When is your TDL and why?

[Overated Veteran]

Inspired by this thread.
https://forums.dobbersports.com/show...Deadline-today

I found it weird that the user had his TDL before the Nhl's deadline.

Mines two weeks after the Nhl one. So you could take advantage of, I don't know, a Brock Nelson that would get traded to a contender and has increased value because he now plays with Mackinnon of Pettersson.

What would be ideal for you and why?
When is your TDL?

[pmorrow]

Ours is about a week after the real deadline. Allows people to see the lay of the land and gives more time for managers to sort out who is buying and selling to get more trade activity.

[finnys_fanatsy]

was in a league that was 1 week after the NHL TDL, having it before is nutty..

[hockeyrobot]

Ours is about a week after the real deadline. Allows people to see the lay of the land and gives more time for managers to sort out who is buying and selling to get more trade activity.

Yep us too. And every year stupid Yahoo resets it to the earliest date and I always forget until mid season.

[Bubba55]

Having a fantasy hockey TDL before the actual NHL TDL is, well, ya, nutty. I'm pretty sure I don't want to be in that league (:

I'll be surprised if the vast majority of responses here are not similar to what we have already seen, Fantasy League TDL a week after the NHL TDL. Having full knowledge of player movements and the associated potential ramifications is pretty much a must have in fantasy hockey IMO. Are you really going to deal a player out of or into your roster when you don't even know for sure where the dude might be playing??? Really? Most leagues understand and accommodate for that. I don't get those that don't.....

[Grapes]

Our trade deadline was midnight last night the 28th.
Having the deadline prior to the NHL deadline is difficult especially when considering a move to acquire a player who is swirling in NHL trade rumours.

Case in point: Markstrom was available in discussions with OGM. The idea of Markstrom going to a better team was enticing. The idea of Markstrom staying in Calgary as they are selling other pieces wasn’t attractive. I’m contending and the cost to me to acquire Markstrom wasn’t worth the risk of him remaining in Calgary. Maybe I should have been a risk taker. Time will tell.

[TheDard]

We currently have set in our league (one in sig) as 2 weeks after NHL trade deadline or once you start playing your 14th game; so whichever occurs first for that GM. Most don't play their 14th before hand. Though this season we have 3 GM's out of 12 who have played 14 or more games already.
We have a 16 game season.

[Pengwin7]

I have a love/hate affair with fantasy trade deadline (TDL).
I think it's a "league style"-dependent move... and the commissioner & GMs really need to hash out what feels best for them.

Speaking as all of: Individual GM/GM-thinking-collectively/Commissioner:

On one hand, I'd really like to see teams form up their "playoff roster" with at LEAST two weeks left in regular season.
If the TDL is in the 2nd-to-last of 1st-to-last week... if just feels like to much of an "AHA/Surprise" when one competing team overhauls their team.
Then you may be left scrambling to *up* yours via waiver moves in final two weeks.

Good fantasy leagues *feel* like being a GM of an NHL team.
And since most fantasy leagues start playoffs 2nd/3rd week of March... you don't want TDL to be *too* close to playoffs.
If it is... it doesn't *feel* like a real hockey league management.


On the opposite side, in keepers, especially DEEP-keepers...
Leagues should really let their GMs hold their players until they "move" in the actual NHL.
Your own valuations of a player change when that player changes team.

How awful to go into your fantasy playoffs watching a guy like Adam Henrique maybe go from a dismal ANA team to being, say, a C2 player on the Colorado Avalanche (say).
Maybe Henrique clicks with the Avs, they win a cup, and he signs a career-ending discount contract with COL.
That GM is thinking "Well... fugg... if our league just had a TDL just after the NHL's... I probably would've kept Henrique".


So, those are the two scenarios:
In summary:

In one-year leagues or limited partial keepers... I'm fine with a TDL 1-2 weeks in advance of the NHL TDL.
In long-term keeper leagues... I think leagues really need to have their TDL on same day or a day later than NHL TDL (for the Henrique to COL case-possibility, as noted above).
(^In the 24-team WHL - we peg our TDL to be midnight, same day, of the NHL TDL. This will be Fri Mar 8 this year... and we should have a good smattering of GMs online for chat that day/night. That can often be a nice culture-boost to leagues to get all the GMs online for chat.)

My 3 cents there.

[GavinC]

In our dynasty league, ours is *currently* before the NHL's. It drives me mad, but the guy who set the league up originally was very much trying to mimic the NHL in areas he thought were important, and one of those was having our deadline be a similar duration before our playoffs as the NHL's. It's been a point of contention for a number of years, and we're finally getting around to hopefully changing it. Hoping to match the NHLs date, with the actual lock being at midnight ET (or whatever Fantrax allows you to do). We're thinking this will allow for a nice mix of enough information to work with, keeping the traditionalists in the league happy, plus the rush of trade deadline day/last minute moves.

Personally though, I don't see any reason for the deadline to be anytime at all before playoffs begin (outside of "feelings") regardless of league type. The NHL makes sense, they have the logistics of real humans moving/integrating/etc. Fantasy, not so much. I personally hate the boring down time between the deadline and playoffs.

[BloodSport]

All my leagues except for my signature league are 48-hours after the NHL deadline. This allows skilled GM’s the chance to make shrewd moves after seeing where players land after the NHL’s deadline.

For some reason, my signature league was on February 12th. Makes absolutely no sense, but it is a league with lots of odd happenings. Basically puts less skill and even more luck into the winning equation in a game that already needs luck to win.

[ex_factor]

There are multiple reasons that my more competitive leagues have the TDL prior to the actual NHL TDL: we have all rounds of our fantasy playoffs set as 2 weeks long (which helps reduce, but not eliminate, the luck factor) and we also do not include the last week of the NHL schedule due to the amount of players that get rested. In order to accommodate those two factors, our TDL must be earlier than the NHL’s, but those two things are MUCH more important to me than matching the NHL’s TDL.

[BloodSport]

There are multiple reasons that my more competitive leagues have the TDL prior to the actual NHL TDL: we have all rounds of our fantasy playoffs set as 2 weeks long (which helps reduce, but not eliminate, the luck factor) and we also do not include the last week of the NHL schedule due to the amount of players that get rested. In order to accommodate those two factors, our TDL must be earlier than the NHL’s, but those two things are MUCH more important to me than matching the NHL’s TDL.

This makes sense and is well justified.