How does IR work?

[mrsweet]

This is my first year in a fantasy hockey league. I was curious who determines when a player is considered to be on the IR, as opposed to being on DTD. I'm assuming its the team? If so, why don't they put an injured player on IR right away.

The reason I ask is since I have Malkin, he's been injured for 2 weeks but has remained on DTD the whole time. I've been screwed for a lot of points and lost both weeks now. I'm sure regretting picking this pansy player as my first round draft pick. If I had known I would have dropped him right away.

Thanks for any information you can give me.

[BlackGold]

WHOAAAAA STOP RIGHT THERE.

First thing first, unless they are done for a season and it is a ONE year league... never EVER drop Malkin, Crosby, Stamkos, or Ovechkin.

Just don't be the newbie who makes that mistake, don't.

As for IR:
If you are on Yahoo, then they will get IR eligibility the day after they are officially placed on IR by their real life NHL team. If you are on another more robust system, there may be fantasy league methods to place a player on IR manually.

Most commonly, teams will not place a player on IR if they think that a player has a chance to play. If a player is placed on IR he has to stay on IR for a minimum of 7 days from the day he was injured. There may be other factors that have to do with cap management/player contracts that I'm not too familiar with but have seen mentioned.

[strider2k2]

I think the biggest reason to put a guy on the IR is to open up a roster spot. NHL teams can have a max of 23 players on the roster at any given time and if they put a player on the IR they don't count towards that total.

And to second BlackGold - do not ever drop Malkin/Crosby/Stamkos/Ovechkin, etc., unless they get run over by the team bus or something and you KNOW they aren't coming back this year.

[Shoeless]

Yeah it's a team decision to place a player on IR or not - it really comes down to whether they expect the player back in a reasonable amount of time and whether they think they need the slot to call someone up. The Pens keep winning so ....

Something complicated about IR and the players pay in the process which I think can sometimes weigh on the decision to IR a guy or not but the bottom line is until a team places a player on IR - it ain't going to happen in your fantasy pool in normal set-ups. DTD means the team is monitoring the player for a return on a day to day basis which essentially leaves you guessing as to when that might be.

Suicide is painless as the line goes in the ol' Mash song - drop him if you want. I wouldn't.

[Rehdaun]

I'm sure regretting picking this pansy player as my first round draft pick.

First I want to state the big 3 (4 with ovechkin) are definitely worth the top spots in any normal draft. I also agree with BlackGold that you should not drop any of them either.

Not that it helps this year and not that it applies to Malkin, Crosby, Stamkos or Ovechkin but you might want to take a look at Dobber's Bandaid Boy list before next year's draft. It gets updated periodically throughout the years.

http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index...bber&Itemid=96