Head-to-Head Strategy: Benching Players

Is benching players in head-to-head matchups a dirty fantasy tactic?

I was perusing a fantasy hockey forum the other day and came across a thread that was discussing the legitimacy of benching goaltenders in head-to-head matchups. The one party argued that benching goaltenders was dirty while the other party defended picking and choosing when to play his or her tenders. I would like to explore the idea a little more in depth.

To me, the argument that benching goaltenders (or players in general) in order to lock up certain categories in head-to-head formats contains a certain amount of strategy is easily justified by one of Kory’s draft experiment examples, in which he places emphasis on drafting goaltenders right out of the gate over premier offensive players. In Kory’s example, he used the first two picks of his draft to acquire Evgeni Nabokov and Henrik Lundqvist. If Kory were in a head-to-head league using this goaltending draft strategy, he would have a 5-0 record with .948 save percentage and a 1.16 goals against average. Those will likely win Kory almost every single goaltending category. Kory took a chance, drafted two goaltenders right off the bat knowing that he’ll have to do a little more research to make sure his offense won’t suffer, and it paid off for him this week. There is nothing saying that if he had those numbers heading in to a weekend, that must continue to play his goaltenders. Why compromise a near flawless performance? There is nothing bush league about this, folks. It’s all strategy.

While the argument in this particular thread dealt with goaltenders, the same can be applied to any player on your fantasy team. Let’s say you’re in a tight head-to-head matchup and you’re heading into Sunday. Fantasy hockey managers are well aware that Sundays are usually light in action in comparison to a Saturday or a Thursday. There is nothing saying that you can’t pick and choose what players to start. If you trail in penalty minutes but are barely winning +/-, it might not be a bad idea to bench the majority of your players who do have games, and only play the more physical players in hopes of maintaining your +/- while trying to overtake the penalty minute category.

I personally can’t justify this as dirty, or cheating, when there is a certain amount of risk involved in the strategy. If you choose to bench players in order to ensure certain categories are won, then you’re obviously passing up the opportunity for those players to earn you attributes in other categories. You may choose to bench Eric Perrin to try and preserve a +/- rating, however, you may be missing out on a few potential attributes as he is a threat shorthanded.

When all is said and done, the bottom line is that there is far more risk and strategy involved in benching players than some people think and it is far from being bush league like some fantasy managers have hinted to it being.