As we enter week 10 of the fantasy hockey season, we arrive at the make-or-break mark for every fantasy owner. By this time, you’ll have played enough games against enough opponents to give you a reasonable idea of where your team ranks in your respective league, what your specific strengths and weaknesses are, and what aspirations your team has moving forward. It’s at this juncture that every manager makes his money, so to speak. Why? Because if you plan on making any sort of significant move in the standings between now and the end of the season, now is the time that your move has to begin. For example, if you’re ranked eighth in goals scored in a 12-team rotisserie league, and have aspirations of moving into the top three in that category, you need to make a trade for one or two goal scorers right now, to allow time for your team to make up that five spot gap during the remainder of the year. Making a trade when there is only 3 or 4 weeks left in the season is useless, because not only do you not have enough time to make up the ground, but the gap between the elite and the mediocre will have widened to the point where it’s nearly insurmountable. H2H leagues give a little more leeway, but nevertheless, smart transactions made early in the season, will bolster your chances to move up the standings and clinch a strong playoff seed, perhaps even a first round bye. Now is the time to act.

The first step in making any sort of move, is to start with an honest evaluation of your team’s talent. Look at both the standings and your team’s ranking in individual scoring categories to determine what your strengths and weaknesses are, factoring in injuries and individual slow starts. Now is the time to be brutally objective with your team and cut ties with players that you’ve been “waiting to breakout” (that’s you, Martin Havlat). If they haven’t started performing by this point in time, what would make you believe that they’ll suddenly pick it up? Trade or cut the player in return for a more consistent performer – remember, a bird in hand, is better than two in the bush.

In many cases, you can take advantage of a player’s “name” in trade offers. For example, Martin Havlat has been a perennial point-per-game player (roughly) for the past few years, but has been absolutely terrible this year. Yet, his name still carries some weight in fantasy circles, and may be able to net you something valuable in return. The same could apply for Niklas Lidstrom or even Dion Phaneuf, all of which have significantly underperformed their draft position. Sure, you could wait and see if they turn it around – that may be a viable strategy for some. But if you’re far enough back in the standings, it’s time to be more aggressive than passive and look for opportunities to make your team better.

Equally important as evaluating your own team, is evaluating opposing teams’ strengths and weaknesses. Why? Because you’ll get nowhere trying to trade Kiprusoff for Iginla, to a team already loaded with Ryan Miller and Evgeni Nabokov. You would have a much better chance trying to make a deal with a team that’s thin on goaltending and is looking to address that situation. Therefore, take the time to look at each time and when mulling potential trading partners, ask yourself: If I was managing this team, what areas would I like to address? If I was the opposing manager, could I see upside in the deal I’m proposing? Look for players on your team that have perceived value that are willing to part with and actively pursue logical trading partners.

All that being said, there are certain categories in which you can quite easily make advancements, with minimal effort, via free agency. Penalty minutes is the prototypical example of that. Devoting a fourth defenseman’s spot to a PIM-machine, such as Ottawa’s Matt Carkner (first in the league with 11 fights, third with 81 PIM) will give you, on its own, an almost certain victory in the PIM category in H2H leagues, and a significant boost in rotisserie league standings. Even better, not only do you boost your team’s performance, you in fact do so while giving up very little in return, because typically the fourth defenseman on your team offers little scoring punch. Furthermore, and perhaps even more strategically, if you do have a decent fourth defenseman, you can package him in a 2 for 1 trade to another team, in the hopes of getting an even better player in return than you could with a typical one-for-one trade. The bonus will therefore be two-fold: you not only get a better player in return, but following the trade, you are still able boost your team’s overall fantasy scoring with a PIM lockdown in Carkner.

So now is the time to act, if you plan on making any sort of move. Look for bargain opportunities, be aggressive and be active.