Draft Advice - Strategy and first few rounds targets

[SimonL]

Hello everyone, I am drafting in 4 days and I would like your advice on which players (C, RW, LW, D, G) I should focus first based on my league scoring settings. (see sig) I feel like our goalie scoring settings are really strong, so maybe I should pick them early, but I dont like giving the opportunity to get a top 10 player like Kane/Benn/Ovi/Crosby/etc. Thoughts ?

Thanks in advance !

[Pengwin7]

My thoughts on your league settings:

1. It's 10-team league, starting 2G. This is "shallow", by goalie positions. Even if you do NOT take goalies until the other 9 teams have goalies, you'll still get the #19 & #20th best NHL goalies.
2. It is "point scoring" for the whole team. This means that goalies contribute just like forwards. So there is NO premium to get goalies. If you roster 15 starting skaters that are really, really good... you may not even need goalies.
3. BIG premium on goals. Huge. A game-winning, power-play goal is worth FOUR points. G=2, GWG=1, PPG=1. Make the "goals" sort function your BEST FRIEND in this draft. Always sort by GOALS, SOG.
4. In Yahoo! centers position is HIGHLY stocked, there'll be good ones on the board late... though there are NOT many high "GOAL-SCORINIG CENTERS".
5. Defensemen traditionally doesn't score many goals. Here and there, yes, point-shots sneak through... but most of the goals will come from forwards.
6. "DAILY" - this is a big deal. Most NHL teams play Tues/Thurs/Sat nights. Some teams play on off nights so you can maximize the number of games you get by getting some OFF-NIGHT players.

Here's how I do this league:
1. Draft hard on elite snipers, preferably at wing positions: OV, Kane, Tarasenko, Benn, etc. are obvious 1st round guys. But players like Corey Perry are 3rd round types in this league. James Neal, Tyler Toffoli, Mac Pacioretty are 4th/5th round types even though they are more around Yahoo 50-90 range. Kyle Palmieri, Mike Hoffman - great 8th & 9th round players, even if they are in the 100 range in Yahoo.

2. Do that for the first 7-8 rounds, forwards, forwards, forwards. Bonus to guys on good teams and on PP1 units.

3. If you can - try to get Johnny Gaudreau (CGY) and Corey Perry (ANA). These guys are LW and RW on the two best OFF-NIGHT teams: CGY, ANA. Just having these two guys will get you a lot of starts when other teams don't play.

4. Late draft your G. All leagues have "goalie runs". Don't sweat it. Your league only scores GS, W, SO. There's no "peripherals" here... and the DAL-duo (Lehtonen, Niemi) are ranked WAY down the Yahoo board strictly because they have poor SV% and GAA... but Dallas is going to win a TON of games. Get BOTH. Do it on back-to-back rounds where your picks are as close together as possible. If you draft 8th, say, and then draft 3rd on the next round... do it there. Lehtonen, then Niemi. That's 82 starts from the Dallas G. Another tandem I like is Elliott/C.Johnson - the off-night goalies for CGY. I'll speculate that Lehtonen/Niemi can be had in the 9th/10th or even 11th/12th rounds in a 10-team league. That's enormous value to get 82 starts from Dallas. I also think there's good value in Mike Smith in ARI, who might be available in 15th/16th round in this 10-team format.

5. Your D won't do you much. And don't stress out about it. 56 players scored 25+ goals last year and just ONE, ONE!!!, was a defenseman, Brent Burns. People will overdraft D, which will be a big mistake. The best way to "value find" D is to sort by goals that DO shoot the puck a lot (high SOG) but were just unlucky last year (low SH%). You can use any list and look for guys with low PCT. http://www.espn.com/nhl/statistics/p...ion/defensemen

Here's guys you can late draft that might still get you 10g.
Seth Jones (CBJ) *Get this guy. He had just 1.9 sh% last year with 157sog. He's WAY too low on the Yahoo! list because of this stat and his +/- (-14), neither has impact on your league.
Matt Niskanen (WAS)
Cody Ceci (OTT)
Matt Dumba (MIN)
Tyler Myers (WPG)
Erik Johnson (COL)
Dion Phaneuf (OTT)
Michael Stone (ARI)
Olli Maatta (PIT)

If you get seven D from this group, you'll be really well set.
Late sleeper pick: Ryan Pulock (NYI). Pulock's shot is an absolute cannon... though we don't know yet if NYI will give him significant PP time.
If they do... and if he shoots.... big value, HUGE, in goal-heavy format.


Good luck, let us know how it goes.

[SimonL]

Wow, thank you so much for the advice! This really helped me understand where to put my focus on during draft. I will focus hard on elite snipers, players with high amount of G and SOG, that are also on good team and/or 1st powerplay unit. I still have a question about some players.

1. Do you rank Gaudreau in top 10 ? If yes, when should I consider picking him up ? Do you think he can outperformed players like Tavares/Seguin ? Also what are your thoughts on Bergeron? Last year he was extremely good , but can he get 30 goals again and that many PPG ? If yes should I consider picking him up over Neal/Toffoli/Pacio ? As for Marchand , it was a lucky year , right ?

2. For the goalies, I really like your strategy but I also find it risky. Should I commit 100% to it and hope that I can catch a tandem or I could be safe and pick a goalie like Allen around 5th round ? Is it worth it ?

3. For the defenseman, I am actually really confident that I can get a lot of them in late draft. I will focus on the ones you provided me, thanks for explaining how to value find them easier. I will keep an eye on Pulock too!

Thank you again for the great, well explained and detailed answer! I appreciate it a lot. I wish I could give reputation.... but I need to spread some around before giving it to you again...

[Pengwin7]

Gaudreau is a 11-20 player, 2nd round, if he's there, not first. The schedule will really help you, it won't be clear until "in season" on off-nights.
I love Bergeron AND Marchand. They are both the real deal (and these were my thoughts pre World-Cup).
Both before Pac/Toffoli/Neal (in that order, for those guys)

People get nervous about goalies because they are used to losing H2H or a league and seeing a winning team with good goalies.
The winning team ALWAYS has good goalies, but it may not be from drafting them high - teams that win get good goalie performance, but I've seen teams win H2H in past years with hot spells from Elliott and Mike Smith and Vasilevskiy and Dubnyk... AND... Andrew Hammond!!!

[SimonL]

Alright, sounds good I guess I underestimated Marchand. I completely forgot to mention Mc David too.. In my league settings, I guess Mc David would be a 2nd pick too, if he's there ?

That was exactly why I was concerned about goalies!! However, it is still hard to predict which goalies will perform. Doesnt change the face that you were right, even if everyone pick 2 goalies, I should be able to get some decent ones even after the 20th. So I'll do my best in the draft to get these goal scorers for 8-9 round and then ill start thinking about goalkeepers.

Thanks!