Fantasy Hockey Gloating

I'd like to take a few moments to gloat about my fantasy hockey team. For those of you who care, here was my roster for most of the season/contributed the most in recent memory:

C-Pavel Datsyuk (DET)
C-Tim Connolly (BUF)
LW-Zach Parise (NJ)
LW-Ray Whitney (CAR)
RW-Shane Doan (PHO)
RW-Ales Hemsky (EDM)
D-Zdeno Chara (BOS)
D-Ryan Suter (NAS)
D-Anton Babchuk (CAR)
D-Kyle Quincey (LA)
UTIL-Kris Versteeg LW,RW (CHI)
UTIL-Steve Sullivan LW, RW (NAS)
Bench-Alex Burrows LW (VAN) (seen right, in
his two favorite activities)
Bench-Mathieu Schneider D (MON)
Bench-Rod Brind'Amour C (CAR)
Bench-Matt Stajan C (TOR)

And for goalies...
Tomas Vokoun (FLA)
Ilya Bryzgalov (PHO)
Jean-Sebastien Giguere (ANA)


Giguere, striking his favorite pose from the season, can be seen below. If you look closely, it appears he is wincing from letting up yet another goal. And trust me, he let up plenty.



Giguere was a waste of a 2nd round pick. I will not make that mistake again.

I'm especially proud of this team, since it was a 14 team league. In other leagues, I placed 2nd, 3rd, and 5th.

THINGS WE (I) LEARNED:
-3 starting goalies are not always necessary-Timeshares work fine (just look at Ty Conklin's numbers). The group above gave me the league lead in losses.

-Don't be afraid to bite early on young talent you've never heard of-It paid off for me with Versteeg, Stajan, and Quincey. Just make sure the player is in good circumstances.

-Get production in multiple categories-This is what Shane Doan does essentially every season (31 goals, 42 assists, 72 PIM). Brenden Morrow would've given me similar production had he not gotten injured. Alex Burrows is another great example (28 goals, 23 assists, 150 PIM), as is Zdeno Chara (19 goals, 31 assists, 95 PIM). Never have a player who only gives you PIM: make sure they're contributing elsewhere.

-Hold out on fragile players-People who drafted Marian Gaborik high were probably not happy (17 games). Instead of drafting players like him, wait until later in the season. They'll get injured and make their way into the free agent pool sooner or later. Wait until they return and shake off the rust, then grab them. My best examples: Tim Connolly (47 points in 48 games) and Steve Sullivan (32 goals in 41 games).

Below: Marian Gaborik, mid-air and mid-placement on the injured reserve.


-4 is magic-This is my last point. It's difficult to project when players will explode. However, season number 4 is usually a pretty good guess. I received breakout seasons from Zach Parise (94 points) and Ryan Suter (45 points), both of whom are in their 4th season. More fantastic examples are Jeff Carter (84 points), Alexander Semin (79 points), and Mikko Koivu (67 points).



There you have it. I'd say I had a pretty good season. If you're interested in a league for next year, let me know, and if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask. The moral of the story is, well...you should do fantasy hockey.



It's refreshing to have a record label actually consider its customers permit embedding of their videos off of Youtube.

-brett