When you draft players who are on good teams, you get multiple benefits from it. Obviously, you’ll be trying to take the best players on their respective teams first. These kinds of players usually have good stats in secondary categories like plus/minus rating among others. Also, the best teams around the NHL should, on average, have better power play efficiency, and thus will be better for individual stats as the season rolls on.

The Wings have the #1 PP right now in the league. They’re scoring at over 30% efficiency right now which is incredible. This means that all of the players who get PP time for Detroit are very valuable, as they’ll garner lots of regular points and also power play points, along with other secondary stats like shots on goal. The Wings haven’t been as strong as they have been in the past at even strength thus far but they’re still a top team. This makes Wings players that much more valuable, however little a boost.

Another example of a strong team is the Minnesota Wild. Their specialty teams are fantastic, as they have the second ranked power play and the second ranked penalty kill as well. Any players who play on these units will have high relative value. You’ll want to exploit these types of values by taking players from good teams like Minny. A guy like Mikko Koivu, who is currently tearing it up, was being drafted so late in almost all leagues, because he is still a young player who had yet to break out; he’s clearly a talented player on his own but the strength of the team around him, especially on the power play, really raises Koivu’s value even higher than it would be if the Wild were a poor team. Now, even without Gaborik, the Wild continue to have fantastic special teams and continue to win lots of games because of their system and very strong coaching. They are simply a good team and good teams can squeeze out even better production from players than a weaker team would be able to, because of many different factors.

Personally, I tend to stay away from guys like Ilya Kovalchuk, because the Thrashers are such a weak team overall at this point. Although Kovy is still a prolific scorer on his own, the team around him simply doesn’t help him as much, and thus hurts his overall value. Also, the fact that his team is bad and will likely have a losing record means that they’ll likely be giving up a lot of goals in the process. This is bad for a players scoring opportunities: the other team always has the puck, and you’re constantly getting scored on. Not to mention the fact that most Atlanta players’ +/- ratings will turn out to be rather poor by season’s end. If your league doesn’t count +/- and other secondary categories, then this isn’t as big a problem, but there are similarly talented players on better teams which will provide at the very least similar stats as Kovy in scoring, and much, much better stats in others.

Again, make sure you’re considering categories when choosing players to draft and/or acquire as the season goes on. You always want to try to cover your bases when going after players in a trade.

If you’re consistently taking and going after players on good teams, then you’ll get production simply by association sometimes. Line combos can get shifted constantly and if you have the best player on the team, they’ll always produce no matter who their linemates are. That is why you want to draft a guy like Joe Thornton, a primary producer regardless of who he plays with, over a guy like Jonathan Cheechoo of years past. Obviously Cheech has lost his luster the past couple seasons, but he was very highly sought after the year after his Rocket Richard trophy win.

When you take players from superior teams, the line combo shuffling can benefit them, too. This is especially true for perhaps lesser-known players who happen to get put into a good situation. A player like Setoguchi is in a fantastic position, playing alongside Thornton and Marleau. The Sharks are a very good team overall and although Gooch would clearly lose value if he got moved off Jumbo Joe’s line, even if he dropped to second line and played with Little Joe (Pavelski), it wouldn’t be that bad, because SJ has the depth. You don’t want to have to worry about your players having terrible teammates and thus not being able to produce as well as they are expected to.

One caveat to watch out for is again the line shuffling and this can be dangerous if the player involved is a secondary-type scorer and can be replaced more easily because of strong team depth. Constantly be looking at ice time, line combos, and general team depth charts, so you can make the best decisions.

Regarding goalies, the strength of the team that they play on is a huge indicator of value overall. If you have a goalie who plays on a very good team, especially defensively, then the goalie’s stats will more than likely be very solid. As opposed to a good goalie on a weaker team. They may provide pretty good save percentage, especially if they see a lot of shots, but more than likely they’ll have a weaker GAA as they’ll be giving up more goals due to team weakness, and also you’ll be losing out on wins and take more losses. Looking back at the Minnesota Wild again, Niklas Backstrom is having a very, very good year stat-wise. The Wild are winning lots of games and not giving up that many goals. An even more salient depiction of this would be Chris Osgood for the Wings. He’s never really been considered an elite talent in the NHL, in terms of individual play, but the team he plays for now is so good that even if he plays mediocre, the team in front of him can help him out of a jam and win the game anyway. Not every goalie is going to be a Marty Brodeur or Roberto Luongo out there, carrying their team on their back sometimes, but then again, you don’t need to necessarily have those types of really, really top end goalies to have good stats and win your pertinent categories. If you simply try to get solid goalies on very good teams, you will still get the job done.