If memory serves... you say you mostly have done
points-leagues.
So I'm not certain you have a lot of experience here.
Quantity stats are the most reliable stats to win in fantasy hockey.
horrorfan and I do several leagues together and both of us always dominate High-Quantity Categories such as PIM, Hits, Blocks, FOW -and- SV... anything that is steady week-to-week.
SAVES is a steady category.
If you have a lot of starting goalies, you'll win SAVES consistently.
One category, in the books.
In H2H, you have to do this whenever you can.
Locking up a cat in H2H is key to winning.
However, GAA/SV% fluctuate wildly week-to-week. There is no guarantee that Jon Quick will win those every week.
In fact, I'd bet that if you put Quick up against, say, Pavelec... I'd say Quick will only win 2 out of every 3 weeks. 66%.
Pavelec+ is still taking SV. So Team Pavelec used a late draft pick and still has 1/3 categories. And they also have an ELITE forward on their roster, in the spot where Quick was drafted!
In H2H, a team can NOT get hung up on GAA/SV% because of the weekly match-up format. 2 or 3 games from a goalie. That's the period. Then everything is re-set.
I'm taking Pavelec vs. FLA/CGY/MIN over Quick vs. DET/OTT/BOS.
H2H is about winning more than half the categories.
The surest way to establish a good H2H team is to first dominate any "high-quantity" statistics. And this includes SV.
Overall point being this, in a daily league:
i) Hiller+Varlamov will beat Quick in SV
every week, every matchup.
AND
ii) The GM might be able to pick & choose Hiller/Varlamov matches for GAA/SV% to win those.
If a GM gets three good starts from Hiller/Varly, he can also choose to bench those guys to ensure GAA/SV%.
Win those high-quantity categories.
Extra goalies allow for options on strategy.
Having limited goalies means you have to roll them out every game... if they get shelled once, that team may have lost every goalie cat: GAA/SV%... and of course, SV.