This is the second update in the draft experiment series, for the Forward Emphasis draft. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, go back and read the original post: the great draft experiment.

This team was drafted with an emphasis on taking forwards first before the defense and goaltenders. It accomplished its goal of securing a very nice crop of forwards, however, as expected, the D and goalies are not as good as they could be. The team currently stands at 5th place in its league.

Click on the image to view its full size (opens in separate window).

The first row is the ranking in each category (this is a roto league) and the second row is the total year-to-date accumulation for each category.

This forward emphasized team is doing quite nicely in offensive stats like goals and assists, and is also first overall in power play points. It is also doing well in shots on goal and also +/- rating, too. The only skater category weakness is penalty minutes, which sometimes has to be sacrificed if you are truly focusing on offense first.

The major reason this team is not higher in the standings is due to goalies, a recurring theme among these draft experiment teams. It just goes to show you how important goalies really are in fantasy hockey. In the wins department, the team is towards the bottom. Same goes for the GAA and SV% overall. Somehow, though, this team is right in the middle of the league for shutouts with only 4. Still, as a whole, the goaltending categories are definitely holding this team back at the moment.

Here is the roster:

Again, clearly, the skaters are doing their job on offense being towards the top for almost every category. The centers are anchored by young fantasy stud Ryan Getzlaf, who contributes across the board in every key skater category. He is really having a very strong year after a somewhat slow start. His other center counterpart, another young star in the making, Anze Kopitar, is having an okay year but is actually off his point production pace from last year. Kopitar is underproducing but he is still contributing more than any others on the waiver wire so there is no reason to look for a replacement at this point.

Similar to the goalie emphasis draft, the real stars on offense are the wingers. In fact, several of the wingers are the same for this forward emphasis draft as in the goalie draft. The two top draft picks were at right wing with Iginla and Hossa. Two huge stars in the NHL, without a doubt. Then there is up and coming Ales Hemsky, who is technically outproducing Hossa per game played. A very nice trio at RW, for sure.

The real gems have been at the left wing position, however. With Elias having a big comeback type year and young star Thomas Vanek being one of the best goal scorers in the league, they are certainly keeping up with their RW counterparts on the team in terms of scoring. Something most would not have expected simply based on name value at the start of the year. The two steady LWs are shown up by Washington’s other Alex, Alexander Semin. His point-per-game pace is extremely high and if it was not for time missed due to injury, Semin would be right up there with the Pittsburgh super centers Malkin and Crosby to lead the NHL in scoring, followed closely by Caps teammate Ovechkin.

Ironically, this team’s strength and depth at wing can actually be hampering its overall status in the league due to the self-imposed no trading rule encompassing this entire draft experiment. The entire point was to see which strategy would turn out to be the best, without any trades, and with limited transactions. However, as the goalies ended up being neglected a bit due to this being the forward emphasized draft, there is an excess of strength at both wings and the goalies end up kind of suffering for it. This was expected to a point, obviously, but the goalies struggling themselves and the breakout years that some of the wingers are having really make the talent gap more noticeable.

Although Conklin is doing well for the Wings, he still is not a full time starter. Thus, it is tough to use up the desired amount of games with Conklin. Anderson had a very nice run to take the reigns from Vokoun, but he shortly cooled off after pick-up on this team, go figure. Biron has been up and down this season and has been a disappointment overall, especially at the start of the season. Manny Legace has been dealing with injuries all season long, as have the entire St. Louis Blues squad, which certainly makes it tough to get wins in the tough Western Conference. Down the line, as the skater games get used up quicker simply due to the strength of players, it may be necessary to actually drop a strong producer like a Vanek or a Hemsky to try and catch up in goalie numbers. Sometimes those sacrifices must be made, when you are ahead in max games.

As for the defense, they are mediocre as a whole. Andrei Markov is certainly having a nice season and Vlasic is having somewhat of a breakout year himself. However, Spacek and Letang are severely underperforming and bring down the group’s averages. They are doing ok, though, and there are no significant upgrades floating around free agency at the moment so there is not much to be done in this situation.

Speaking of max games, the centers and righties are a bit ahead in terms of pace. This is offset by the lefties and defense which are behind in pace by a similar number. The real problem is in net, of course. The current pace is 38 off where it should be. This can be looked upon as good news, as in some of the other draft experiment teams, but here it is tough because the goalie crew as a unit is rather weak. Even if all those games are made up and the pace averages out to where it should be, it may not necessarily be reflected upon positively in the standings. The goalies will certainly need to be taken care of going forward and that will be the main problem to tackle after the all star break.

There have not been any transactions at all since the last forward update. The forwards have been extremely strong and thus there has been no need to move anyone out. There is slim pickings out in free agency for both defensemen and goalies so it has been tough to improve in those areas at this point. The biggest hope right now is to attempt to make up ground by picking and choosing the best matchups for the goalies and using up more of the max games allotted to climb back up the standings. It really is all up to the goalies at this point because the forwards are certainly doing their jobs.

To sum it all up for now, this team is still in decent shape. There is a very good chance that it will finish in the top 3 by season’s end and if the goalies can get their acts together, it has a shot at the championship. For the first several weeks of the season, this team was in first place all alone until some injuries hit and the goalies really started tanking. Again, as said in previous updates, it is a long season and patience will need to be exercised here. No panic moves are necessary.

Tomorrow the final draft experiment team second update will be posted for the defense emphasized draft team. Similar to this forward emphasized team, it is having issues with goalies and is actually also in 5th place in its own league. However, it is in slightly better shape because all the skater and goalie slots are under, rather than this forward team which has C and RW both at a rate which is going over.

Check out the original post: The Great Draft Experiment and also the main page with links to all the teams: http://saucerpass.com/draft-experiment.