Looking at Dobbers current rankings of Dmen, he sits Keith Yandle at the #2 Dman for fantasy hockey. I am having a hard time buying into that. I am in the middle of an offline draft for a new league (multi-cat, salary cap) that starts up next season and I am looking to draft a D with my next couple picks. Yandle is still available in the draft but I am leary to take him due to his miserable year so far and his 5+M salary. Other D still available would include: Suter, Keith, Shattenkirk, Doughty, Carlson and Giordano. Doughty scares me because of his monster salary and lack of production to justify it. Shattenkirk interests me because of his youth and 1.3m salary for one more year. Carlson's contract is up and is due for a raise. Suter is going to get a BIG raise at years end. Giordano is only 4m and steady as a rock.

Who should I take next and how would you rate those Dmen going forward (if you can offer a reason why you rate them in that order, that would help a lot too). I am trying to draft as much youth as possible. Right now the oldest player on my roster is Lundqvist at 30. I dont own anyone else over 25 and I have 2 full lines right now.

Thanks in advance

Axeman33

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10 Team, Points Only, $$ League, Keep 20/25 at seasons end
25 Man Roster, top 20 monthly point getters count
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt

Stamkos, Tavares, Hall, Couture, Hanzal, Wheeler, Stastny, Versteeg, Fisher, Hornqvist, Eriksson, Hodgson, Setoguchi, Turris, Steen, Letang, DRoy, Yakupov, Grabner, Byfuglien, Baertschi

G-Rask, Halak, Schneider

Don't let an off year scare you away - he's still elite. There isn't a lot of scoring to go around in PHO so year-to-year may change. Once he and OEL get it working together they will be a top pairing in the scoring department, or he gets traded for a much needed winger/center. I'd happily take Yandle over all those guys mentioned, except maybe Doughty, though the savings from Yandle to Doughty kinda does make it worth it. Especially when you consider Doughty is mired in a tough season as well.

I take Yandle well before any of the others though. One could make an argument for Shattenkirk but I woudln't be buying.

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10tm Dynasty Lg - $70M CAP
G A PTS +/- PIM PPP SOG W GAA SV% SO

C: J. Carter, H Sedin, E. Staal
RW: P. Kane, Stewart
LW: Semin, Couture
D: Pietrangelo, Hamhuis, Subban, Carlson
G: Lundqvist, Price
UTIL: Plekanec, Ennis, Perron, D. Brown


Farm
D: B. Smith, Morrow
F: Brassard, Williams, Niederreiter, Little, Okposo, Whitney, Nyquist, Kesler
G: S. Mason, Ward

Prospect:
F - Z. Kassian, Spooner, Kuznetsov, Tatar, Teravainen, Stone, Connolly
D - Matt Dumba

Thanks for the comments ridinryan44. Interesting thoughts. Rep to you!

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10 Team, Points Only, $$ League, Keep 20/25 at seasons end
25 Man Roster, top 20 monthly point getters count
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt

Stamkos, Tavares, Hall, Couture, Hanzal, Wheeler, Stastny, Versteeg, Fisher, Hornqvist, Eriksson, Hodgson, Setoguchi, Turris, Steen, Letang, DRoy, Yakupov, Grabner, Byfuglien, Baertschi

G-Rask, Halak, Schneider

Yandle should be a lock for 50+ most seasons. He's having an off-year right now. Top players remain top players regardless of a down year.

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Agree 100% with the above sentiments about Yandle. Plus they will absolutely be moving a D for some help on forward as they probably have the best young defensive core in the league.

Yandle and OEL already producing in a big way, then Gormley, Rundblad, Goncharov and Muprhy. WOW.

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12 team H2H Keeper
G,A,PP,PIM,SOG
W,GAA,SV%,SO
C:Giroux,Zberg,Marleau,Kadri
LW:Ovi,Neal,Pach,Benn
RW:Perry,MSL,Wheeler
D:Yandle,Subban,Edler,OEL
G: Lundqvist,Miller,MAF

12 Team H2H
R,2b,3b,HR,RBI,AVG,SB,BB,K,E
W,L,SV,HLD,K,ERA,WHIP
C:Buck
1B:Santana
2B:Kipnis
3B:Zimmer
SS:Tulo
LF:Marte
CF:McCutch
RF:Pence
Util:Ozuna
SP:Cain,Moore,Latos,Kennedy,Ryu,Guthrie
RP:Henderson,Rivera,League,Gregerson,Herrera
DL:Hart,Anderson,Bailey

I really like Yandle, but don't forget the dobber rankings are based on points only, and do not account for salary, so I can see why you would be hesitant to draft him. I actually suspect that Yandle's bang for buck is probably not elite in your setup, depending on the stat categories that is, how is your scoring calculated?

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12 Team H2H Dynasty
22 Players 3C 3L 3R 1Util 4D 2G 6BN
(G) (A) (+/-) (PIM) (PPP) (FW) (HIT) (W) (GAA) (SV%) (SHO)
C: J Toews, R Getzlaf, C Giroux, M Hanzal, D Desharnais
LW: A Ovechkin , S Gagne , T Vanek, B Ryan, P Marleau
RW: C Perry, B Wheeler, D Stafford, K Okposo
D: D Byfuglien, T Myers, J Wisniewski, E Karlsson
G: I Bryzgalov, R Luongo, J Theodore, K Lehtonen
Farm: Poulin, Kabanov, Granlund, Scheifele, Holtby, Reilly

G= 4,A= 2.5, PPP= 1, SHP= 7, HITS= 0.4, BLOCKS= 0.6, PIM= 0.25, DFP (Defensemen Pts)= 0.5, SOG= 0.15

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10 Team, Points Only, $$ League, Keep 20/25 at seasons end
25 Man Roster, top 20 monthly point getters count
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt

Stamkos, Tavares, Hall, Couture, Hanzal, Wheeler, Stastny, Versteeg, Fisher, Hornqvist, Eriksson, Hodgson, Setoguchi, Turris, Steen, Letang, DRoy, Yakupov, Grabner, Byfuglien, Baertschi

G-Rask, Halak, Schneider

yeah see with Yandle you get good G/A/SOG/PPP but below average Blk/HITs/PIM/SHP. Does your setup allow you to see what his scoring worked out to for his season last year? I suspect that would be about as good a season as you'll see from him, so it would be interesting to see how he stacks up based on other defencemen that year. Did you say Byfuglien was taken already? Looks like this scoring would be very good for him.

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12 Team H2H Dynasty
22 Players 3C 3L 3R 1Util 4D 2G 6BN
(G) (A) (+/-) (PIM) (PPP) (FW) (HIT) (W) (GAA) (SV%) (SHO)
C: J Toews, R Getzlaf, C Giroux, M Hanzal, D Desharnais
LW: A Ovechkin , S Gagne , T Vanek, B Ryan, P Marleau
RW: C Perry, B Wheeler, D Stafford, K Okposo
D: D Byfuglien, T Myers, J Wisniewski, E Karlsson
G: I Bryzgalov, R Luongo, J Theodore, K Lehtonen
Farm: Poulin, Kabanov, Granlund, Scheifele, Holtby, Reilly

I had the same train of thought when I started my multi cat salary keeper in sig (building a young team), but one thing I realized is you can't go too young on defense... Young D, I don't care who they are, are not going to perform consistently from year to year.

With your league cats, Yandle is nowhere close to elite IMO. I am with Laendarian, would be looking at drafting Buff Daddy. In your format I would also take Phaneuf and Edler ahead of Yandle, and wouldn't fault anyone for taking Doughty or Pietrangelo ahead of him too. And if you heed my advice about not worrying about youth (just for your D), you can't go wrong with big Zdeno Chara.

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Dynasty - $100/yr buy-in - YR5 - $90M CAP
G A PTS +/- PIM PPP SOG W GAA SV% SO

C - Crosby, Getzlaf, Seguin
LW - Neal, D. Sedin
RW - Perry, Voracek
D - Letang, Chara, Phaneuf, Boyle
Util - Eberle, Hossa, Pavelski, Iginla
G - Rask, Lehtonen

BENCH
Selanne, Backes, Elias, Doan, M. Foligno, Bogosian, Garrison, McDonagh, Gardiner, Faulk, Thomas, Bryzgalov

PROSPECT
Forsberg, Bjugstad, Eller, M. Backlund, Vatanen, R. Murphy, Lack

BACK-TO-BACK Defending Champion.

I'd have to agree that Big Buff probably would be a better multi-cat choice if he's still available. Otherwise, I would still be ok with taking Yandle. His salary is actually not bad compared to other upper tier defenseman contracts. A lot better than all the other defenseman contracts signed in the past year.

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12 Team NHL Salary Cap Dynasty -daily starts
H2H, Salary Cap 82mil, Player actual salaries (all)
+/-,G,A,GWG,PTS,STP,PIM,SOG,HT,BS,GAA,SO,SV,W
Starters: 12 Forwards, 6 Defense, 2 Goalies

Forwards: Fleischmann, Duchene, Ennis, Kessel, M.Koivu, Neal, Conacher, D.Sedin, H.Sedin, Bailey, J.Thornton, Bozak
Defense: Carlson, Gardiner, Kulikov, Franson, Dillon, MacDonald
Goalie: Rask, Crawford
Reserves: B.Schenn, Cowen, Fraser, Gryba, Brodeur, Emery, Pavelec
Prospects: Gallagher, Chiasson, Killorn, A.Larsson, Murphy, Rielly
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