Draft Strategy!

[mike hall]

Hey just wanted to ask out of curiosity what has been your best draft position or strategy in the past years of drafting. Is the first overall that important? but waiting 18-19 rounds to draft next or would it be best to get the 5th or 6th pick where your rotation doesn't change much as you are in the middle each round.

Its a 10 team - 9 forwards, 5 defence 2 goalies and 3 bench positions.

Also, another thought is drafting by position, would it be best to draft the best forwards available in the first 5-6 rounds than a goalie and defenceman or drafting a top-tiered goalie in the first round or 2 then after drafting forwards and defence.

I hope this thread makes sense as I am preparing for my draft next month and starting to prepare.

Cheers, appreciate the feedback and ideas.

[B3tt3rMan]

I usually make my list up until Aug, compare it with Dobber's projections and make alterations where needed. Some years I feel like I know whats up, where others I feel like I have no idea.

After the ranking is done I wait until Yahoo gets a good amount of mock drafts and move players around due to their ADP and where I expect them to be taken.

I like having the middle pick, easier to tell who's going to be left over when it comes back to your pick. I was 12 of 12 last season, not a fan.

I draft the best available player but also to fill what my team needs.

Do a couple mock drafts and try different styles, see what works best for you.

[Eskimo Brother]

I prefer being around 8 out of 10. As for positions, I find there's a lot more gems to be found later in drafts at F, so I usually stock up a little more on D.
As for goalies, I find them too hard to predict, so I wait until the middle rounds.

[mike hall]

Interesting good to know thanks Eskimo brother and B3tt3r Man. What I usually do is I gather all the projected rankings or most of them anyways such as dobbers, Yahoo, ESPN, Scott Cullen etc and upload them on to excel spreadsheet and do a player average based off what other sites have projected them to be in and re-rank them myself go off that. The past 2 years iv taking a goalie in the first round which I won't be doing that anymore, depending on where I land in the draft positon but will look at D and forwards but wanted to see what other members do and how to prepare for a full season of fantasy hockey.

Will chat closer to the season, again thanks for the comments.

[stevegamer]

The Excel sheet is a good idea to get coverage of a number of sources. Ideally you want all the major rankings you can get in there, plus any free ones. If this is a live in person draft, and people are bringing magazines, it's good to be able to sort it on the fly. This is especially useful if you are right before the turn, and you know what list the guy behind you is using.

I know when I was doing most of my leagues in various sports in person, we had the laptop guys, the magazine guys, and me. I was generally a couple pieces of paper, one of which was simply to cross names off list from whatever I printed out.

You want to track what teams have already taken by position, as well. You don't need to know players, just number at position. One year I had spent the prior week on vacation in Nova Scotia for a NFL fantasy draft, and I got home the night before. No research was done, to job stuff, and I had only an unsorted list of players, and my league roster tracking sheet. Somebody asked how ready i was, and I told them I was on vacation, and went from there. It really helps organize your thoughts.

I've had to cover for a buddy in an live online draft when being awoken from sleep to draft for him, since he was a no-show, and my fiancee was in the league, but I had quit. Having the roster organizer saved his bacon, as he was right before the turn, so I could predict the guy behind me, who I knew well.

I'd recommend trying to concentrate on D a bit more than you are thinking, as positional scarcity is a real issue.

[mounD]

We are in an era where there is a very clear tier of 1 (McDavid) and then several lesser choices following that. If you aren't picking 1st overall, it's probably better to be near the end of the round and snag two players from that secondary tier.

[LawMan]

Looking at your league it’s basically a points only league, ignoring hattricks and SHG guys who get PIMs are worth a few more points but it takes 4 minor penalties to equal 1-point. Goalies I want guys who start a bunch on good teams, I don’t care if they are a great goalie, Carey Price is probably the 24th best goalie in your league.

Here’s what I would do. Create projections (or use Dobber’s) on points and PIMs for all skaters, and goalies, use excel to project a total score for each. Then calculate the number of F, D and G which will be drafted.
9F + 2.5bench F = 11.5F x 10 = 115F drafted
5D x 10 teams = 50 D drafted
2.5G x 10 = 25 G drafted

Now, find the “last pick” replacement. This is going to, in theory, be the last guy drafted. The 115th ranked F, the 50th ranked D, the 25th ranked G. Worst case scenario, your final pick is going to be this guy.
Finally, when drafting in each round you compare the best available F, D, and G to the last pick, which ever best available has the highest spread gets drafted. That’s the basic strategy.
It can be tweaked a little bit if you bring tiers into play. Tiers is the idea that you will get a cluster of F/D/G all within close ranger and then see a drop off to the next tier.

For example let’s say you are picking at 8 and then again 5 picks later. There are 4 forwards you calculate are within 2 points of each other and 1 D man left who is 10 points better than the next. Even if one of the F is 2 points better than the D you probably want to grab the D because you’d be happy with any of the 4 forwards but only the 1-D.

Given that the scoring is fairly simplistic and that there are only 3 positions the draft can be approached in a fairly mathematical manner as described above, but always leave yourself some room to grab guys you think have a high upside.