We had our annual NBA Fantasy draft this week (I say annual because the other 11 guys apparently have been in this league for years and wanted me to join this time around for the first time) and it got me thinking about how come I’m not in an NHL Fantasy league this year. It’s weird. I should be in one. I thought maybe it was because Facebook’s fantasy hockey league was not nearly as sophisticated as their football league. Then I looked around. Almost all of the fantasy hockey leagues (ESPN, NHL.com, Yahoo etc) were identical. They’re all just about goals, assists, PIMs and boring goalie stats like wins and losses with the occasional extra points for a shutout. Seriously? This is how far we’ve come in the fantasy hockey realm? Something needs to be done to get fantasy hockey into the 21st century. It got me thinking about all the so-called meaningless stats that have crept into our everyday stat vocabulary over the last 10-15 years: like Plus/Minus.
That stat wasn’t counted nearly as heavily fifteen years ago as it is now. People knew about it, but it didn’t make or break how good a player you were like it does now. Like in baseball, it used to be the two biggest stats for pitchers and batters were ERA and batting average. Now it’s WHIP (walks/hits per innings pitched) and OBP (on base percentage). You won’t listen to any baseball analyst talk about a player with out bringing those two stats up, just like they all talk about plus/minus and save percentage now in hockey. The hockey world is different now my friends and with that I bring you the SportsOne’s ultimate fantasy hockey program. All kinds of stats will be used and weighted to different degrees. Not all stats will be created equal and some will allow your fantasy team to remain competitive if your players are having off nights. But first some ground rules as to how this league would actually operate.
First of all, set the limit of available players for any given week to nine. Each team would consist of three forwards, two defencemen, and a goalie. All points are added up and the most total points wins the game for each fantasy week. There would also be three “independent” players; players who are not locked in to any position. This could be another goalie, or forward or whatever. But obviously, once the player is locked in he cannot be substituted for that week. At the end of the given week (Saturday is probably best) all the points are added together and which ever team has the most wins the game. It’s going to be a tiny bit more complicated than just adding goals, assists and PIMs. Let’s delve further.
For this particular column, I have chosen two players who for the week of October 12-18 played the same amount of games (three) and had the same amount of goals (two), assists (two) and penalty minutes (zero). They are also players that most people would probably have on their fantasy team, picked somewhere in the 4th or early 5th rounds. These two guys are solid players, but definitely not superstars by any means. Their names are Patrick Kane and Brad Boyes. They’re both forwards and could easily start either in your top three or as part of your independent category.
Under the current fantasy system, both players would be credited with four points and zero PIMs; which makes things more than a little dull. Under the new SportsOne fantasy system different statistical things are given different points. Goals, assists, PIMs etc. First things first: make goals and assists count differently in the fantasy points standings. In fantasy football a throwing TD is worth less than a rushing TD or receiving TD, which is why running backs are usually coveted first. They’re going to get the most opportunities to get touchdowns which count for the most points, so why not put that into hockey too? I’m not talking about goals counting for double the points or anything, but changing it just a tad would add a different dynamic to the way we research fantasy players. Just like in football you would rather have a 1200/13TD rusher than a 1400/5TD rusher; in hockey you would rather covet a 45/25 forward than a 20/60 forward. (Actually it wouldn’t matter, because there are so many stats that for some reason aren’t counted in fantasy hockey right now, which we’ll get into in a little bit)
First things first: Goals are worth five points, assists three points and PIMs one point for each minute. (Suddenly having Iginla on your team as a fighter looks pretty good right now; it’s not called the Gordie Howe hat trick for nothing) Goals and assists are the two biggest contributions a player can make for his team offensively, so it makes sense that these two things get the highest number of points. Plus, with each goal it is possible to have two players get an assist, so there are always more assists floating around the league than goals. Only one player gets the goal, so let have him get more of the spoils; just for fantasy purposes. Last season unquestionably the biggest fantasy goal/assist player would have been Ovechkin (he won the Art Ross anyway but his 65 goals would have obliterated anyone else in this league; it wouldn’t have been close) Setting the goals and assists at five and three respectively sets up the draft pretty much as it is now, meaning if you want to win you need players who are going to get points. Last week Boyes and Kane each had two of each, and so far they stand at 16 points apiece.
New idea No 2: a Bonus Point for power play goals (just goals), game winning goals (in regulation or overtime) AND game winning shootout goals (only if your player scores the shootout goal that actually wins the game, not clinches the game). Power play and game winning goals are a stat like any other, so why not incorporate them into the world of fantasy hockey? This would put emphasis on players who come through in clutch times, and also are heavy power play guys. The real X-factor would be the shootouts. Like it or not, shootouts are exciting ways to end a tie game and are part of the game now, so it’s time to bring shootout results into the realm of fantasy hockey. Out of our two example players last week, Kane was shut out on the power play, had no GWG’s and did not register a shootout game winner. Boyes on the other hand had a power play goal and his goal against
Fantasy stat No 3: Plus/Minus. Plus counts for two points, a minus is negative one point. This is key because so often a player is even or only one over or under for the week. By making the plus count for two, all of a sudden a player having a crazy week and finish at +6 is extremely lucrative. The twelve points could make or break your team that week, like in fantasy football where I won one week because the Bucs blocked a punt and ran it back for a touchdown (8 points). Its little things like that, but they all add up. Boyes was -2 that week and Kane +1, so that shakes it up a bit as now Kane leads 18-16.
Fantasy stat No 4: Shots on goal. In fantasy football a running back gets 10 points for every
Fantasy stat No 5: Ice time should matter. (Not a ton, but it should still come into play) Remember back in the mid 90s when all the hockey analysts began telling you for no reason that Scott Stevens and Scott Neidermayer were the dogs of the league, grabbing close to 30 minutes of ice time a night? We didn’t really know why they were telling us this, because nobody seemed to care before then. The fact remains, the best players play the most minutes and the goal is to have the best players on your fantasy team. Each minute played counts for 0.25 points and is added up at the end of the week like the other stats. (I racked my brain for a long time coming up with that specific number. My TV was on mute for so long, when I looked up I was watching “The View”. Shudders. Either way, a quarter of a point sounds good. It’s enough to help your team, not enough for a stay at home defenceman to swing the game either way; plus having a player like Jason Blake who just got benched would cripple your team that week adding even more drama.) For the week in question both players played almost the same amount, with Boyes playing just two minutes more than Kane (62-60) so Boyes gets an extra half point for being Brad Boyes. Kane still leads 41-36.5 however.
Fantasy Stat No 6: Body checks and blocked shots. Now we’re getting into very frivolous territory but who cares? Both of these elements are crucial to the game and count in statistics so why not here too? Imagine how pissed off you would be if you lost your fantasy game because Dion Phaneuf got out checked by Pavel Kubina. That’s what fantasy sports is all about; getting massively irritated because of a stat that most people don’t really care about (Like losing your NBA fantasy week because your center got out blocked by your opponents center) Unfortunately I couldn’t find the checking stats for that week, just the ones for the entire year so far (although the fantasy computer would be able to track the number of checks/shots blocked) so I gave them both five, which given how little they play physically is huge. So after all these new stats are incorporated, Kane wins 46-41.5. That’s why goals need to count for five points. Take away one of his goals and Boyes tops him by half a point. See, there’s a reason to all this craziness!
Goalies would also incorporate new stats in addition to their usual Wins-Losses-Shutouts categories. All goalie stats would be on a per game basis because other than Martin Brodeur, goalies rarely play every game. Save Percentage would count towards or against their point totals. Goals against would also be looked at. Here’s a table of what it would look like under the new SportsOne’s fantasy guidelines:
Win – 3pts
Loss – -1pt
Shutout – 5pts
So far pretty standard stuff, but there are a few more to come. We incorporated the shootout into the offensive players, so we need to do that here too. Each save a goalie makes in the shootout is worth one point. If you have Peter Budaj (or however you pronounce his name) and he goes 10 rounds in the shootout and makes nine saves in the process all of a sudden he’s your stud of the week. Each save a goalie makes in the shootout puts his team in a tremendous position to win the game, so he should get credit for it. Save percentage should also count and would look like this:
SV % of 95+ (not including shutout) 3pts
SV % of 92+ 2pts
SV % of 90+ 1pt
SV % of under 90 -1pt
Goals against would count as well with 1 GA being worth three, 2GA worth two and 3GA worth one. Four GA would count as zero while anything over five would be -1 point. (Note: Shootouts would not count as a goal against. If it’s tied 1-1 after overtime the goalie would get the three points regardless of whether his team wins the shootout)
There is one more stat to go on this SportsOne fantasy odyssey and I can’t believe no one has ever put this into
play but it would be a huge fantasy back breaker for a team. It doesn’t happen every game and in fact it happens to a goalie maybe three or four times a year but could be instrumental in winning your fantasy week and that is: Goalie assists (or goals). Goalie assists would be worth 15 fantasy points and could easily allow a fantasy guru to come back from a huge deficit in a hurry. Fifteen points seems like a good amount because as said, goalies don’t get points often, most never get any, but if you had one on your team that got five or six in a year it should help a ton. Goalie X might have a bad week, but him getting a point on a Saturday would throw fun back into the league in a big big way.
Fantasy hockey doesn’t have to be boring old G-A-PIM and for goalies W-L-SO. The stats are there. The NHL keeps these other stats for a reason (unbeknownst to me) and its time to develop a fantasy league where all these stats count. So Marion Hossa is held off the score sheet for a night, he still contributes in ice time, shots on goal, possibly a penalty here or there and if it gets to a shootout you know he’ll have a shot at a GWG there. Those stay at home defencemen who log 30 minutes of Ice Time a game and block five or six shots while throwing five checks? All of a sudden it doesn’t hurt to pick up Jay Bouwmeester in the sixth round. There has to be more to fantasy hockey. Nobody ever talks about it the same way they do football and basketball and this has to be the reason: There just isn’t enough to look for. The game itself has changed; it’s time for the fantasy game to change as well.
Quick NFL Week 8 picks (home team as always in CAPS):
Raiders (+7.5) vs RAVENS
Chargers (-3) vs SAINTS
JETS (-13) vs Chiefs
Bills (-1) vs DOLPHINS
Bucs (+2) vs COWBOYS
Falcons (+9) vs EAGLES
Rams (+7.5) vs PATRIOTS
PANTHERS (-4) vs Cardinals
LIONS (+8) vs Redskins
Browns (+7) vs JAGUARS
STEELERS (-3) vs Giants
49ERS (-5) vs Seahawks
TEXANS (-9) vs Bengals
TITANS (-4) vs Colts
Last week: 8-6
Season: 57-43-2
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