AP RedFantasy NHL (Week 2)
October 16th 2008 20:59
The NHL is a really perplexing league to me. For the US sport fan, hockey is probably the 6th most popular sport in the country. And even that can be debatable. The 80s/early 90s are long gone and so is this sport's popularity in the US.
The solution to this problem was obvious to the NHL though. Move teams out of Canada, put more teams in the South/Southwest, and move to the Versus network off of ESPN because they offer more cash (Cash is great, but you killed the sport's brand value). No truth to the rumour that a Mexico franchise is in the works. But would it honestly surprise anyone?
All that said, I still like the sport. Been a fan since I went to my first Rangers game and saw Kelly Kisio score 2 goals. Became a bigger fan when I was watching the Kings run with the Great One. And being from Jersey, will be a fan since the Devils constantly put in decent playoff runs.
I would rather have an overseas division, I would rather see more Canadian teams, and I'd rather see more cold weather cities get teams. But nothing that makes sense will ever happen, so oh well,
After a 3 year break, I'm playing Fantasy NHL on Yahoo. Decided to play a big cat, big roster (4 each of C, LW, RW with 6 defenders and 2 goalies with 4 bench slots), 20 team H2H league. 15 forward/def. cats, 9 goalie cats.
For any people interested, I kept Yahoo rankings on my auto-draft for the most part. I moved up players that closed hot stat wise (got Vanek), moved the top 5 goalies down (I don't find too much of a difference in the top 15 goalies as long as I pick and choose starts), moved the next 10 goalies up 10 spots each, and moved 2nd years and rookies up 10-20 spots each because its a big league and I want upside.
That draft strategy ended up getting me Iginla, Tkachuk, and Vanek as my top tier guys and tons of high upside guys in Brunnstrom, Brassard, Voracek and Filatov who I hope will be a goal scoring machine when he's called up. Ryan Miller, Toskala and Olie the Goalie aren't bad so I may have lucked out there.
Now an admission, I don't know too much about hockey anymore. 3-4 years ago, I was as up-to-date as anyone on the planet on rosters, depth charts, etc. Now, I'm gonna be going by stats alone. And that's actually a fun proposition for me.
My main strategy is to look to guarantee wins in PIM, FW, FL, GS, Sv and let roster management split the other cats. Hoping to trade middle tier guys (Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Alex Burrows, Peca and Toskala) for a top tier guy, waiver in on Sundin because even if he comes back for the final two months that's a free top tier guy, and I'll have guys with a lot of SOG on my watch list because getting lots of shots generally means the team has confidence in you to score.
Not gonna be like my weekly Fantasy NFL deal, so look for Fantasy NHL posts sporadically if you want to hear about my year or any random thoughts.
The solution to this problem was obvious to the NHL though. Move teams out of Canada, put more teams in the South/Southwest, and move to the Versus network off of ESPN because they offer more cash (Cash is great, but you killed the sport's brand value). No truth to the rumour that a Mexico franchise is in the works. But would it honestly surprise anyone?
All that said, I still like the sport. Been a fan since I went to my first Rangers game and saw Kelly Kisio score 2 goals. Became a bigger fan when I was watching the Kings run with the Great One. And being from Jersey, will be a fan since the Devils constantly put in decent playoff runs.
I would rather have an overseas division, I would rather see more Canadian teams, and I'd rather see more cold weather cities get teams. But nothing that makes sense will ever happen, so oh well,
After a 3 year break, I'm playing Fantasy NHL on Yahoo. Decided to play a big cat, big roster (4 each of C, LW, RW with 6 defenders and 2 goalies with 4 bench slots), 20 team H2H league. 15 forward/def. cats, 9 goalie cats.
For any people interested, I kept Yahoo rankings on my auto-draft for the most part. I moved up players that closed hot stat wise (got Vanek), moved the top 5 goalies down (I don't find too much of a difference in the top 15 goalies as long as I pick and choose starts), moved the next 10 goalies up 10 spots each, and moved 2nd years and rookies up 10-20 spots each because its a big league and I want upside.
That draft strategy ended up getting me Iginla, Tkachuk, and Vanek as my top tier guys and tons of high upside guys in Brunnstrom, Brassard, Voracek and Filatov who I hope will be a goal scoring machine when he's called up. Ryan Miller, Toskala and Olie the Goalie aren't bad so I may have lucked out there.
Now an admission, I don't know too much about hockey anymore. 3-4 years ago, I was as up-to-date as anyone on the planet on rosters, depth charts, etc. Now, I'm gonna be going by stats alone. And that's actually a fun proposition for me.
My main strategy is to look to guarantee wins in PIM, FW, FL, GS, Sv and let roster management split the other cats. Hoping to trade middle tier guys (Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Alex Burrows, Peca and Toskala) for a top tier guy, waiver in on Sundin because even if he comes back for the final two months that's a free top tier guy, and I'll have guys with a lot of SOG on my watch list because getting lots of shots generally means the team has confidence in you to score.
Not gonna be like my weekly Fantasy NFL deal, so look for Fantasy NHL posts sporadically if you want to hear about my year or any random thoughts.
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