Draft Strategies

[Gorilla]

Hey guys,

I’m hoping that you can help.

I’m participating in a league that is full of mathematicians! The league consists of 10 GM’s who in my opinion are very knowledgeable. I’m looking for an edge or tips on drafting. I’m thinking of purchasing the Dobber draft kit (or another one out there) to see if it helps me out. I have some doubt with this as I see the difficulty Dobber (or anybody) would have creating a draft kit that would benefit everyone considering how many different types of leagues there are out there are what stats your league uses.

What do you think?

I’m also interested in how you would go about drafting in my league. Below is the setup.

Here is how my league is setup.

Yahoo Roto League (changes can be made daily)
10 General Managers
25 round draft (snake draft)
We are allotted to play the following positions 82 games each, so 328 games for each C, LW and RW and 492 for D and 82 games for the G position)

So you’re basically playing the following:
4 - C
4 - RW
4 - LW
6 - D
1 – G
And the remaining 6 players (including a second G are on my bench)

The following categories are used G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, GWG
Goaltender categories W, GAA, SV%, SHO

//Gorilla

[Gorilla]

oh and we only do this for the regular season.......

[Hardyvan123]

question do you play weekly h2h with these stats or final season standings only? also with only 10 teams dont take a goalie too high. the middle rounds are where most drafts are won and lost, dont; target specfic players make tiers and keep plus/minus in mind as well as PIM\'s, don\'t just take one or two category guys. good luck

[goon]

Gorilla,
buy Dobber\'s Draft guide.
with your league setting you should get a ot of good info from the draft.

since you can only play 1 goalie and you have 10 GMs, this position position is no longer as important as in other leagues that start 2 or more goalies. (even though you have 4 categories controlled by one guy) You will still need a tier 1 guy and a tier 2 to back him up though, but unless you fall into Luongo you can probably pick some of those up in rounds 2 for tier 1 and later rounds for tier 2.
In the player positions you have 7 cats but 2 of them are completely unpredictable and tough to draft for (GWG and SHP)

so i would drat according to Dobber\'s ranking of players and use his goalie strategy.

good lick.

PS: first couple of rounds might have to be 2 forwards. (best available), unless Luongo is there

[Gorilla]

Thanks for the advise.

We play final season standings.

What do you think about these draft kits out there?

[Shoeless]

Roto is in his thread Hardyvan - so the points he gets will be a for a comparison between where he sits in the cat relative to the other as I am sure you know.

Well I am going to jump in here with a few things right now and perhaps some more detailed thoughts a little later.

My first observation is that goalie stats are a little over 36% of the stats in your league and you only start 1 guy to get those stats, so I think the best goaltending you can get would be pretty important - at least getting the first goalie on your roster would be a pretty high priority. The difference between 2.40 GAA and 2.30 GAA can easily see up to a slip of 4 or 5 positions in that cat. Because you only start 1 and there are only 10 teams you probably can wait quite a bit in the draft for your second goalie (still obviously desirable to have the best you can get there too though). 1 goalie simply isn\'t going to get you all your 82 starts - so whatever combination you pick you need to feel secure you don\'t have to go the the well for a 3rd guy - your bench is not that deep.

Generally as far as skaters are concerned, I think there is a very slight bias to goalscorers in your league with the GWG category so when it looks like an equal choice otherwise you might prefer to take the goalscorer.

There are guys at each position that are referred to as multicat guys who are very desirable to draft - guys that get lots of points and sport decent PIM, PPP, +/- and even SHP totals are like gold. This is probably self-evident but it does mean that you need to do a thorough ranking for yourself of guys you think will give the most at each position (Dobbers guide will certainly help you there as one perspective and a pretty good one to boot).

You will likely see about 50 guys at each forward position drafted in this league - one thing it really pays to know is who might get you dual or multi position eligibility - this can be a real asset when you get a guy injured or someone who just comes out cold and isn\'t producing - you stand a better chance of covering him off without going to the waiver wire to grab some fodder - these could be highlighted in your ranking notes.

I think you will find that decent centers are more available later in the draft than wingers, so that can guide your selections a little. With about 70-75 D guys being drafted, you will find they might be the rarest bird in terms of getting good production.

I do think it pays to develop a general draft strategy in terms of what position you might pick at each round, but I do think it is important to keep an open mind as the draft unfolds - you might want to shift your strategy based on how the draft goes.

Draft prep really pays. If you do your homework really thoroughly you are less likely to get caught making a slip when it is your turn or when someone goes that you really wanted and you get a little frazzled. I recommend ranking at least the number of players that will drafted at a given position plus about 5%-10% more. During the draft I strongly recommend taking your time making your pick - you might know the guy you want but just let that settle in your mind a bit and look around a little at what\'s still left before you announce your selection. Make sure you use a checkoff system during the draft so you don\'t reconsider guys who are gone - real timewaster but can happen.

One more thing I do is kinda decide who or what position
I might select depending on the position I draft in the first round. Onviously I can\'t predict exactly who the others are going to pick but I kinda like to have an easy decision to pull out on that first pick.

That\'s enough for now. You may know all of this stuff already but I think you will get lots of good input on this thread from some really experienced guys - happy filtering and get busy ranking players against your league cats.

[Rad64]

Take a look at this article...

http://www.dobberhockey.com/content/view/1286/1/

Regarding your specific set of categories, I would throw out GWG and SHP. Too unpredictable and unreliable year to year.

That leaves you with 5 categories for skaters and 4 for goalies.

Take two top flite tenders. ensure you get 1 in round 1 or 2 and take another by the end of round 5 at the latest.
If you can manage to get your 82 games in early in net, you can move a tender later in the year for a player to help boost a category you are low in.

Keep track of what positions the other players are drafting and what their needs are. Quite often you can predict what players(or at least positions) will be filled between your picks. Use this to determine who you think will be available next round.

Tier your draft list. You\'ll find in the later rounds, there isn\'t a big difference in points. That\'s the time to sacrifice a few points here and there and pick up your PIMs and +-.

If it\'s a toss up between players....pick the player on the better team. At least your might get an edge in +-.

Don\'t fall into the Points trap...
Simple example
Player A has 80 points, -13, 20 pim\'s
Player B has 60 points, +11, 80 pims\'s
Player B is going to provide value in 3 categories
Player A provides value in 1 and hurts you in 1

9 of 10 guys will take the 80 point guy and mock you for taking the Power Forward.

A simple way to view this is to go to your leagues website and check out the player ranking according to the leagues scoring system. This is a must if it is available.
Jokinen/Morrow/Hartnell/Brown......gotta love those guys. Add in Carcillo for a little insurance.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

I have a column for SHP in my projections, and it either has a Y or an N in it. Like Rad64 says, it\'s futile trying to predict how many SHP a player will get, but it\'s useful to know if they play on the PK. Personally, I average the SHP over the past few years, and if the number is greater than 0.5, the player gets a \"Y\"... it\'s good enough as a guide.

[Shoeless]

Rad64 wrote:

Take a look at this article...

http://www.dobberhockey.com/content/view/1286/1/

Regarding your specific set of categories, I would throw out GWG and SHP. Too unpredictable and unreliable year to year.

That leaves you with 5 categories for skaters and 4 for goalies.

Take two top flite tenders. ensure you get 1 in round 1 or 2 and take another by the end of round 5 at the latest.
If you can manage to get your 82 games in early in net, you can move a tender later in the year for a player to help boost a category you are low in.

Keep track of what positions the other players are drafting and what their needs are. Quite often you can predict what players(or at least positions) will be filled between your picks. Use this to determine who you think will be available next round.

Tier your draft list. You\'ll find in the later rounds, there isn\'t a big difference in points. That\'s the time to sacrifice a few points here and there and pick up your PIMs and +-.

If it\'s a toss up between players....pick the player on the better team. At least your might get an edge in +-.

Don\'t fall into the Points trap...
Simple example
Player A has 80 points, -13, 20 pim\'s
Player B has 60 points, +11, 80 pims\'s
Player B is going to provide value in 3 categories
Player A provides value in 1 and hurts you in 1

9 of 10 guys will take the 80 point guy and mock you for taking the Power Forward.

A simple way to view this is to go to your leagues website and check out the player ranking according to the leagues scoring system. This is a must if it is available.
Jokinen/Morrow/Hartnell/Brown......gotta love those guys. Add in Carcillo for a little insurance.

Thoughtful post Rads - gotta give you a karma whack for that - and then immediately disagree with you on throwing out the SHP for consideration - I don\'t see it as a big one but if you don\'t have a couple of guys on the penalty kill you are going to bomb that cat completely and that doesn\'t make sense. GWG is another issue - if you have goalscorers you will get them naturally and I agree that is not a predictive category.

I like pooladdict\'s idea about SHP - not to overstress them but be mindful.

[mister_mcgoo]

yeah Rads your basic premise is sound but while I ignore GWG (in fact I prefer leagues that omit it), SHP is one that will come into play more often than you think, esp in a H2H league where if you get a SHP you have a good chance of winning that cat for the week.

but Rad\'s \"point trap\" example is spot on...treat SHP exactly like that except when evaluating two similar forwards, if one of them\'s a Mike Richards or a Daniel Alfredson or a Justin Williams, snap him up. Be careful of guys moving to new teams, sometimes they play the PK consistently then get shipped to a team with PK specialists
and get zero SH time.

As always its a numbers game, goto:

http://www.nhl.com/nhlstats/stats

and choose \'Special Teams\' for the Stats View selection.