How to evaluate your league based on roster settings
Be honest: the last time you joined a fantasy hockey league, did you spend more than ten seconds looking at the roster settings and thinking about it? Sure, it might be easy to understand that your public Yahoo league is 2C/2LW/2RW/4D/2G/4BN, but have you ever stopped to think what that construction should mean to you when it comes down to it to optimally build your fantasy squad?
If not, this article is for you; If you’ve thought about it before, I hope I can give you a few more insights to think about before your next design.
[Get in on the fun this fantasy hockey season: Create or join a league now!]
Rating of defenders vs. strikers
Whether you play in a league that uses all three forward positions (C/LW/RW) or combines them all into one via the F position, you should understand how to rate your forwards versus defenders in your drafts. Undervaluing defenders (and especially top-end defenders) is one of the most common mistakes fantasy managers make. The reason for this separation is a lack of understanding of value versus replacement.
Value over Replacement Player (or VORP) is a term you might hear a bit in fantasy circles. It’s a nuanced concept and very easy to misunderstand and misapply, but at a fundamental level, VORP seeks to understand the difference in value between each player and an average waiver wire player you might pick up at any given point during the season . The most basic approach to this method is to take the number of players in any given position in each roster, multiply that number by the number of teams in the league, and compare that forward tier to the player you’re considering. So, using Yahoo’s public example, you could take an average of 9 forwards and 5 defenders on each team and multiply by the number of teams in the league.
The problem you quickly run into with Forwards vs Defenders is that there are actually very few defenders who consistently produce a strong Fantasy score above replacement. Consider that 32 NHL teams almost all have a single defender and four forwards in their top power play unit. That’s about 32 PP1 defenders but 128 PP1 forwards! Of course, the PP1 deployment isn’t the only reason to draft a player, but it’s a significant boost that can’t be ignored. This phenomenon leads to a large drop in fantasy value after 25-30 defenders are off the board. If you get 3 or even 4 of these 25-30 best defenders you can line up with incredible value against the backup while still pulling comparable players forward in later rounds.
RW vs LW vs C
If you’re playing in a league that demarcates center, left wing, and right wing, you should also consider that the right wing position is generally shallower than the left wing, which in turn is shallower than the center. Consider that towards the end of your draft in Round 14 you are between Nico Hischier (60 points in 70 games last year), Taylor Hall at LW (61 points in 81 games) and Travis Konecny at RW (52 points) will choose in 79 games).
Of course, these are just a few players from those rounds, but scroll through the list of players available in each position of ADP and you’ll see a lot of very solid C later in your drafts available , and then a significant drop in RW quality mid-laps.
signs of wear
Util spots are generally discounted by most managers when they first look at roster settings. after all, it’s only an extra player or two to start in each position, so how important can that really be? But crucially, a util spot (or two or three in some leagues) adds a starting spot to the lineup that nine times out of ten will be occupied by a forward (as we’ve found there’s a lot more depth for the in general fantasy in the striker). as defense).
So, adding a util spot causes the VORP to go back a little bit to forwards (12 extra forwards are launched in a 12-team league), and two util spots scale them even further (24 extra forwards in a 12-team league). teams). So the next time you see a util spot or two in your custom league settings, take a second to think about how much this will change your stats in terms of tracking defenders versus forwards in your draft .
Util spots also give you a little grace in terms of roster flexibility. Leagues without util points force you to stick much more strictly to the C/LW/RW positions, and thus players with dual eligibility (ie they can play at C/RW, C/LW, or LW/RW) become even more so more valuable. You don’t want to get caught on the first tough Saturday night of the season and find that you field 3 LW-only and 3 RW-only players and all three RW but only one of the LW is playing that night; If two of those six wingers are LW/RW eligible your lineup for the night would remain full and of course give you the extra opportunity for fantasy points.
bank places
The number of bench seats in your league should also be given more than a cursory glance when developing your blueprint for strategy. In a league with short benches (usually 4 or fewer) you might want to avoid having to bring a third goaltender with you and therefore prioritize having two starters earmarked for a significant workload this year. On deep benches it can be worth investing heavily in defenders and always having two or even three defenders on your bench as a team usually has four D-slots and so it is usually easier to fit a defender into your line-up, even when it’s harder nights.
Deep banks should also encourage you to invest more in players who play more often on free nights. Off nights are generally defined as nights when half or less of the league plays a game. Anaheim, Arizona and Winnipeg are among the teams with the most nights off in the 2022-23 season, and players from these teams are more valuable in deep bench leagues. That’s just common sense: in a league with more potential players to choose your starting lineup from, you’re far more likely to have nights where you leave one or more players on the bench.
Having a group of players playing more often on free nights will mitigate this effect and result in more games being played from your roster as a whole.
—
Nate Groot Nibbelink is the creator of Apples & Gino’s Fantasy Hockey and the originator of the #ZeroG blueprint strategy. You can find him discussing obscure fantasy hockey strategy topics in the Apple’s & Gino’s Discord Server or on Twitter @applesginos.
More from Yahoo Sports