Just to clarify on the Reserve List, I probably explained this poorly. The numbers can be adjusted, but we would have a 19-round draft, and would draft 17 players for our rosters, and 2 players for the Reserve List. The Reserve List players (except in rare cases) would not contribute to your active roster this year. So a prospect that bottoms out isn't hurting your active roster and wouldn't need to be cut/replaced.

As a few examples of the benefits of the Reserve List:

The Red Wings 2020 4th Overall pick Lucas Raymond is spending this year in Europe. I think a few of us would be excited to draft him this year and hold onto him. It's nigh impossible to do that and waste a roster spot on him under current rules. With the Reserve List, it would be worthwhile to draft him and hold onto him for a year or two.

The Devils 2019 1st Overall pick Jack Hughes had a rather useless first season for Fantasy purposes. He played 65 games and scored 7 goals. Solly drafted him in Round 7, and if memory serves, Solly cut him after a few months. Under the new rules, Solly could have kept Hughes on a Reserve List for 2019-2020, and let him get his feet wet in the NHL for a year, before adding him to his main roster this year.



My initial suggestion of 82 games was a shot in the dark, and I'm ok with scaling it back to 1/3 or 1/2 of a season. In the Jack Hughes case above, we don't need to track every player so that he must move to the active roster mid-season if he hits the games threshold. It would be easy enough to check every Reserve player's eligibility in the offseason.

I didn't want to have a Cap on the number of players on a Reserve List. Some players will get to the NHL immediately or after one year. Some need 4-5 years before they break that threshold and still become elite players (goalies in particular, but some defensemen, too). I thought that drafting two players per year to start would allow us to ease into the system and work out the kinks.




This may have been poorly explained by me. Currently, you may not use a first round pick on a keeper. Therefore, a player drafted in round 1-3 may not be a keeper the following year. One rule would be to change this, so that you may not use a second round pick or a third round pick on a keeper. Therefore a player drafted in rounds 1-5 may not be kept the following year.

Secondly, undrafted players may be keepers the following year, and we use round 18 as the de facto +2 for undrafted players. Another possible rule change would be to declare that players must be drafted to be keepers, or even stricter, that players must be drafted by a certain round, such as Round 15, in order to be keepers.

I personally am strongly in favor of adding the Reserve List, as it has really been difficult to invest in young superstar draftpicks. This gives us an ability to obtain these players while still fully competing in the current year for championships, and hold onto them for 5-6 years (Rounds 15, 13, 11, 9, and 7), but the Crosbys and Connor McConnors would return to the draft around age 24 or 25.