Fantasy Hockey

[john403]

Hi everyone - I am new to the league and fantasy hockey, wanted to ask what is your go to for hockey rankings & projections? trade advice? who to drop/pick up any information would be greatly appreciate. I would like to know if there is a certain rankings you prefer or find most accurate to follow? Nhl fantasy Pete jensen, dobber rankings? Scott cullen ? others...

I am in a 8 team non keeper in yahoo H2H

Categorys Goals (G), Assists (A), Powerplay Points (PPP), Shorthanded Goals (SHG), Game-Winning Goals (GWG), Shots on Goal (SOG), Hits (HIT), Blocks (BLK)

Wins (W), Save Percentage (SV%), Shutouts (SHO)

Roster size: 2 Centers | 2 Right wingers | 2 left wingers | 4 D | 1 goalie & 6 Bench

TIA

[stevegamer]

Welcome to the forums.

Many sites are much better at points only, and peripherals as good. Stats like shutouts and +/- are often a crapshoot, along with SHG and GWG. Personally, I don't look as much at projections as many people; I have leagues only on Fantrax, and I will look more at recent couple of years, and then projected stats for this year.

[Eli26]

Hello John from Calgary... assuming 403 is the area code. Hope you enjoy the forums. I would use this place and HFboards. Also google goes... check up on news, read what fans say, and watch video... or high lights at least to see what kind of player you are getting. Time and patience and whatever you do, don't listen to Bubba.

[J0e Th0rnton]

I tend to make my own rankings. I watch the offseason like a hawk, looking at which teams lost top 6 forwards, which teams have openings for young players. Which coaching changes will benefit offense(Columbus). Which players moved into juicy potential situations(OEL to vancouver, DeAngelo to Carolina after Hamilton left). I go to HFboards and read prospect and young player commentary for the kids from the folks who watch the preseasons games and see more than I do in each individual section. If i want to know who will be the Sens top C, I read their GDT's, season discussions, etc and see how they think Pinto is destined to be their top C over Norris.

I also read a lot here too. There are always preseason threads, sleeper predictions and unique takes here. Helps with research

I think i am the only guy high on the idea of Mittlestadt being a big force this year with Eichel gone and the coaching change(he scored 18 points in 21 games and improved all his linemates games). He went undrafted in ALL of my leagues. I can see a 30+ goal, 65 to 70 point season looming with lots of FOW in the next few years. But I also don't give a damn about +/- and I am overly optimistic lol.

[2014olympicgold]

For a starting point, to understand value between positions I would use FantasyHockeyGeek. It's a good starting point to learn from. As for rankings... it's tough with hockey because a lot of production is tied to usage and that's sometimes hard to predict.

The difference between a D who gets top powerplay minutes and the defenseman who gets none can be 20points, which ends up being the difference between Makar and Carlson and Theodore or possibly even Hanafin. It's hard to predict. Or if in Toronto Sandin gets PP1 time and the Leafs adopt the "PP1 stays out for 1:30" style, he can crazy outproduce Morgan Rielly.

So I would start with FantasyHockeyGeek to learn the value difference between positions. And how easy it is to find "hits" late in the draft vs goals. Or how many viable Centers there are vs LW/RW. After learning through FHG, start reading forums. Because there's always someone here watching the games and seeing that usage change from game to game, and you'll be able to find that guy getting more minutes possibly before your league does.

[J0e Th0rnton]

Welcome to the forums.

Many sites are much better at points only, and peripherals as good. Stats like shutouts and +/- are often a crapshoot, along with SHG and GWG. Personally, I don't look as much at projections as many people; I have leagues only on Fantrax, and I will look more at recent couple of years, and then projected stats for this year.

Yeah Shutouts, +/-, SHG are a bit of a lottery. GWG is a bit more controllable if you draft lots of goal scorers, but barely. +/- is semi controllable in a sense, but it means sacrificing some good offensive players because they play on crap teams and that is too limiting. you can bank on most of the bruins top 6 having a good +/-, but you can't draft from only them and a few other teams top lines who are volatile +/- year to year.

I just call them lottery categories. if you have good goalies on good teams, you have more tickets in that lottery. if you have more top goal scorers, you have more tickets in that lottery. etc

I'd rather focus on what I CAN control more absolutely. Unfortunately big goal scorers also tend to have big SOG and become highly coveted.

Hits and Blocks is a tougher category. The best blockers and hitters tend to be low scoring Defensemen. now if I bank on Mario Ferraro on my San jose sharks having a career year and upping his point totals to 30 or 35 with a few PP2 points, then maybe his low production is offset by his huge hits and blocks. Larsson however will never be a big scorer so taking him is basically plugging 2 category spots at the cost of scoring

[john403]

Well thank you all - great insights and a lot to digest haha! and yes John from YYC. I have included my drafted team below - I ended up using/following Fantasy Hockey geek, it actually linked my league so all the stats were there. It helped, but as I was drafting I got confused because some of the top 50 where names I knew but didn't think they were top 50 and vis versa some players like Gaudreau or Monahan were ranked super low (I figured because they are one trick pony's and don't offer more then just Goals ,Assists, Points)

Heres my team:
Centers: Matthews(currently in IR+), Bergeron, Couturier, Kopitar, O'reilly
Centers / LW: Bennett, McCann
Center/ RW: Carter, Wheeler, Seguin

LW: Panarin
LW/RW: Debrincat, M. Tkachuk, Evander kane (currently in IR+ somewhat regret drafting him - didnt realize he wasnt on the active 23man roster) Bradnon Tanev
RW: Pulujarvi

Defence: Nurse, Josi, Dahlin, Murphy

Goalies: Shesterkin & Samsonov


As i mentioned above, a few things that confuse me are for example: Rasmus Dahlin - his Fantasy hockey Geek ranking was top 30 - anywhere else I see Dahlins name his ranking is in the 100s or so. I don't follow buffalo or the player - all i know is he was projected to be the next best defenseman and hasn't worked yet. So i drafted him based off his ranking but not sure if i should keep him or pick up someone else who would be ranked higher. And following my Initial question: Aside of always asking on the Forum which I appreciate and already feel welcomed - I was hoping to go to a site or something where i would enter 2 players name see whos better and choose that way.

I did notice on Dobberhockey site there are available tools - player comparison, who to start/sit , whos hot or cold. Would it be good to follow that or the one on yahoo? - I have played around with player comparison on yahoo as well.

[stevegamer]

Yahoo can help you with exactly who was better in your format in prior years, because it's got your exact setup there.

However, Yahoo is notorious for terrible rankings in all 4 major sports. I haven't played hockey there, but I have heard some gems of awfulness.

[2014olympicgold]

Yahoo can help you with exactly who was better in your format in prior years, because it's got your exact setup there.

However, Yahoo is notorious for terrible rankings in all 4 major sports. I haven't played hockey there, but I have heard some gems of awfulness.

It was surprisingly not terrible this yr. No "Marincin at #130" this yr. The most outrageous rankings off the top of my head were Eichel in the 50s (only because I don't think he plays this yr), and Teravainen in the 120s or something. And that's not even that bad.

[john403]

interesting and good to know - because I have heard that from a few people now that the rankings on yahoo are atrocious - if you don't mind me asking which platform do you use? and find best for fantasy hockey that is more accurate with stats and information?

Yahoo can help you with exactly who was better in your format in prior years, because it's got your exact setup there.

However, Yahoo is notorious for terrible rankings in all 4 major sports. I haven't played hockey there, but I have heard some gems of awfulness.

[stevegamer]

interesting and good to know - because I have heard that from a few people now that the rankings on yahoo are atrocious - if you don't mind me asking which platform do you use? and find best for fantasy hockey that is more accurate with stats and information?

Fantrax is the one most recommended, and all my leagues are now there*, and I found it through this site which got me into leagues beyond the one in my sig.

*The league in my sig is not scored on Fantrax, as Fantrax cannot handle our scoring system, which involves home ice advantage and whether you have NHL teammates as fantasy linemates; that indicates which goalscoring table to roll on; yes I mean that we used actual dice, we now use a random number generator. We use Fnatrax as roster management and stat aggregation only there.