How to turn my team around

[robindehood]

Hey guys,

I'm relatively new to fantasy hockey but I'm an avid fan and I like to think I can pay attention well enough to put together a winning team. My first season ended in injury disaster, and this season my team is sitting at 4-5 and seems to be trending in the same direction.

We play H2H One Win for the scoring type, 63 max adds for the season, and we play with G,A,+/-, PIMs, PPP, SHP, SOG, FW, HIT, BLKs and then Goalie cats (W,GAA,SV,SV%,and SHO). Unfortunately the league commissioner is a goalie and put way too much value into those cats.

I drafted decently well, but I seem to be struggling to win my weekly matchups. My team currently consists of
Forwards
R. O'Reilly
B. Horvat
D. Krejci
K. Connor
D.Brassard
E. Lindholm
P. Laine
A. Cirelli
J. Vrana
G. Landeskog
T. Konecny (IR)

Defensemen
E. Karlsson
R. Josi
R. Ristolainen
J. Muzzin
I. Cole
A. Edler (IR)

Goalies
T. Demo
T. Jarry
P. Mrazek

I'm getting slaughtered in some of the banger cats, and barely winning the points cats when I do. There's a few players available in FA (Killorn/Keller/Atkinson) who seem to be heating up, but at this point I'm not sure who or what I should be adding.

Any advice would be appreciated guys.

Thanks,
Robin

[Eskimo Brother]

Welcome to the forums! You're in the right place for this.

A couple questions first:
How many teams in the league, how many starting positions do you have, and where are you in the league standings for each stat?

[robindehood]

I saw the newbie guide and made my signature after I posted for the first time. Typical rookie mistake. it's a 14 team league, the rest of the info should all be in my sig now. The only cat I consistently win is FW haha

[Eskimo Brother]

Demko and Brassard stand out to me as the two bottom guys on your roster. Demko isn't really doing much for you as he doesn't play enough to boost your quantities a lot, while his ratios aren't much better than Jarry/Mrazek. I would try to pick up a defenceman for one of them, as rostering another guy that can cover a all the categories would really help your hits/blks, and shouldn't hurt you elsewhere. A guy like Orlov, Ceci, or Pelech may be available (or try trading for Pulock if you can).

Do you have a sense of if you have had a hard or easy schedule so far? And what your stat standings places look like?

[Pengwin7]

63 adds is a good amount, probably 3/week.
My main thing I do in SOG/FOW/HIT/BLK is too look at your upcoming opponent.
Check where they rank in those categories... see where you rank.
Because those are "high quantity" statistics... you likely win those SIMPLY by rostering starts with players that get those.

I call this "micromanaging a category"... and I do it often.
Do NOT blow your transactions.
Use them VERY cautiously.

Normally, I'd say you use them to add 3-5 guys that plays SAT/SUN and might likely win you TWO cats so that you get the weekly H2H-ONE-WIN.
There's about 22 weeks in a H2H year.

You hope your pure roster is good enough to win about 8-10 weeks.
You use your 63 transactions to try to win another 4-6 weeks.
That's 12-16 wins, which should get you near playoffs.

Overall - it is NOT a strong forward roster.
There's simply not enough high-end scoring... I'm guessing you are losing in pure scoring (G,A,PPP,SOG) cats.
That's fine... I'd try to chase SOG/HIT/BLK/FOW/PIM... focus on those, see how you do.

If you are in Yahoo! league, you may be able to go to "Current Standings", then "Head-to-Head Stats", then "Totals".
Post where you rank among your league in EVERY cat.
That gives a better idea where you are strong and where you are weak.
You need to be on top of understanding that weekly.

If you rank, on average, 5th across the board of 14 teams in skater cats... but are only 8th or 9th in the league... you are doing something wrong.
I'm in a league right now where my average rank among 11 categories is about 7th... and I'm in 1st by H2H standings.
It can be done.

[Pengwin7]

G: 3-6
A: 6-3
+/-: 5-4
PIM: 3-4-2
PPP: 3-5-1
SHP: 2-4-3
SOG: 6-3
FOW: 8-1
HIT:8-1
BLK:5-4
W: 5-4
GAA: 3-6
SV: 3-6
SV%: 2-7
SHO: 1-1-7

I had no idea this was even a page. I guess it's not the banger cats ��

The bolded part is great.
SHP (stupid, stupid cat), PIM, +/-, SHO... those are kind of week-to-week crapshoots... I'd leave those alone... being .500 there is fine.


Goalie GAA & SV%... get your early-in-week goalie starts (Mon/Tue/Wed)... but then you need to really size up what your opponent got, what you got...
Regardless of your goalies, you should be able to manage to about a goalie-split every week.
If you can go 2-2-1 in goalie-cats... that means that week is decided by you winning HALF+ skater cats... and your number suggest you can do that.

If your first goalie starts are bad for GAA & SV%... then at least roster a few more starts to win W & SV.
Are there waiver wire goalies (back-ups) available on a day-to-day basis?
If yes, you simply need to become a PRO at finding B2B team starts and grabbing a Sat/Sun back-up to get you more SV... maybe a W.
Your below-average record in goalie cats is suggestive that you haven't been able to do that.

Offensively, by skater cats, you are looking GREAT.
If I had to guess... if you went back and looked at your week-to-week record... you probably have some losses by just one or two categories.
I bet you could inspect those and say "If only I had rostered a few more SOG... a few more BLK... gotten one more W... or a few more SV(a start)... I'd have won that category and would've won the week."

This, for me, is more of you needing to improve your micro-managing of category-wins towards end-of-week so that you win the H2H OneWin.
I'd guess... (just a guess)... that other league GMs are simply out-chess-matching you at the end of the week.
If so, you've come to the right place.

All things suggest you should be 5-4 or 6-3 right now.
Welcome to the forums!!!

[robindehood]

G: 3-6 11th
A: 6-3 tied for 4th (listed 5th)
+/-: 5-4 tied for 5th (listed 7th)
PIM: 3-4-2 (10th)
PPP: 3-5-1 (Tied for 10th listed 11th)
SHP: 2-4-3 (8th)
SOG: 6-3 (4th)
FOW: 8-1 (1st)
HIT:8-1 (2nd)
BLK:5-4 (tied for 5th listed 8th)
W: 5-4 (5th)
GAA: 3-6 (12th)
SV: 3-6 (12th)
SV%: 2-7 (13th)
SHO: 1-1-7 (9th)

I had no idea this was even a page. I guess it's not the banger cats 😅

[robindehood]

Also another thing to note. I've somehow used up 25 of my adds to this point. May have handcuffed myself based on what's been said to this point

[anthonybeaty]

I've had to do what I'm about to tell you a couple of times. It is when I drafted poorly or got hit with a bunch of injuries. You have 15 total stats each week - recognize no stat is any more important than any other. In order to win the week, you need to win 8 (or 7 + tie breaker). Since tie breaker is G, you will likely need to win 8 cats since you will probably lose G most weeks. Break each cat down to see which ones you can win. The following stats are silly and probably shouldn't be discussed. They are a crap shoot each week and are very difficult to plan for:

SHP
SHO

The following cats are easy to stack:

PIM
SOG
FOW
HIT
BLK
+/-

Except for +/-, none of the above stats will be affected negatively by playing players too much. I say they are easy to stack because managers will generally trade away players who excel in these cats for players who do well in G/A/PPP. In addition, there are generally loads of players on the WW who excel in these cats too. If you load up your team with players who are great in these cats (especially if you can take those same players from your other managers), then you can generally win these cats every week.

From here you need to win 2 more cats each week. Based on your team, I think A is one of those cats. When you make trades for the players with the above cats, focus on those players who get more As than anything else. This is good because As are much easier to come by than anything of the other scoring stats.

The 8th category is going to be a challenge, but it's going to have to come from the keeper side. It could be wins, it could be GAA or SV%, but your keepers are not designed to excel in those categories. You will need to beef up your goalies and/or stream keepers week to week to make this happen. If you can possibly trade for a keeper as part of you giving away your scorers, then it would be very helpful.

There are some problems with this strategy:

1) It is all or nothing. You can't do this half hearted. You will make trade offers that other managers will gladly accept and you will leave your team decimated across most of the scoring cats
2) You have to win all the categories that you expect to win. If you drop even one, then you will lose the week.
3) Because the stats I've highlighted are relatively easy to manufacture, other managers can try to counter your approach. Depending on how well you did, they might have a chance to do so.
4) PIMs has huge variability. Evander Kane got 32 PIMs last week in two games. If you happened to be facing him last week, then you would probably lose PIMs and that might be enough to lose the week.

I have done this twice in about 20 years of fantasy hockey. One time I didn't make the playoffs, but missed it on the last week of the season. A cat here or there and I would have been in. The other time I back doored into the playoffs and then made it to the finals. I lost because the other manager streamed players who countered one of my stats and that was all it took. He was able to counter that stat in the finals because it didn't really matter who he dropped since there was nothing after.

Good luck.

[robindehood]

Alright, Demko is out not with a concussion as well. Should I be aiming to pick up someone off the WW who's hot and scoring goals, or see if I can get a goalie who's guaranteed to start and has a good shot at a win?

[jd2665]

I always keep one roster spot that I use as a revolving door basically swapping players from the WW that can produce in the categories I need a boost in for the matchup or a guy who plays the most off nights that week. I’ll even use it to pick up a goalie if my goalies have bad matchups that week.

Make sure you check out the sticky posts at the top of the board. The same night tool that someone made is great for targeting a player from a team that frequently plays on off nights so they aren’t wasted sitting on your bench on the busy Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday schedule. The Daily faceoff website also has a really good weekly schedule tool that shows which teams play the most games each week, along with which days every team’s games are and who they are playing. I use that one a lot.