Who do I go with

[maya has the knife]

Draft Sunday. League in sig. I'm picking 10th overall. The following guys are available:

Jason Spezza
Milan Lucic
Henrik Zetterberg
Mike Smith
Mike Richards
Thomas Vanek
Marian Hossa
Brian Campbell
Wayne Simmonds
Alexandre Burrows
Jason Pominville
Craig Anderson
Martin Brodeur
Danny Briere
Ryan Suter
Devan Dubnyk
P.K. Subban
Mike Ribeiro
Mark Streit
David Krejci
Joffrey Lupul
Jeff Carter
Drew Doughty
Miikka Kiprusoff
Vincent Lecavalier
Marian Gaborik
Niklas Backstrom
Semyon Varlamov
Ondrej Pavelec
Mikko Koivu
Anders Lindback
Derek Roy

Who are you picking given my current keepers?

Guys I'M looking at: Spezza, Lucic, Zetterberg, Smith, Vanek, Suter, Subban, Streit, Carter, Doughty, Kiprusoff, Gaborik, Backstrom, Koivu.

[Bnhershy]

In order IMO

Jason Spezza
Henrik Zetterberg
Milan Lucic
P.K. Subban
Drew Doughty
Thomas Vanek
Jeff Carter
Marian Gaborik
Marian Hossa
Mikko Koivu
Niklas Backstrom
Miikka Kiprusoff
Semyon Varlamov
Brian Campbell

[Maaaasquito]

I'm gonna think outside of the box here and go with Smith...

The thing for me is Luongo is probably a 50/50 goalie this season, I honestly don't think they'll move him until the trade deadline. Which means they'll need to showcase him to other teams.

Fleury is gonna get his starts cut now that they added Vokoun, so rather than him starting his usual 65 games, I could see that going down to 60 maybe even 55. Also with the lockout, I'm guessing there's gonna be a compressed schedule, so probably more back-to-back games, which will probably hurt Fleury more.

With Smith you have 3 goalies and you can essentially just pick and choose your starts, plus the way PHX plays Smith will help boost/complement the GAA SV% and SHO stats anyway. In a 12-teamer, owning 3 goalies gives you plenty of flexibility. If anything that could provide you leeway to move Luongo to the Schneider owner later on in the season if he isn't getting enough starts...

Now why wouldn't I take Spezza, 1) you already have Backstrom and Thornton, plus you have a couple of dual eligible guys in Seguin and Skinner who can play C as well, so I mean you pretty much have C covered. 2) C is generally pretty easy to fill later on. 3) Spezza is good for the point stats, but PIM (36), SHP (0), BS (28) and HIT (23), he's pretty below average, with Backstrom and Thornton already you kinda need a bit more help in those peripheral areas...

Lucic is a good option for PIM, SOG and HIT, but to me is he worth taking over Smith, I don't know? Could you move Smith or Luongo for more than Lucic later on in the year?

Zetterberg is the same as Spezza but with dual eligibility, but once again doesn't help in the HIT, BS or PIM departments. But having those FW from LW does certainly help.

Everyone else doesn't really have that upside to take...

I'd go with the scarcest position and grab Smith. Then grab a LW on the way back.

[Bnhershy]

I doubt Smith will make it to 10 due to his sexy numbers from last season. But I have very little faith in a repeat for him. It may just be me but I wouldn't touch him.

For Roto, if there are guys who can eclipse 80 points, (Spezza/Zetterberg) I take them and worry about peripherals later.

And I believe the goalie depth here is deep enough to wait for the way back to take one of the three guys I listed

[Maaaasquito]

Also another point to add, it's H2H so really in order to win the league you only need to control 8 of the 15 stats...

With 5 belonging to goalies, if you can control all 5 then really you only need to control 3 more of the offensive stats and you'll win... With Backstrom and Thornton all you really need is a couple more FW and you can control that stat, a couple of goons and you could take PIMs, if you stock up on high-end monster D like Seidenberg, Girardi, Seabrook, Smid and Beauchemin along with a Matt Martin and Clutterbuck type to control HIT and BS. You could essentially score 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 SOG, 0 PPP, 0 SHP a 0 +/- rating, and still win the week...

[Maaaasquito]

Originally Posted by Bnhershy

I doubt Smith will make it to 10 due to his sexy numbers from last season. But I have very little faith in a repeat for him. It may just be me but I wouldn't touch him.

For Roto, if there are guys who can eclipse 80 points, (Spezza/Zetterberg) I take them and worry about peripherals later.

And I believe the goalie depth here is deep enough to wait for the way back to take one of the three guys I listed

I dunno Tippett's system is awfully stingy...

[The Hockey Hitman]

Depending on who the other goaltenders were available, and how many, I could definitely see going Smith here. Smith has worked has ass off to get in the best shape of his life and even better, has probably the most underrated goalie coach in the NHL(Sean Burke) to mentor him, and did a hell of a job. Mike Smith flashed moments of brilliance in Tampa, but in Phoenix he played like that most lights. I definitely expect a repeat and Phoenix will find a way to lock him up long-term at a reasonable cap hit(wouldn't expect it to be higher than around $5 mill).

Having said all that, there aren't too many better keeper D options out there than PK.

[Shoeless]

I see 9 goalies on that list who are for all intents starters on their team. If this is a snake draft you are picking again at #15 - I think that is plenty soon enough to be adding a 3rd goalie - unless most of the teams in front of you take a goalie, in which case I would rethink things maybe.

I think from week to week goalie stats can be really ephemeral and I don't buy that any team can lock down 5 goalie cats a week with any certainty - year long roto I think the possibility exists though. So I would much rather add a skating contributor at pick #10.

Like bnhershey I would rank Lucic and Subban pretty high in this league setup, so if one of them makes it to you at #10 that is who I would take - probably Lucic as a preference. He covers a lot of categories.

[Maaaasquito]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

I see 9 goalies on that list who are for all intents starters on their team. If this is a snake draft you are picking again at #15 - I think that is plenty soon enough to be adding a 3rd goalie - unless most of the teams in front of you take a goalie, in which case I would rethink things maybe.

I think from week to week goalie stats can be really ephemeral and I don't buy that any team can lock down 5 goalie cats a week with any certainty - year long roto I think the possibility exists though. So I would much rather add a skating contributor at pick #10.

Like bnhershey I would rank Lucic and Subban pretty high in this league setup, so if one of them makes it to you at #10 that is who I would take - probably Lucic as a preference. He covers a lot of categories.

I thought about that too, the thing for me is the separation/difference between an "elite" goalie and the "run of the mill" ones. Yeah there's a lot of alternatives available, but having an elite one could be the difference maker.

If you look at Smith 38 W, 2.21 GAA, .930 SP, 1922 SV and 8 SO, he's leaps and bounds better than the rest... (and with a bit less variance due to the Coyotes defensive system)

Anderson 33 W, 2.83 GAA (will hurt you there), .914 SP (pretty average), 1752 SV (pretty average) and 3 SO (pretty average)
Brodeur 31 W, 2.41 GAA (will help a little), .908 SP (will hurt you there), 1336 SV (will hurt you there) and 3 SO (pretty average)
Dubnyk 20 W, (will hurt you there), 2.67 (will hurt you there), .914 SP (pretty average), 1262 SV (will hurt you there) and 2 SO (pretty average)
Kipper 35 W, 2.35 (will help a little), .921 (will help a little), 1878 (pretty average) and 4 SO (pretty average)
Backstrom 19 W (will hurt you there), 2.43 (will help a little), .919 (will help a little), 1194 (will hurt you there), 4 SO (pretty average)
Varly 26 W (pretty average), 2.59 (will hurt you there), .913 SP (pretty average), 1428 SV (will hurt you there), 4 SO (pretty average)

I think that's where the week to week variance can be alleviated. With most goalies if you look at the wins/loss ratios and what stats are produced, they're pretty dramatic...

If you look at Anderson 33 W, 1.95 GAA and .940 SP during wins, 28 L, 3.98 GAA and .882 during losses... so essentially you have 54/46 wins to losses ratio, but in losses those stats are the killers.

If you compare that to Smith 38 W, 1.46 GAA and .955 during wins, 28 L, 3.29 GAA and .893 during losses... so essentially you have 58/42 wins to losses ratio, but the loss stats are still manageable.

That's where I think you can start separating goalies into tiers and help to alleviate some of that variance...

With that said, those are all numbers from last season and there's no guarantee that Smith will or can repeat that this season.

I guess that's where you have to roll the dice.

Grabbing Lucic then grabbing Kipper back with the next pick wouldn't be too bad of an option as well.

[dmvincent]

Tough call, but if I had to pick one from that list I would go with Zetterberg.

He's going to have a big year as the new captain of the Detroit Red Wings.

My top ten:

Zetterberg
Spezza
Hossa
Semin
Lucic
Doughty
Subban
Kiprusoff
Pominville
Suter