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 defense first. Right now it is in 2nd place and is in prime position to end up winning the league by the season’s end. It’s essentially a two horse race at this point, as 3rd place is over 10 points back, and 1st place is only 2.5 points ahead at the moment. The D emphasis team has games in hand on the first place team, though, so there will be a strong finish for this team.
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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.
As you can see from the standings, things are tight up at the top. Since last update, when this team was in 5th place, it has jumped almost 20 points in the standings. A good stretch for sure. However, now with the season in the second half and nearing the home stretch, there is a close race for the top spot. Less than three total standings points separate first from second and specific categories will be targeted in order to try and make up the ground.
Here is the roster:
There have been a handful of transactions since last update. Horcoff, Tanguay, Pitkanen and Craig Anderson were all dropped in favor of Carcillo, Gonchar, Rinne, and Giguere. Gonchar was still out there from when I had initially dropped him so I made sure to take him before he came back and the buzz got out. He was added back on Feb 9th. Rinne has been a good pickup so far as he has taken over Dan Ellis’ spot as the #1 goalie for the Preds and Giguere was also snatched up after a frustrated manager dropped him during his struggles a few weeks back.
The goalie crop is now set for the rest of the season and it’s simply a matter of setting the games and trying to get the best stats out of the matchups available from here on out. This becomes quite a bit easier when you’re dealing with five goalies, who are all basically #1 starters at this point. Vokoun has regained his touch and has been on fire lately, along with the entire Panthers squad. Huet’s situation is somewhat troublesome as it’s unclear if he’ll remain the full time starter once Khabibulin finally returns from injury, but that is not a big deal at the moment.
Due to the max games situation (pictured below), Horcoff was dropped and Arnott kept on as the second full time center, along with Crosby (who seems to be having injury problems lately). However, assuming that Crosby and Arnott stay relatively healthy for the rest of the season, the game utilization should be perfect at C with just the two of them.
At left wing, Carcillo was grabbed from free agency for strictly one category: penalty minutes. Last year he had a boatload of ‘em and this year after a slow start he’s racking them up again. LW has some games to spare so slotting in Carcillo will not be detrimental to the potential offense lost by benching David Booth–who has been quite good himself lately–on the occasions where they both play. The right wingers are also set for now with just Boyes and Brown holding up their end. The game utilization numbers for RW are similar to C, pretty much on target for just two players to handle.
The defense welcomes back Sergei Gonchar, the highest scoring defenseman in the NHL of pretty much the last decade. If you’ll remember back to the initial draft, Gonchar was the second round pick for this team and was supposed to be the D anchor. Gonchar ended up missing quite a few games due to injury and was dropped a couple weeks into the season, due to the amount of time he was slated to miss and because an IR spot was already held by another player who was coming back earlier. Gonchar stayed in free agency the entire time until very recently when I picked him back up before his return. The defense certainly is the strongest in the league by far, and this was the case even before Gonchar’s return.
The goalie situation is not bad at all. It consists of a good crop of 5 goalies who have been performing decently in the past few weeks. Vokoun and Rinne have been especially good lately. Giggy finally seems to have recovered as the #1 for the Ducks and Huet is the #1 while the ‘Bulin Wall is on IR. Cam Ward is the wild card for this group, as the Hurricanes are in a really, really tight race for the last playoff spot in the East but at the same time Carolina has been incredibly inconsistent, especially Ward himself. Either way, there are enough goalies available here to take up the slack if any one falters. Overall, though, the first place team’s goalies are extremely strong, so the battle is more on the skaters side for this league. All these goalies have to do is maintain course.
This defense emphasized team has games in hand over the first place team. There are games to be caught up on at LW, D, and G primarily. Movement in the goalie stats will be tough, as the first place team is sweeping all 4 goalie categories right now, as they are first in Wins, GAA, SV%, and also Shutouts. The attempt to grab a couple more standings points will have to come from the forwards and D, hopefully in the offensive categories and cumulative categories like SOGs, as this D emphasis team has more to play than the competition.
The first place team is managing his team quite decently, as they are only ahead of pace by just a bit: +4 in all the forward slots, with 41 remaining exactly for C, LW, and RW at the time of this writing. The D is pretty much on target as well in terms of game usage. The goalies are behind pace, though, so there are games to be played yet. The 1st place team’s goalie group is rather strong with Luongo, Steve Mason, and Tim Thomas. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the first place team is best in all 4 goalie categories, but the D emphasis team is right behind it in all 4 categories, so if there is any slip up for either side, standings points will hang in the balance.
This league should come down to the wire because of how the standings are laid out at the moment. Again, the goalie stats are pretty tight but still lagging behind first place for this team. The best shot is to try and get some points in skater categories and try to hold the goalies steady until the season is over. It should be a good stretch run.
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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