People are busy. People forget about their fantasy teams. People purposely abandon their teams simply because of various reasons, one reason being that they don’t think their team is good enough and attempting to get it up to par is not worth the effort. Sometimes they’re right but sometimes they’re just not seeing the big picture.
You can salvage your team easier depending on your competition. If you’re in a Yahoo! public league, then it’s going to be a LOT easier to do so than if you’re in a competitive league with many knowledgeable managers.
1. Have realistic expectations
“…I need a no-B.S. assessment here. Can you get to the crash site?”
If you are in a points league and you are just way behind then it may not be worth it to try and claw your way back into the thick of it. The same goes for some head to head leagues, depending on the structuring of the rules and settings. Rotisserie can be easier to tackle in a lot of instances where you want to make up ground by targeting key categories.
Really, though, if you simply KNOW you cannot make up ground. Just let it be. If you’re really down far in the standings, do not expect to be able to come back and win the championship. It’s technically possible in some scenarios, but it won’t be anywhere near easy.
2. Look at your games utilization numbers
If this is a rotisserie league, chances are you have a max games system in place. Otherwise, you’re going to be dealing with streamers and that is a whole other topic altogether.
It is highly likely that your team will have a boatload of games that you can use up. You will be way behind in terms of the average rate of game usage usually, especially if your team has suffered injuries which you were not present to take care of right away and also if your goalies are not full time starters who are also workhorses for their respective teams.
Being behind in max game utilization is a positive here. That means you can start playing it like an h2h team and just slot in your guys over and over every single day because you are so far back. You don’t have to worry about maxing out your slots like others probably are. Depending on when you finally start paying attention to your team again, and if it is before the trade deadline, you can leverage the fact that you have games in hand at any positions by trading with others who are running low at the same positions.
Once you start piling up the games played, you will slowly climb up the standings in some cumulative categories. Categories that are calculated via an average or a ratio of some type will be harder to control, however.
3. Study the standings and your weaknesses
You want to really take a good look at what your biggest weaknesses are in the standings. If you’re in a roto league this is the most effective thing you can do to get immediate results. If you’re in a head to head league, it could take a little while before you see things change for the better.
4. Focus your efforts on what you can change easiest
This goes hand in hand with #3 as the things you can change easiest are sometimes your weakest areas. However, that is not always the case. If you know your +/- rating is terrible and it would not be worth it to get it up to par, just forget about it. In fact, you can certainly use this to your advantage. Really poor defensive teams and players and those who simply don’t score enough as a whole can have a minus rating but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t help your fantasy team. If you’re in a roto league and you’re dead last in +/-, embrace it and be the manager who dominates the power play points categories.
A lot of times players who do their damage mostly on the PP can have a poor +/- simply due to their situations or line combos at even strength. Case in point: Teemu Selanne. Before he was hurt, Selanne was easily the PPG leader in the NHL and at the moment he is a -9 on the season but he gets plenty of points with the man advantage so that can help offset the weakness in plus/minus.
Again, if you’re in a roto league and you have studied the standings, you know that moving up maybe 1 spot in the standings could take a giant effort in certain areas; it may not be worth it. Look elsewhere at other categories and target those categories instead.
- Example 1:
You are 7th in goals. The 6th place manager has 10 goals more than you. The 5th place manager has 25 more goals than 6th place. That translates into only two standing points (for goals) being equivalent to a gap of 35 goals in terms of actual production. Not worth it in the short term. - Example 2:
You are 9th in PIM. The 8th place manager has only 4 more PIMs than you. The 7th place manager has 12 more PIMs. The 6th place manager has 26 more PIMs. The 5th place manager has 44 more PIMs than you.
Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to catch up in penalty minutes than it is to do so with goals. Shift your focus to this category and you will gain more standings points with less effort. Grab a couple goons and check their matchups. There are specific teams and players that always seem to have fights against each other. Leverage this information. One fight and a couple misconducts can go a long way in your quest to move up the standings.
5. Take action immediately on small transactions
Once you know what the situation is and you have chosen your strategy, get moving as soon as possible. Look into alternative strategies like running with less defensemen to get results quicker. Normally you may not do this but some quick forward and goalie pickups can put dents in the gaps easier than defensemen can. Not to mention there are probably more available forwards and netminders out there in free agency or the waiver wire.
Quick transactions should be made to clear out any injured players or under-performing players. Cruise the free agent pool and check your waiver wire priority. If your league doesn’t use waivers, then your situation is that much better. You can grab up anyone you want whenever you want. However, if you do have a waiver system, you have to assess the big picture in terms of when you want to use your likely high waiver priority due to your long absence. If you see a pretty damn good player dropped recently and is on the WW, don’t hesitate to scoop them up. You need all the help you can get right away.
Start shooting out legitimate trades. If your team is in dire straits as it is, it doesn’t matter if you take some drastic measures. Shoot out trades to anyone and everyone. Beware, though, if you’re on Yahoo! you are limited in the amount of trades you can offer simultaneously, so make them worthwhile.
One thing you should not do is stream. Seriously, don’t do it. Streaming usually makes the league not fun. Yeah, there are arguments about it being technically legal by some people, but let’s face it, fantasy hockey is about fun. Streaming to win is pretty lame.
6. Have patience and look at the big picture
Unlike fantasy football, fantasy hockey has quite a few more games to worry about. Also, it’s not as intensive as fantasy baseball where you have to worry about so many games going on. It can be a happy medium.
With that being said, hockey season is long and thus your fantasy team can still have success even if you’re not doing so fantastic halfway through. You can still turn things around at least partially with some good planning and some smart short term transactions and maybe a couple wise trades.
If you abandoned your team because you thought it sucked, that’s a whole different scenario than if you left because of time constraints. If the team is really bad and you don’t have enough time or energy to put into it to try and get it better, it’s probably better to just leave it as is and not worry about it anymore. Cut it loose.
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to make up for the lack of activity for however long you had not checked your team, you’re already on your way to doing much better. Perhaps you are not even last in your league at that point. That is actually rather significant. It shows that even without micromanagement, your team (and probably your draft), was rather strong to begin with, so, just a little bit of movement on your end will go a long way in the standings.
Some categories will be tough to make up ground on so you really have to make your cost/benefit analysis here. Going back to your no BS assessment; take a look at what you can change quickly and what may take more time. Prioritize effectively to get the best plan in motion.
7. Have fun and don’t worry about the result
If you decide to give it a go and try to salvage your fantasy team(s) that you completely forgot about, but it doesn’t work out in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Fantasy hockey is all about having fun anyway. As long as you’re having fun then you’ve accomplished something worthwhile. For instance, if you were in dead last in a 20 team league but then you really worked at your team and brought it up to 10th by season’s end, that is something that you can look at as positive. Perhaps next year you can compete for the championship if you stick with it from the beginning, no matter how bad your initial draft was.
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