Scoring settings:
Forwards: G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SOG
Goalies: W, GAA, Sv%, SO
My strategy:
If I get a low 1st pick, Ovechkin of course, otherwise I should go goaltending first because 4 stats are determined by solid goaltending every week. (shooting for Luongo and another good goalie a round or two later)
Dany heatley- ranked 29th in predraft rankings, meaning he might be missed in the first round. If I grab him in the 2nd(3rd might be pushing it) he can provide me with 50 goals, good +/-, decent PIMs, good PPP and a ton of shots.
3rd or 4th I'll go for another very strong goaltender. Remember that in an 11 person league i'll have plenty of chances for FA grabs when forwards get hot.
Where should I grab D? Seems to me like if I've got the 4 goalie stats locked most weeks, and Goals+PPP+Sog+probably +/- are doing well by my hot forwards, then pretty much all I'll need from D is PIM's...and that's always easy to find on the FA market(or from lower round D).
Thoughts? Am I mistaken about heatley? Should I just grab him 1st round just in case?
Scoring settings:
Forwards: G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SOG
Goalies: W, GAA, Sv%, SO
My strategy:
If I get a low 1st pick, Ovechkin of course, otherwise I should go goaltending first because 4 stats are determined by solid goaltending every week. (shooting for Luongo and another good goalie a round or two later)
Dany heatley- ranked 29th in predraft rankings, meaning he might be missed in the first round. If I grab him in the 2nd(3rd might be pushing it) he can provide me with 50 goals, good +/-, decent PIMs, good PPP and a ton of shots.
3rd or 4th I'll go for another very strong goaltender. Remember that in an 11 person league i'll have plenty of chances for FA grabs when forwards get hot.
Where should I grab D? Seems to me like if I've got the 4 goalie stats locked most weeks, and Goals+PPP+Sog+probably +/- are doing well by my hot forwards, then pretty much all I'll need from D is PIM's...and that's always easy to find on the FA market(or from lower round D).
Thoughts? Am I mistaken about heatley? Should I just grab him 1st round just in case?
Thing with goalies is you never know who will come up..
John quick and pekka rinn saved me in the season and i picked em up later on.
So you dont have to like go and get it, superstar goalies. I won my league with john quick and pekka rinne. and it had 5 goalie stats.
I picked up Marty Brodeur in the first last year and was screwed when he went down ... I actually had more problems with scoring. I would go with scoring first - forwards. Look for point-per-game guys. Also try to get RWs earlier ... there are more lower ranks LWs this year than RW, which seems a little thin compared to past years. Just my take ... Good luck.
I should have taken your RW tip perhaps, i didn't read this thread this morning before drafting. But my team looks pretty strong to me.
It ended up being only 10 teams, someone dropped last minute i guess.
My team:
C- E.Staal, Krejci, Sharp
Lw- Heatley, Cammaleri, Morrow
Rw- Hossa(didn't know he was injured, should still be good later in the year), Hemsky, Backes
D- Keith, Blake, Timonen, Vlasic, Schneider
G- Lundqvist and Luongo(if luongo gets injured again imma be mad...)
Lundqvist + Luongo is overkill IMO, but other than that pretty good team. Maybe try and trade on of your goalies for an elite defenseman then pick up a FA goalie. What goalies are in the FA pool?
Out of curiosity, can you post your team's draft results?
What's wrong with goalie overkill? If I can lock in 4 categories every week...why not?
There are plenty of FA goalies, but how many of them are going to get 30+ wins, great sv%, AND a bunch of shutouts?
I've never seen the value in going for an elite dman...What can they do that an elite forward can't do?
I usually just get dmen that give me a good amount of shots, assists, and PIM's. I don't need one that scores like a 2nd line forward.
Draft results:
1st round-8th pick: Dany Heatley(expecting 50 goals from him)
2nd round- Luongo
3rd round- Lundqvist(by this point several elite goalies started going due to my luongo pick)
4th- Eric Staal(40 goals, shoots the puck a TON)
5th- Marion Hossa(didn't know he was injured...Should still be decent late November/december)
6th- Cammalleri
7th- Duncan Keith
8th- Backes
9th- Rob Blake
10th- Krejci
11th- Timonen
12th- Hemsky
13th- Vlasic
14th- Sharp
15th- Morrow
16th- Schneider
I've never seen the value in going for an elite dman...What can they do that an elite forward can't do?
Because the difference between an elite and mediocre fantasy defenseman is usually greater than the difference between an elite and mediocre fantasy forward. I don't think that you should draft a defenseman during the first couple rounds in a draft your size, but picking up a forward that could make up the difference is easier in late rounds or during the season than trying to pick up a defenseman to do the same.
I just joined a family league last year, 7 of us where everyone else already had 8 keepers each. That means I essentially didn't get to pick my first player until the 48th pick, when I got to pick up 8 players in a row. We then resumed in order. So I used 3 of my first 8 picks to grab elite defensemen, Markov, Chara, and Green. Shortly after I snagged Pronger, then not long after that Gonchar (who was injured most of the season). Even with a very disadvantaged draft position I was able to make it to 3rd place, because the difference between the forwards I drafted later and the forwards unavailable to me was accounted for my the difference between my elite defensemen and everyone elses.
Green would have been nice...So would Pronger. Never been fond of Lidstrom in drafts, getting up there in age and I'd never use a 3rd/4th on a guy that might end up missing half the season like the person that grabbed brodeur in the 1st round in my league last year...
That's great that getting a ton of dmen works for you. There are usually good FA pickups for forward positions, you're right there. I still believe solid goaltending is more important than elite dmen, and even then...It is still possible to stack up elite forwards that more than replace the elite dmen's goals and PPP.
Last year I found Anton Babchuk(not sure what's happening to him this year...) 16 goals and a ton of PPP, so there are elite dmen available from FA as well...
Disagree about elite forwards vs mediocre forwards being more significant than elite dmen vs mediocre dmen.
Elite dman: Zdeno chara(19 g, 31 a, 28 PPP, 23 +/-, 3rd rounder in my league)
My dman: Rob Blake(10 g, 35 a, 22 PPP, 15 +/-, 9th rounder in my league...)
Elite forward: Rick Nash(40 g, 39 a, 19 PPP, 11 +/-, 3rd rounder in my league)
Mediocre forward: Kris Versteeg(24 g, 31 a, 16 PPP, 15 +/-, 9th rounder in my league)
See, now obviously I'd have much rather grabbed Nash and Blake over Chara and Versteeg...The 9 goal difference between blake and chara is miniscule...
Last year I was 3rd in my league, beat in the playoffs because a)went for assisters like Thornton over goalscorers, and b)had one solid starting goaltender(lundqvist) and relied on trying to find a decent FA goalie and never really did...
Oh and I had Phaneuf, and he killed my +/- and was super streaky...Not to mention he was strapped to my team with the dumb "do not drop list"...fun.
Green would have been nice...So would Pronger. Never been fond of Lidstrom in drafts, getting up there in age and I'd never use a 3rd/4th on a guy that might end up missing half the season like the person that grabbed brodeur in the 1st round in my league last year...
That's great that getting a ton of dmen works for you. There are usually good FA pickups for forward positions, you're right there. I still believe solid goaltending is more important than elite dmen, and even then...It is still possible to stack up elite forwards that more than replace the elite dmen's goals and PPP.
Last year I found Anton Babchuk(not sure what's happening to him this year...) 16 goals and a ton of PPP, so there are elite dmen available from FA as well...
Disagree about elite forwards vs mediocre forwards being more significant than elite dmen vs mediocre dmen.
Elite dman: Zdeno chara(19 g, 31 a, 28 PPP, 23 +/-, 3rd rounder in my league)
My dman: Rob Blake(10 g, 35 a, 22 PPP, 15 +/-, 9th rounder in my league...)
Elite forward: Rick Nash(40 g, 39 a, 19 PPP, 11 +/-, 3rd rounder in my league)
Mediocre forward: Kris Versteeg(24 g, 31 a, 16 PPP, 15 +/-, 9th rounder in my league)
See, now obviously I'd have much rather grabbed Nash and Blake over Chara and Versteeg...The 9 goal difference between blake and chara is miniscule...
Last year I was 3rd in my league, beat in the playoffs because a)went for assisters like Thornton over goalscorers, and b)had one solid starting goaltender(lundqvist) and relied on trying to find a decent FA goalie and never really did...
Oh and I had Phaneuf, and he killed my +/- and was super streaky...Not to mention he was strapped to my team with the dumb "do not drop list"...fun.
There are always exceptions, are there are some factors to consider. Blake, for example, had a very un-mediocre season, ranking 19th in points amongst defensemen. Versteeg had a good season for a rookie, but for season points ranked 82nd amongst forwards.
yeah, I wasn't trying to say blake is "mediocre", I was trying to compare my top dman with one of the "elite" dmen he's saying I should have grabbed.
Really I was also trying to just show that by grabbing a decent guy late(alright he IS getting old...but still...), I was able to get a great forward like Eric Staal which I believe more than makes up for the 8 or 9 goal difference and PPP difference.
yeah, I wasn't trying to say blake is "mediocre", I was trying to compare my top dman with one of the "elite" dmen he's saying I should have grabbed.
Really I was also trying to just show that by grabbing a decent guy late(alright he IS getting old...but still...), I was able to get a great forward like Eric Staal which I believe more than makes up for the 8 or 9 goal difference and PPP difference.
You're right. The point I was trying to make is that elite dmen should not be discounted as a hard and fast rule. So much of it depends on the dynamics of the draft. In my example (which has no goalies, btw), several of the non-elite forwards had been picked up, leaving some of the top tier dmen available, so that was a window of opportunity. For your example, I would have easily drafted Staal in the 4th round as well. He's a player that tends to be drafted later than he should imo.
My biggest belief is that you need to be flexible to the dynamics of the draft, rather than have some firm drafting strategy (i.e. F 1st round, G 2nd round, D 3rd round). You don't want to be caught in the tail end of a goalie rush, for example, or even in the middle of one for that matter. Going against the grain, which of course, shouldn't be a hard and fast rule either.
One of the factors when considering when drafting dmen is that it is much more likely that a free agent forward or goalie will surprise and turn into a good fantasy player. I have had numerous times where I had too many mediocre dmen, but the problem was that I could never pick anyone up off free agency that was any better. You have a better chance of finding some luck on a forward or an unexpected starting goalie.
That being said, I normally never draft a D in the first 3 rounds at least.
I started the goalie rush lol. Now there's really only 3 or so teams that have excellent goalies and the rest have the lesser team goalies that "might" surprise. One team has osgood-huet for example.
I do agree that it's hard to find good FA dmen compared to a hot FA forward or goalie(this also depends on size of your league-mine is only 10 teams).
This year there are some guys that do have the potential to be good if their teams are playing well. If colorado has a turnaround year Liles would be a great 12 goal guy+PP quarterback, but if they aren't doing well then i'll have to worry about his +/-
Brent Burns had 15 goals the season before last, maybe a turnaround there with a more offense-first style?
If +/- end up being a major need for my team, Johnny Oduya is going to be sharp especially since they're getting Lemaire's defense-first style.
Another guy, Goligoski, I grabbed last season but they sent him to the minors when Gonchar returned. He only played 45 games and got 6 goals, easily could rise toward the top.
So there are plenty of dmen with potential in my league this year, those are just a few i noticed. It's a waiver wire league right now(unless the commissioner changes that, which they usually do end up doing when THEY want someone from FA haha), I'm 3rd in line for waivers so I should have a chance at some good waiver wire pickups.
I started the goalie rush lol. Now there's really only 3 or so teams that have excellent goalies and the rest have the lesser team goalies that "might" surprise. One team has osgood-huet for example.
I do agree that it's hard to find good FA dmen compared to a hot FA forward or goalie(this also depends on size of your league-mine is only 10 teams).
This year there are some guys that do have the potential to be good if their teams are playing well. If colorado has a turnaround year Liles would be a great 12 goal guy+PP quarterback, but if they aren't doing well then i'll have to worry about his +/-
Brent Burns had 15 goals the season before last, maybe a turnaround there with a more offense-first style?
If +/- end up being a major need for my team, Johnny Oduya is going to be sharp especially since they're getting Lemaire's defense-first style.
Another guy, Goligoski, I grabbed last season but they sent him to the minors when Gonchar returned. He only played 45 games and got 6 goals, easily could rise toward the top.
So there are plenty of dmen with potential in my league this year, those are just a few i noticed. It's a waiver wire league right now(unless the commissioner changes that, which they usually do end up doing when THEY want someone from FA haha), I'm 3rd in line for waivers so I should have a chance at some good waiver wire pickups.
I've been considering going after two elite goalies as well becuase last year I got stuck with Turco and Theodore who were brutal. I finished 9th/12 teams. Just curious, how many teams are in your league?
I've been considering going after two elite goalies as well becuase last year I got stuck with Turco and Theodore who were brutal. I finished 9th/12 teams. Just curious, how many teams are in your league?
only 10. Drafted them 2nd and 3rd though. That's pretty early for goalies.
2nd round guys I could have drafted instead of luongo:
Iginla, zetterberg, semin, nash and the goalie rush really started by then. Seems like once luongo went people got panicked lol. Maybe I should have grabbed Green in the 1st round instead of Heatley?
I might go full on goalies+elite dmen as much as possible in my 20 team leaguer that's coming up soon. It's a lot easier to rely on lower forwards w/potential rather than trying to sweep up a crappy dman that's having a good week. I guess it'll be a draft strategy experiment of my own since last year I basically stacked up forwards and ignored dmen and goalies...Iginla was one of my guys who went dry for several weeks before going hot. That's what really sucks about forwards, they have dry/hot spells depending more on how linemates are playing as well. Dmen are more consistant.
So for my 20 team league, I'm just going to draft goalies and dmen most of the way...Let someone else cry about how they can't find any starting goaltenders and decent dmen in FA lol.
