A new stat for fantasy hockey??

[Ross The Boss Palmer]

It's cool to see takeaways and giveaways as categories. Just like steals and turnovers in basketball.

[Dakkster]

I would like to see a PIM stat where you gain or lose points depending on the penalty killing. If the other team scores when your player is in the box he gets slapped with -5 or something, but if they successfully kill it off he gets +1.

How does that make sense?

[mister_mcgoo]

That's insane flexibility. LOVE it!!

yeah dude, they've added a lot of stats each year, you can really fine tune your league the way you want...we do ours in a weighted format (like Fantasy Football) and I like the basic distribution in value we've got (though I'd fine tune it even further if I started another league).

They also added a cool feature this year. You've always been able to click on a player and see his game log to see his stats game by game...but now it also shows you how much he scored in your specific scoring format on a game by game basis which is really handy to compare players of equal value but different roles (i.e. forward vs d-man, or mid-level scorer vs gritty/goon, etc.

[MrQuacky]

I would like to see a PIM stat where you gain or lose points depending on the penalty killing. If the other team scores when your player is in the box he gets slapped with -5 or something, but if they successfully kill it off he gets +1.

This is one I've been preaching for awhile. The way I want to set it up roto wise would be:

If PK is successful penalized player gets 2 PIM
If team scores on PP penalized player gets -5 PIM

This way your still rewarded for matching penalties and fighting majors with no potential negatives. I think this is a positive because if you've got a matching penalty than more often than not you've either been able to draw the other team into doing something stupid therefore removing the negative effect your penalty would have caused OR you're sticking up for a team mate. And then players are still rewarded for fighting majors which cause no detriment to their team.

At the same time the player faces the risk of costing your fantasy team (just like he'd cost his real NHL team). This way penalties can both be good (save a goal) or bad (cost your team) just like they are in the NHL.

[mister_mcgoo]

This is one I've been preaching for awhile. The way I want to set it up roto wise would be:

If PK is successful penalized player gets 2 PIM
If team scores on PP penalized player gets -5 PIM

This way your still rewarded for matching penalties and fighting majors with no potential negatives. I think this is a positive because if you've got a matching penalty than more often than not you've either been able to draw the other team into doing something stupid therefore removing the negative effect your penalty would have caused OR you're sticking up for a team mate. And then players are still rewarded for fighting majors which cause no detriment to their team.

At the same time the player faces the risk of costing your fantasy team (just like he'd cost his real NHL team). This way penalties can both be good (save a goal) or bad (cost your team) just like they are in the NHL.

that's an interesting idea...better than just counting PIM for sure. The problem with PIMs is that its near impossible to get a perfect valuation of them. Like some guys just take bad penalties, like guys who always get called for interference or holding because they are out of position or guys who get frustrated and slash on the play, you don't wanna award that. But take a guy like St. Louis who takes 4-5 penalties a season, usually if he takes a penalty its a 'good' penalty (i.e. prevents a breakway or a goal, etc). Same with the tough guys, often a fight or a huge hit can energize a team,and its worth the penalty.

[Dakkster]

Penalties are bad regardless of if a PP goal is scored on the ensuing powerplay or not. It puts your team in a hole either way. Doesn't make sense to reward some and punish others.

[bondon]

I still enjoy PIM as a category personally. I can understand how leagues that are really competitive would want to cut it out but in my main league which is with all of my buddies it's hilarious.

I got the short end of the stick when Ryane Clowe got hit with like 35 penalty minutes against the Canucks on that Sunday. Hoooly I was pissed, I had been winning PIM before that lol.

[Pengwin7]

While I love fantasy hockey, I've always disliked PIM.

A good fantasy hockey pool should allow an avid fan who knows their hockey to join & do well.
With PIM, you have to explain to somebody that Milan Lucic is more valuable than Pavel Datsyuk.

I run my friends & family league with the following categories (no PIM):
Skaters: G, A, +/-, SOG, PPP
Goalies: W, SV%
It makes for a nice balance of just 7 categories... IMO.

While there are lots of statistics available - adding some new ones is only right for a pool if ALL of the GMs understand how it will impact the value of all players.

If a fantasy host (Yahoo!, Fantrax, ESPN) can accurately reflect a player's "fantasy value" based on all categories & pre-rank players for that value... that's a case where I'm fine with new/added categories.

As an example, while I realize that leagues are beginning to incorporate HITS, Yahoo!s default rankings still do not build in the value of HITS into a player's "rank". Therefore, a player with ZERO stats and 1 SOG will show up as being more valuable than a player with ZERO stats and 100 HITS.

My (long) 2 cents on different categories & PIM.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

A good fantasy hockey pool should allow an avid fan who knows their hockey to join & do well.

This explicitly excludes rotisserie leagues from being a good fantasy hockey pool. This may be true of fantasy points leagues, but being an avid fan who understands hockey has very little to do with success in category totals -style leagues.

[27Blue]

This explicitly excludes rotisserie leagues from being a good fantasy hockey pool. This may be true of fantasy points leagues, but being an avid fan who understands hockey has very little to do with success in category totals -style leagues.

true. and people who are very good at hockey pools can have very little idea about the true value of a hockey player in terms of contributing to wins for their respective teams.

[LawMan]

While there are lots of statistics available - adding some new ones is only right for a pool if ALL of the GMs understand how it will impact the value of all players.

If a fantasy host (Yahoo!, Fantrax, ESPN) can accurately reflect a player's "fantasy value" based on all categories & pre-rank players for that value... that's a case where I'm fine with new/added categories.

As an example, while I realize that leagues are beginning to incorporate HITS, Yahoo!s default rankings still do not build in the value of HITS into a player's "rank". Therefore, a player with ZERO stats and 1 SOG will show up as being more valuable than a player with ZERO stats and 100 HITS.

My (long) 2 cents on different categories & PIM.

I agree that all GMs should be in favour of adding a stat (or changing any setups related to the league) before it goes forward.

I slightly disagree on your point about Yahoo and Hits. Our league is 12 guys who are ultra-competitive and love to trash talk. We use espn and started using HITs a few years ago, even today most rankings including espn don't project HITs or include them in their rankings. I like this! It means a guy can't just pick the highest espn (or tsn, hockey news etc.) ranked player each round to build his team. By having a scoring setup that is different than standard guys are required to do more analysis and thinking when considering players, its rare that Player A is always better than Player B.

This setup works best in a competitive league where managers are looking for an edge over each other. In a casual family & friends league where you want everyone to have a chance without lots of preparation or hockey knowledge a simplier setup is best. I think the takeaway here is consider the goals of your league before creating the league rules.

Also I completely agree that being good at and understanding fantasy hockey is different from being good at and understanding a hockey players real life value. When in arguments I often have to remember if I'm talking about the real world or the fantasy world!

[mister_mcgoo]

While I love fantasy hockey, I've always disliked PIM.

A good fantasy hockey pool should allow an avid fan who knows their hockey to join & do well.
With PIM, you have to explain to somebody that Milan Lucic is more valuable than Pavel Datsyuk.

I run my friends & family league with the following categories (no PIM):
Skaters: G, A, +/-, SOG, PPP
Goalies: W, SV%
It makes for a nice balance of just 7 categories... IMO.

While there are lots of statistics available - adding some new ones is only right for a pool if ALL of the GMs understand how it will impact the value of all players.

If a fantasy host (Yahoo!, Fantrax, ESPN) can accurately reflect a player's "fantasy value" based on all categories & pre-rank players for that value... that's a case where I'm fine with new/added categories.

As an example, while I realize that leagues are beginning to incorporate HITS, Yahoo!s default rankings still do not build in the value of HITS into a player's "rank". Therefore, a player with ZERO stats and 1 SOG will show up as being more valuable than a player with ZERO stats and 100 HITS.

My (long) 2 cents on different categories & PIM.

While I agree with your basic sentiment on hockey knowledge, I disagree on your implementation. To me, its not just hockey knowledge, its a certain level of intelligence and aptitude with numbers and math, stats and trends. You might be the smartest hockey scout ever for real world talent and still be useless in a fantasy league. As a commish myself I could give 2 shits about the former usually but I try to only recruit GMs with the latter as a given and a healthy dose of the former.

As far as providers go though, that's ridiculous, friends don't let friends use Yahoo. I'm sorry dude, I know its super easy and tied to your email and everything but they suck donkey balls, stop rewarding them, use a real fantasy hockey provider that understands the game and responds to feedback