This
year marked the first time I’ve ever participated in an NHL fantasy pool; I finished
in 9th place with 883 points. Sounds like a pretty good start doesn’t
it? Top 10 finish in my first ever fantasy pool. Well that changes when I add
that there were only 15 participants and the winner, Cailleach Dynasty, finished
318 points ahead of me with 1201. So where did I go wrong?
To
start this is a keeper pool so I inherited someone else’s team and had the
opportunity to “keep” 10 players before the draft. This was back in September
so I can’t remember exactly who I kept but I believe my choices were Zach
Parise, Jason Spezza, Patrick Kane, Tuukka Rask and maybe Jonas Hiller, I can’t
remember that far back. Spezza definitely did not have the bounce back year I
had hoped and he brought in the fewest points for my keepers with 67. Rask was outstanding
for me and gave me a total of 129 points, and Patrick Kane was able to
accumulate 107 points, even though he was injured the last few weeks of
the season. Safe to say my keepers weren’t really my problem, in fact they
performed rather well. My problem then seems to stem from my draft choices.
I
got lucky with a few of the random draft picks such as TJ Oshie from the St.
Louis Blue who brought it in a total of 102 points and Brandon Saad of the Chicago
Blackhawks who was good for 80 points, but that’s more or less where my luck
ended.
My
biggest problem was probably that I drafted with my heart, which doesn’t always
allow for the smartest choices. I am a diehard Penguins fan, I will always be a
diehard Penguins fan, and what that means is that I want to load my team with
as many Penguins players as I can, draft rankings be damned. Now I bet I know
what you’re thinking, how can picking Penguins players be a bad thing? They are
a pretty kick ass team during the regular season, and you my friend would be
correct; except this was a keeper pool so the good players like Sidney Crosby,
James Neal, Jussi Jokinen, Chris Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Paul
Martin and Marc Andre Fleury were already taken. That’s right, I took Penguins
players nobody wanted and stacked my roster with them. Again this wouldn’t always
be a bad move except the Penguins bit the injury bug this season like it was
the Stanley Cup so many of my players were out half the season or more.
Now
I knew Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi weren’t likely to get me tons of points,
but I had hoped they would have decent plus/minus scores, and I love my boys,
so I figured I could do without the points. This was of course before they both
went down with injuries and were scratched for multiple games. Beau Bennett is
an extremely dynamic player, a guaranteed top 9 forward who can definitely play
in your top 6. I was proud of myself when I picked him up, and then he played
like 12 games this year and brought in less than 10 points. I know a lot of
people would have dropped him from their lineup, but he is my all time favourite
player (he is the 19 in hockeythoughts19) so I couldn’t do that to my boy.
Not
all my Penguins picks were bad though, Matt Niskanen, who basically went into
the season as trade bait, was given a huge role for the Penguins this season
and managed to get me over 80 points. He was so good I had about five or six
trade offers for him, yes all from the same person. Olli Maatta was another one
of my pickups from the Penguins late this season, while he didn’t get me very
many points this year, if his sophomore year is anything like his rookie
campaign this year, I should be just fine on defence next season.
I
had excellent goaltending from Tuukka Rask and Jonas Hiller this year, which
was to be expected, but goaltending was one of the weaker points for my team. I
was unable to get more than two starters so my backup was Jeff Zatkoff, from
the Penguins, and for a while I also had Peter Budaj of the Montreal Canadiens
(that one was for you, dad). The problem is that backups don’t get a lot of
starts and therefore don’t necessarily get you a lot of points. Goaltending is
definitely one area I hope to improve upon next season.
Next
season our fantasy pool will be changing, we are going to a rotisserie style
pool and points will be awarded for things like hits, blocked shots, faceoff
wins, saves and save percentages on top of points, assists and plus/minus stats,
which should keep things interesting. I have already been trying to figure out
my strategy and determine which players I’ll be keeping. Have I learned my
lesson when it comes to choosing with my heart? Jury is still out on that one, I
love my boys and even in a loss, I love knowing that my bench is full of
Penguins players. I realize they have no idea that I have chosen them for my
pool, but it feels wrong, almost traitorous, not to stick by my team, so I’ll
have to wait until next year to figure out whether my heart or my head wins out.
One thing I definitely learned is that fantasy pools are fun and add an extra
thrill to the season. I have never paid so much attention to who was on the ice
for a goal against, or rooted so thoroughly for Tuukka Rask and the Bruins, it definitely
added another dynamic to an already amazing game and I can’t wait to see how I
do next season.
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