Fantasy Hockey

[MikeVic]

Ok, so there's a draft on Friday and I haven't really been following hockey too closely (in terms of who are good players or not). Is there an up-to-date list I can find somewhere of rankings, that people on this board trust?

It's 12 players, no goalies, no defensemen necessary... just strictly 12 players, and it goes by points as far as I can tell.

Thanks in advance.

[Fidatelo]

I always use the Forecaster but you'd have to buy that (it's a magazine).

Not a fan of that format by the way. Removing goalies and d-men takes all the strategy out of it.

[MikeVic]

It might be changed to positional now... so I'd definietely need some kind of magazine and just hope I luck out!

[Fidatelo]

I was just flipping through the forecaster, you can get the Top500 list online at www.thescore.ca/top500

[MikeVic]

Thanks, I'll look through it!

[MikeVic]

We had our draft. Went super fast. Eleven people in the league, and it's just going strictly on points. No goalies, no positional requirements... With my luck, I picked last... and it's a snake draft. Here's my team:

Ilya Kovalchuck
Martin St. Louis
Patrick Marleau
Scott Gomez
Anze Kopitar
Zach Parise
Derek Roy
David Legwand
Alex Hemsky
Petr Sykora
Pierre-Marc Bouchard
Sheldon Souray

Thoughts?

[Fidatelo]

Looks ok, although I'm surprised by Souray, there had to be forwards out there that would score more than the 50 points that he'll be lucky to put up in Edmonton.

I'm also not a big fan of Hemsky, but I think you did very well to get Sykora as low as you did.

[MikeVic]

Yeah, there probably are... if he's stinking it up, I'll trade him at the beginning of November or December (we trade/waiver once a month). I watned some Oilers players since I like them. Nothing more than that. I forget when I drafted Sykora. Most of the list is in order, but they might be one or two positions out of place. First three and the last player are definitely correct.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

Looks ok, although I'm surprised by Souray, there had to be forwards out there that would score more than the 50 points that he'll be lucky to put up in Edmonton.

I'm also not a big fan of Hemsky, but I think you did very well to get Sykora as low as you did.

You may like the Sykora pick, but getting Hemsky one pick before him is a much bigger steal (if the order is in fact correct). Sykora did nothing last year unless it was initiated by Hemsky. If and when MacT realizes Horcoff can't add anything to the top line here, it'll just be onwards and upwards for Hemsky, and he's already very close to a point per game player. Hemsky is likely the steal of his draft.

[Fidatelo]

I know Sykora needs someone to create... and that guy happens to be name Crosby this year.

As for Hemsky, if MikeVic gets points for the number of players a guy can deke out before he eats the puck, Hemsky is his man. If he wants points, he should stay away from the Oil like the plague.

[MikeVic]

I don't see the Oilers doing well this year, but I wanted a reason to watch them.

[Fidatelo]

I'll put the team I drafted up for review as well. Our league is more complicated than MikeVic's:

- 20 active players (12F, 6D, 2G) and 4 bench spots
- 1 point per G and A, 2 for a win, and 1 for a shutout (so a shutout victory = 3)
- 8 teams (so 192 total players drafted)
- unlimited waiver moves and trades throughout the year

I did some analysis of last years pool (which I won) and came to the conclusion that a top 3 goalie can net about 20 points more than even the next tier, so I bet heavy on them. Not sure if it'll workout.

Anyways, here is my team:

F - Jaromir Jagr

G - Roberto Luongo

G - Evgeny Nabokov

D - Niklas Lidstrom

F - Henrik Sedin

F - Scott Gomez

D - John-Michael Liles

F - Andrew Brunette

F - Rod Brind'Amour

F - Petr Sykora

F - Milan Hejduk

F - Ray Whitney

D - Tom Poti

F - Jason Pomminville

F - Brian Rolston

F - Shane Doan

D - Scott Niedermayer

D - Erik Johnson

F - Jaroslav Hlinka

D - Kristofer Letang

D - Ron Hainsey

F - Glen Murray

F - Jozef Stumpel

G - Tomas Vokoun

I realised after that Letang didn't even make the roster, and I'm not happy at all with my last 2 forwards. Overall I think I did ok, but it could have gone better. I don't think I'll repeat.

[Fidatelo]

Dola...

I should note that I picked 6th (out of 8).

[Travis]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I know Sykora needs someone to create... and that guy happens to be name Crosby this year.

As for Hemsky, if MikeVic gets points for the number of players a guy can deke out before he eats the puck, Hemsky is his man. If he wants points, he should stay away from the Oil like the plague.

He may start with Crosby, but unless he invested in some power skating courses this offseason, he's too foot slow at this point of his career to stick with him for long. He can still shoot, but every other part of his game is a liability. Don't get me wrong, I like Sykora, but he's definitely been passed by.

As for Hemsky, definitely do yourself a favor and watch some Oiler games this year, thus far it looks like he's decided to shoot a lot more often and his passing is as good as ever. And as many people that might like to shoot me for saying it, Penner is at least able to score from more than 5 feet away (yes, I'm looking at you Smyth) and while I have no reason to believe Horcoff will help his point totals, he does have better shooters from the point to work with this year (for when he circles the net looking to open up that pass). That and while they are certainly not the most experienced team, their foot speed as a team is terrific, and so far all 3 games have been very exciting to watch.

Again, barring injury, he's a point per game player this year more likely than not, and that late in the draft, that's a nice pickup.

[MikeVic]

I don't know much about individual players (but I guess that's going to start to change), but there's some people further down on your team that were taken in my limited draft, so I'd say those are good picks?

Pomminville, Rolston, and Doan (they were making fun of him... saying stuff like he's the only player who gets triple-shifted and still scores less than a point a game).

[MikeVic]

Ok, so the first month's "one add/drop" is coming up (November 5th)... I won't be in the city, or guaranteed comptuer access starting Thursday early morning, so I wanted to get in my list by the end of Wednesday.

I will definitely be dropping Sheldon Souray. Who are some potential pickups that you guys think will do good (or are doing good, sleepers for the rest of the year, etc.)?

The simplest thing I can do is sort by total points and just tell the guy to pick the highest available guy for me. But I might end up with some hot-start guy that'll suck the rest of the way. I don't see a way to get a list of who's taken either, so I guess I just have to ask for you guys to maybe list people who you're high on, and might not be taken in a 11-team, 12-player league (no goalies taken, and no positional requirements)...

Thanks in advance.

[Travis]

Well, sticking home town, Sam Gagner has passed the 10 game mark, so he's assured of sticking with the big club for the season, and given how things are going now, it seems to just be a matter of when he'll center the top line as opposed to if (as well as increased PP time). Might be a guy somebody took a flyer on in your league, but if he's available, big upside, especially if it's a keeper league.

[Fidatelo]

Clearly Travis and I have different opinions on Oilers, but I'd avoid Gagner for more than just his team. I'd avoid him because rookies tend to tail off over the second half of a season. Although I guess if you could snag him now and then drop him in 2-3 months that might be fine.

You might want to look east instead of west, though, and snag some Maple Leafs if they are available.

[MikeVic]

I'm looking at Leafs players... Sundin, Antropov, Blake, Tucker, and Kaberle are all gone. Think Steen, Kubina, or Stajan are worth a pick up at all?

[MikeVic]

So I looked through some available, and want to make a ranking of 12 from this list (basically based on points this year, plus some article I read). Bolded are players I think could be nice pickups:

C Mike Richards, PHI
R Patrick Kane, CHI
D Chris Campoli, NYI
Peter Forsberg
C Tomas Plekanec, MTL
D Andrei Markov, MTL
D Brian Rafalski, DET
C Matt Cullen, CAR
C Tim Connolly, BUF
D Brian Campbell, BUF
R Brad Boyes, STL
R Corey Perry, ANH
C Robert Lang, CHI
C Jeff Hamilton, CAR
R Joffrey Lupul, PHI
R Mike Ribeiro, DAL

[Fidatelo]

I'm not sure why you have defencemen listed at all, given that positions don't matter in your league. Even the best d-men get about 65 points, it isn't hard to find forwards that can do that (and more) unless your draft is absolutely massive.

From your list, I'd personally rate Lang and Kane the highest, with Richards up there too. Kane really does look amazing when I've seen him play.

As for the rest, I'm not a Lupul fan, don't know enough about Plekanec to really say anything, I'd avoid Hamilton, Ribeiro might be ok, Connolly and Boyes I'm also not sure.

[MikeVic]

Yeah, I don't know about defencemen. I just like those powerplay guys. :P

Thanks for the input. I won't include defencemen, since you bring up a very good point. I just have blinders on.

[MikeVic]

Well looks like I ran away with this league. No big injuries helped me out a lot. Only trade i made all year was dropping Souray for Lang.

Thanks for the help!

[MikeVic]

New year... since the Forecaster gave me the title last year... I want to use it again. If I go to www.thescore.ca/top500 though, I get some really weird error page. Really, go check it out.

Anyone have another link to it for this year?