First time setting up a multicat 1-year league

[cheese_cake]

Hi all,

I want to set up a multicat fantasy league with my buddies and none of us are acquainted with this type of league. I've looked around a bit on which cats are considered and I would like your input on a few things.
Please assume that we want the league to be a 1-year head to head league, and that my fellow GMs and me are dipping our toes in multicat for the first time but that we've been running a pts only keeper league with cap for the past 10 years .
1- Are there pros and cons to weighting every cat into a single fantasy score vs giving the win to the GM winning the most stats?
2 - what are the relevant categories to consider, how many cats to keep if we want pts to remain relevant? We likely would exclude +/-. Same question for goalie cats.
3- is there a way to consider penalty minutes but in a "positive" way? Meaning we wouldn't reward players with high PIMs but rather reward drawn penalties or something of the sort. I personally am interested in learning about what other leagues have tried in that regard.

Thanks a lot for your time 🙏.

[2014olympicgold]

1- Having a point system vs Cat system to me is better for casual fans. The point system is a very straight forward strategy system. The cat system is a solid system to even out teams talent level and GM talent level if you're a smart GM. It's really personal preference.

2- A simple set of cats is G, A, PPP, FOW, Hits, Blocks, SOG, W, GAA, S%, Saves, Shutout optional (I don't like shutouts as a cat).

3- Fantrax has a huge amount of categories you can pick from. But you can easily make PIMs a "negative category" where the least amount of PIMs is the winner. Or points system, you can make PIMs negative points (-0.2pts/PIM)

[Pengwin7]

H2H is incredibly fun.
And "category win" H2H is best format to get exposed.

I would go with an "odd" number of categories, so that matches avoid ties.
You go with "Category Win" instead of "One Win" so that people can get a "few points" every week.

I would recommend 11 categories, with 7 for skaters and 4 for goalies.
This, I think, is most common.

For skaters: Goals (G), Assists (A), Powerplay Points (PPP), Shots on Goal (S or SOG), Face-Off Wins (FOW), Hits (H), Blocks (B).
For goalies: Wins (W), Saves (SV), Goals Against Average (GAA), Save Percentage (SV%)

With goalies, these are best four categories. (Do not do shutouts, because most weeks there aren't any... and 0-0 category tie is boring.)
Wins rewards goalies on good teams.
GAA rewards goalies on good teams.
Saves often rewards goalies on bad teams facing a lot of shots.
SV% is the truest metric of goalie quality - so that one is a MUST-INCLUDE.
Do not includes Losses. That is dumb. I know some leagues do it... but choosing NOT to start a goalie because they are likely to lose is just no fun.

Usually you want to allow teams SOME transactions "per week". 3, 4, or 5 is standard.

PIM is sort of an old category that is being phased out in most leagues. Its really not positive... but its not necessarily negative. Hits becomes the fun "tough guy" category - and everybody gets some.

I'd highly recommend these categories.
Most weeks, each team wins some and the finishing score is 7-4-0... or 6-5-0... or maybe there's a tie in one category and it's 6-4-1.
Teams Win-Loss-Tie records includes all of those... and it keeps people from being really frustrated by a super close loss in "One Win" style.

Good luck.
You'll have fun.
It was 20 years ago when a buddy told me about this format... he said it was "So much fun... better than all-year points pools."
He was very right. And the person-to-person match makes for great conversation over the course of a season!

[cheese_cake]

Thanks a lot for the input!!

[LawMan]

H2H is incredibly fun.
And "category win" H2H is best format to get exposed.

I would go with an "odd" number of categories, so that matches avoid ties.
You go with "Category Win" instead of "One Win" so that people can get a "few points" every week.

I would recommend 11 categories, with 7 for skaters and 4 for goalies.
This, I think, is most common.

For skaters: Goals (G), Assists (A), Powerplay Points (PPP), Shots on Goal (S or SOG), Face-Off Wins (FOW), Hits (H), Blocks (B).
For goalies: Wins (W), Saves (SV), Goals Against Average (GAA), Save Percentage (SV%)

With goalies, these are best four categories. (Do not do shutouts, because most weeks there aren't any... and 0-0 category tie is boring.)
Wins rewards goalies on good teams.
GAA rewards goalies on good teams.
Saves often rewards goalies on bad teams facing a lot of shots.
SV% is the truest metric of goalie quality - so that one is a MUST-INCLUDE.
Do not includes Losses. That is dumb. I know some leagues do it... but choosing NOT to start a goalie because they are likely to lose is just no fun.

Usually you want to allow teams SOME transactions "per week". 3, 4, or 5 is standard.

PIM is sort of an old category that is being phased out in most leagues. Its really not positive... but its not necessarily negative. Hits becomes the fun "tough guy" category - and everybody gets some.

I'd highly recommend these categories.
Most weeks, each team wins some and the finishing score is 7-4-0... or 6-5-0... or maybe there's a tie in one category and it's 6-4-1.
Teams Win-Loss-Tie records includes all of those... and it keeps people from being really frustrated by a super close loss in "One Win" style.

Good luck.
You'll have fun.
It was 20 years ago when a buddy told me about this format... he said it was "So much fun... better than all-year points pools."
He was very right. And the person-to-person match makes for great conversation over the course of a season!

Great advice above.
Key Points I agree with
"category wins" is key for 2 reasons:
1. it allows everyone to either win something each week or keep trying during a week where a loss is inevitable (minimizing damage is key!)
2. Late in the season it keeps everyone active (A team could be 7 GB but with a big 9-1-0 record reach the playoffs)
which leads to my 2nd point:
Head-to-head leagues need to have playoffs. Whether you let in the top 6 (top 2 have byes), top 8 (no byes) or top-7 (1-bye) is up to you. I would say in a 12 team league 8 make playoffs, in a 10 team league 6 make playoffs.

Regarding category splits, I like a 2:1 skater : goalie split
I may be old school but still like PIMs as a positive (yes penalties are bad, whatever, its a decent fantasy category).
To the categories listed by Pengwin I personally would add one of:

- PIMS (still fun)
- Game Winning Goals (yes it is largely luck based, but what it does is effectively double the value of goal scorers, goals are important)
- Average Time on Ice (ATOI). This one is a tough sell for lots of guys but here is my argument. ATOI is really the only stat that awards two key sets of players:
- Stay at home Dmen who log lots of minutes (or ups the value of 40+ point D-man)
- guys who play defensive and or kill penalties.
It also HURTS the value of "goons" who just HIT and PIM, meaning they have to REALLY HIT and PIM to be worth it. Meaning, that regulars who HIT and PIM are more valuable.
Note: I have only ever had ATOI in 1 league for 1 year, I loved it, the rest of the league hated it.

To sum up, my absolute dream 1-year league is as follows:
-12 teams
- 9 F, 4D, 2G, 5 Bench (you can go with 3RW/LW/C but given how many players get multi eligibility seems like a non-issue to me)
- 7 teams (of 12) make playoffs (regular season champ gets a bye, no one else)
- Category Wins
Categories: G, A, P, PIM, PPP, SOG, Hits, PIMs, ATOI, (9 skater) W, GAA, SV%, Svs (4 goalie)
- 2 free agent pickups ("moves") per week.

For the most part "advanced stats" have not become fantasy relevant. I think Fantrax allows you to use "penalties drawn" and other more detailed stats but I know of almost no leagues which actually track these stats for scoring purposes.