchet type of player, making it so I'm not keeping Fiala over him either. Long story short, Fiala gets dropped, Snuggerud and Martone kept.

The Shesterkin and Sorokin choice is tougher. Having SOs as one of the categories does tilt the scales to Sorokin, who has averaged just over five per season over the past five seasons, versus four for Igor. It is likely that Shesterkin holds a small edge in SV%, but the Isles figure to be the better of the two teams, tilting the scales back to Sorokin in wins. Both are likely to start 55+ games, as Sorokin has only Vitek Vanecek and Semyon Varlamov as back-ups, while Shesterkin has Joonas Korpisalo. It's very close, and most likely Shesterkin would be the tougher redraft. I do feel in the end that Sorokin is the better of the two given your league's set up. Good luck!

Question #5 (from Collin)

I'm in a 12 team league with rosters of 4C, 4LW, 3RW, 7D, 3G, starting 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 5D, 2G. Each team gets two dynasty players who can be kept as long as wanted. At the end of the draft, each team also drafts eight other "prospects" which is a bit of a misnomer since they can have any level of NHL experience – that is, they're prospects solely because they're picked after the regular draft concluded. A team can end the season with more than eight prospects though, via trades. A prospect can be kept for up to four years, then has to reenter the draft. Around the end of the calendar year, each team has to drop 1C, 1LW, 1RW, 2D, 1G plus two other players at any position, and there is a waiver draft. Scoring is one point each for a goal or assist, but also each week two players are designated by each team as getting 0.1 point per HIT in addition to their regular points, and each team can also designate as many – or as few – players as having +/- count for +2 or -2 points but not have their goals or assists count as points.

My dynasty players are Connor Bedard and Brady Tkachuk, and my prospects are Gabriel Landeskog, Ryker Evans, Beckett Sennecke, Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Philip Broberg, Tij Iginla, Lukas Dostal, Anton Frondell, Frank Nazar, and Victor Eklund. Because I have ten prospects, I need to cut two, or more if I want a chance to draft at the prospects draft. My plan is to let Landeskog and Evans go, and one of ASP or Broberg, since I have the third overall pick in the prospects draft.

My first question is should I drop one of ASP or Broberg and plan to redraft him in the regular draft? Or would you stick with them as prospects, and not draft in the prospects draft, where, by the way, I feel confident I'd get one of Roman Kantserov, Alexander Zharovsky, Ilya Protas, Michael Hage, or perhaps even Troy Terry due to his injury. My second question is if I do plan to use my prospects draft pick, and all those players are available, who would you take?

Interesting league and set up. Right off the bat, I do think Evans is a prospect drop. He's nearly 25 and has been okay, especially given his TOI; but his PP time has all but evaporated with each season and his OZ% has dropped as well. Maybe he can rise to be a point per every other game scorer someday; but he doesn't have amazing peripherals for this league and his trends are concerning, so he's a drop.

The second is tougher. Landy is in the mix, as although he looked great in the playoffs, I think the team will be careful with him, wanting to not risk injury, meaning he won't get much more than the 16:35 he averaged last season. Yes, he figures to be on PP1; however, with no bonus for PPPts, that is not any better for your team than just regular points. He still was dishing out hits; however, given his situation and age, plus the rest of your prospects having better potential, I agree with letting go of Landy.

As for whether to drop another prospect, the five names you mention are intriguing, although I'm not sure how you're certain they'd be there. I will trust your read on your league in the end. If deciding whether to drop ASP or Broberg, I think it'd be ASP, as Moritz Seider made major strides in 2025-26, such that ASP won't get a shot at running PP1. Also, Detroit seems to be treading water in terms of they're not great or lousy, whereas St. Louis could be a team on the rise. Although the Blues did opt to resign Cam Fowler, they also have a decent commitment to Broberg, with only Adam Jiricek as a top prospect. In fact, I think there is a universe where Borberg pushes Fowler aside to run PP1, and makes the leap to a 45+ point defensemen. Thus, although ASP is younger, I don't see his upside being much higher, if even higher, than what Broberg brings to the table. If you do want to draft at the prospect draft, ASP would be who I cut.

As for which prospect to take of those five you named, Kantserov is tempting because you already have Frondell, and Chicago could be very good very soon. Hage and Zharovsky being on Montreal is a good news bad news situation in that they also project to be a team on the rise; however, they have a lot of forward talent such that these two could find it difficult to get a foothold in the top six. Protas was used last season on the giants line with his big brother and Tom Wilson, and he did not look out of place. He was also inserted directly onto PP1. However, the team added both Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou this summer, such that Protas' future still might be bright but perhaps delayed more than would've been expected at the end of last season. Terry did great last season, and figures to still have a spot on PP1 and in the top six when healthy. Of course he is quite older than the rest. In the end, I'm not sure Protas or either Montreal guy will pay enough dividends within four years, so it comes down to Kantserov or Terry, and if it was me I'd take Kantserov and go for home run and stacking potential. 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.