A couple weeks back, fellow LWOS writer Chris Pudsey brought us a nice two part piece on keeper league players to target for the future. As we draw towards the end of the fantasy regular season, it’s important to plan for the future in our keeper leagues. Today we’ll go over a few things to keep in mind when strategizing for these types of fantasy hockey leagues.

Keeper Leagues vs Dynasty Leagues

If you don’t know the difference, keeper leagues are leagues where you only hold onto a set amount of players per season. For most keeper leagues this would only be 2-5 players. Dynasty leagues generally you’re keeping your entire lineup or at least your entire starting roster and only drafting bench or rookies the following season.

Make sure you’re aware of how many keepers the league plans on for the next season and don’t assume it’s going to be the same as this year. Often times the number of keepers changes if a league manager wants to create more parity or add more owners to increase the prize pot. Talk to your league manager about these things now so you’re able to plan accordingly.

If you’re a league manager thinking about changing things up for next season, start the discussion now! Don’t wait until the offseason to work these things out. Keeper and Dynasty owners want to have a strategy worked out as soon as possible, and it’s easier to get feedback now while everyone is still checking their team and league pages regularly.

Retooling

If you’re already out of the running for the playoffs, or know you’re not catching the top of the roto standings, it’s time to revamp your lineup heading into the offseason.

The most obvious moves to make are to drop the deadweight from this season and pick up players who might make an impact next season. The free agent IR list is a great place to find guys for next season. For example, Mathieu Perreault is owned in less than 8% of ESPN leagues right now because he’s hurt. Perreault was having a terrific year and plays on a decent team. He’s of no use right now for fantasy players, but if you’re out of contention you don’t care about the now, you care about the future and he’s someone who can definitely help a dynasty team next year.

If you’re on the fence about a veteran who’s having a career year, but never shown as much potential before, (i.e. Derick Brassard) perhaps trade them to a contender now, while their value is high. Get back a younger player of similar worth, or someone you think will break out next season, instead of keeping a player who potentially could regress to his career average.

Even if you’re a contender this season, it’s not too early to think about next season and what you can do to improve. You may not want to break up your team right now if you’re playing well, but if you can make a move with another team to get a younger player of similar worth to a current rostered player, it can help in the long term.

Draft Picks

Owners who are already out of the playoff picture should be looking to stockpile as many picks as possible, while trading away guys they won’t be keeping. Even if you’re not sure you’ll have five good keepers in a five keeper league, trade for lower draft picks and use those draft picks to trade for better draft picks. Being proactive is a key to building a team!

If you’re a contender this season, it’s often worth trading picks now to get an edge in playoffs while your team is good. You might be thinking about your future and worrying that trading draft picks could cost you down the line, especially if you don’t win this year. However, if you’re a real contender, and in a keeper league that holds onto four or more players each season, you probably have six or seven guys this year who will be potential keepers next year. This provides you with the opportunity to trade your 1st or 2nd round draft picks now. Why? Because come next preseason you’ll be able to trade those players you can’t keep for another draft pick. The rich can keep getting richer if they work their draft picks efficiently.

In a dynasty league, the same type of strategies can be applied, but it’s a big tougher with less draft picks to choose from. Also, this season will be interesting in dynasty leagues because of Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel likely going 1st and 2nd in drafts. This should give you a head start on your draft strategy though. Once your team’s final seasons standings are determined you’ll have a good idea what the first two owner are doing and can plan accordingly. Start working on that owner that gets the third pick as soon as you can!