Prospect roster

[Anthony]

I say add 2 more spots, but make them long term minor spots, so you can use them, but once a player goes in the long term spot they have to stay there for 3 years.  So, goalies and defensemen have just such a long maturation process most of the time.  You can slide them in that spot and hope they take the normal time.  If not, they are still on your team, but you have to watch them tear it up without rewarding you.

Thats an interesting idea, especially with players who stay overseas or in college for a while after being drafted,

[shooter47]

I say add 2 more spots, but make them long term minor spots, so you can use them, but once a player goes in the long term spot they have to stay there for 3 years.  So, goalies and defensemen have just such a long maturation process most of the time.  You can slide them in that spot and hope they take the normal time.  If not, they are still on your team, but you have to watch them tear it up without rewarding you.

This just adds another thing to track for the commish and another rule for everyone to follow. much simpler to just add 2 spots and let the GMs use them how they see fit.

[Rob]

This just adds another thing to track for the commish and another rule for everyone to follow. much simpler to just add 2 spots and let the GMs use them how they see fit.

My thoughts exactly, lol.  I do like the idea, though.

[-BA-]

i would like to see 2 or 3 more slots I think. Seems there are good players that slip through and we can't bid on them till they reach 40 games.

If nothing else I would like to see a way to sign those players as UFAs and not have the 40 game wait. Those are productive players that should be on a roster.

[snugerud]

No on more roster spots and I second what BA has proposed. 

My idea is that there should be an age limit just like the NHL for Minors.  I believe it is 24 or 25 in the NHL to be considered a rookie.  So a minor league player would be less than 40 NHL games played and under age 24, whichever comes first.

[limeygreen]

I say increase them. WIth us adding around 6 draftees a year (3 from our NHL team and 3 from our draft), it really squeezes our minors. The NHL has a full minor team and even players that play overseas, so I feel like adding 1 - 5 extra slots still leaves a lot of good talent on the board, while giving less talented teams more spots to rebuild.

  completely agree with this

[Tubbs]

If I have two cents I would say 2 more spots.

[Capn Cally]

I would certainly say to increase the minor league roster size.

Heck, NHL teams can carry up to 50 players, and there are 30 NHL teams. We only have what, 20 teams in here?
Some young prospects take a year, usually more like 2-3 to actually do anything relevant in the NHL even once they get there (for fantasy purposes and real life).

I mean, if that's how you want it to be in here, then what we have is fine.
What we have being - GM's in here giving up on young players after 40 NHL games because they're stuck on their NHL team's 4th line or 3rd D pairing playing 8-10 minutes per game... And then in a year they have a breakthrough and become relevant, at which time they're still FA's and anyone can have at them.

Not all prospects, only a handful actually, are Nathan MacKinnon like for fantasy purposes.

Look at some of the "top" guys in past drafts ... Yakupov and Galchenyuk and Trouba are really the only ones doing anything really relavent from 2012.
There's still quite a few guys from the 1st round of the 2011 draft that are still to really make a huge fantasy impact in our league. Even Huberdeau hasn't really lit it up as expected. Larsson was a bust. Zibanejad hasn't done a ton. Arguably one of the top 5 and certainly top-10 players from that draft was Palat taken in the 7th round, 4th last pick in the entire draft.

Anyways, point is, it seems like in the set up the league has, a lot of young guys will be given up on by us GM's when it's too early to tell if they are going to do anything to help a fantasy team.

Like someone pointed out, we are able keep 3 draftees from our own team each year, plus the draft picks we own and trade for, and I don't know a lot of teams that will be rolling over 5-6 prospects each year, let alone 2 or 3 would be tough to roll over.

I know you want hard decisions, but at what point to hard decisions become "stupid" decisions fantasy-wise?

[snugerud]

I mean, if that's how you want it to be in here, then what we have is fine.
What we have being - GM's in here giving up on young players after 40 NHL games because they're stuck on their NHL team's 4th line or 3rd D pairing playing 8-10 minutes per game... And then in a year they have a breakthrough and become relevant, at which time they're still FA's and anyone can have at them.

Not all prospects, only a handful actually, are Nathan MacKinnon like for fantasy purposes.

Look at some of the "top" guys in past drafts ... Yakupov and Galchenyuk and Trouba are really the only ones doing anything really relavent from 2012.
There's still quite a few guys from the 1st round of the 2011 draft that are still to really make a huge fantasy impact in our league. Even Huberdeau hasn't really lit it up as expected. Larsson was a bust. Zibanejad hasn't done a ton. Arguably one of the top 5 and certainly top-10 players from that draft was Palat taken in the 7th round, 4th last pick in the entire draft.

This argument seems to be more about the 40 games limit as opposed to the minor league size. I think there is a fallacy in thinking that a player like Larsson or Huberdeau is a bust when it comes to fantasy.  Even as a 3rd liner you are only paying them 200k per year so any player graduating from your minors to your pro team is a bonus. You still have the option to re-sign them to a long term deal at a very low salary. They dont all have to be Nathan MacKinnons. In fact Mackinnons can really suck sometimes if they have a sophomore slump you are stuck paying a really high contract hoping they bounce back.

I like that teams cant use their minors in this league to hoard/sit on players.  I also like that our drafts have players in it that you can draft and they make an immediate impact for your team or within 1 maybe 2 years, not 5 years down the road.  Increasing the size will change this.  I also like that this league has a very good balance of strategies (ie. build through minors, FA or trades) I find many of the leagues on the site have tipped the scales too far in one direction or another.

If we increase by 1 or 2 players all we are doing is appeasing people from having to make tough decisions for 1 season.  Increasing 5 we take the risk of messing with the balance in the league.

I will agree with one thing in that no team seems to use all 3 of the home team picks.  Most just the 1st pick , select few 1st and 2nd.  I would rather see all get their home teams 1st pick and give us an extra round in the supplemental draft or no extra pick at all.

[-BA-]

My biggest issue probably is with the 40 game limit. With so many players slipping through the cracks with limited minors, I think it hurts teams that are trying to rebuild. If those teams could sign additional minor league players through FA, and place them on their active roster so see if they hit on some guys.

The current system drives up the price on these rookie players as we are all waiting around for these young guys to hit 40 games.