This is the second update in the draft experiment series, for the Goalie Emphasis draft. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, go back and read the original post: the great draft experiment.
So, as you can tell from the name, this team was drafted with an emphasis on goalies first. By that, it simply means that goalies were taken with the first two picks (Nabokov & Lundqvist) before the other positions were looked into.
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.
The team is currently second in the standings. It was first at one point but as you will see that the current standing will not hold up long term and this team will be back in first again. So far, drafting strong goalies has paid dividends. The team is first in the league in wins and doing quite well in the other categories as well. In addition to goalie categories, the offensive categories are also being taken care of quite well, too.
Here is the roster:
There actually is not that much to say regarding this team right now. The goalies are absolutely fulfilling their end of the deal and on the offensive end, the wingers are really carrying the load. Vanek, Semin, Perry, Hemsky, Gagne, and Havlat are all doing quite nicely. Nicklas Backstrom is also performing nicely at C and is expected to have a very nice second half along with his teammate AO. Travis Zajac, a recent pick-up, is doing pretty decently himself and Langkow, too.
The defense is slacking a bit but Dan Boyle certainly is one of the best defensemen this year and shows no signs of slowing down. Even Scotty Niedermayer and Kimmo Timonen, although both underperforming, are still producing decent numbers. Joni Pitkanen (who replaced Kuba, who was injured at the time) has been severely underperforming. Once Gonchar gets back from IR, he will most likely be taking over Pitkanen’s spot full time. Overall, the team is doing well up and down the stats. Judging from the standings, the only two somewhat weak categories are shots on goal and PIMs. Both of these can be taken care of down the line as more games are used up.
The total transactions since the first goalie update, have been minor. Gonchar was picked up off free agency and Kuba (who was injured) was dropped for Pitkanen. Similarly, Brassard, who was also injured, was dropped for Travis Zajac. Those have been the only two transactions since last month. The team is rolling along quite nicely right now so transactions don’t really need to made frequently. As such, there will be no transactions graphic as there was in the previous update.
The expectation for this goalie emphasized and balanced team is to win the championship. As things have shifted and the outlook becomes clearer, in relation to the opposition, it would be a disappointment if this team in fact ended up NOT winning. Once you look at the max games numbers for this team (2nd place) and also the first place team, you will be able to see why the expectation is as such.
This team’s max games utilization is behind in RW, D, and G. This is actually a good situation because the standings reflects that even though the team is behind in games used, the team is still doing well. That means, once the team starts using up more games and catches up to where it should be, it will be doing even better in key categories. The biggest reason that this team is in such good shape is depicted below, by the #1 team’s max games numbers.
The graphic to the right is the game utilization for the team which is currently above this one, #1 in the standings. As you can see, the manager is overplaying the players, almost like it is head to head, and is not managing the games properly. In the long run, this is not a good strategy for rotisserie because you always end up using up too many games to bench (weaker) players, rather than saving the majority of allocated game slots for the strongest players. Also, because of the highly accelerated rate of using up games, the manager will be maxed out in certain positions way before the season is over, thus allowing this goalie emphasized team to make up the ground easily.
Stay tuned for the next draft experiment updates; the defense and forward emphasized drafts are coming up next. They are not doing quite as well as they were in the beginning of the season, or as well as this goalie emphasized team, but they are still in position to challenge for the top 3 in their respective leagues.
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.
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