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 main page: Draft Experiment.
This team was drafted with an emphasis on taking strong goalies first and then worrying about the skaters afterwards. So far, the goalies are doing quite nicely and they have been supported by equally strong wingers, even though no forwards were taken before round 3.
Click on the image to view its full size (opens in separate window).
The first section is the ranking in each category (this is a roto league) and the second section is the total year-to-date accumulation for each category.
Looking at the standings for the top 3 teams gives a better perspective of what’s going on in the league at this point. There is not much separation between this goalie emphasized team and the current leader, only 2.5 standing points, to be exact. For contrast, the third place team is quite a bit behind in the standings, which really makes this a two horse race for the championship at this point. Things could change by next update, though, as the first place team is about to max out their games available at multiple slots, so the third place team may actually become the eventual second place team by the end of the season, depending on how far the slide is for the current leader.
Here is the roster:
Since January’s Goalie Update, only a couple transactions have been carried out: Langkow and Pitkanen were both dropped, Harding was added and Shane O’Brien was added to help in the PIMs department. Sergei Gonchar was taken off injured reserve and has performed quite nicely since his return. At the moment, both Vanek and Khabibulin are on injured reserve but there is only one slot and with word of Vanek possibly returning in the next few days, Khabibulin will be relegated to the IR slot for a while.
Obviously the headliners for this team are the top two draft picks of Evgeni Nabokov and Henrik Lundqvist. Though Lundy has not been able to match last year’s production, he is still a workhorse, starting a lot of games for the Rangers and still doing fine, even with the team in front of him struggling for long stretches of the season. Nabby was injured for a bit but since his return has stepped right back into his starting role and playing extremely well for the powerhouse San Jose Sharks. Although this team isn’t exactly first place in every single goalie category, it’s still doing well enough in each to have a good overall standing.
Zajac and Backstrom are carrying the load at the center position right now. What is somewhat funny about the situation is that neither Zajac or Backstrom were even drafted by this team. The highest drafted C was Langkow (pick #112 overall), and he was dropped a few weeks back. Zajac and Backstrom were both free agent pickups and are performing extremely well. Backstrom was snatched up quickly after an impatient manager dropped him when he struggled out of the gate at the beginning of the season, a fortunate circumstance for sure. Zajac was picked up after standout rookie Brassard was lost for the season. Zajac clicks nicely on a line with Parise and Langenbrunner and doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Just goes to show you that you don’t need to draft superstar centers to get good production. Guys like Zajac, Krejci, and Mikko Koivu are outproducing high picks like Spezza and Eric Staal.
Even though this is the so-called goalie emphasis team, the wingers are excellent, as well. Perry and Vanek were drafted in the 3rd and 4th rounds, respectively, and have produced nicely relating to their pick numbers. The real gems came lower with guys like Hemsky, Semin, Gagne, and Havlat. These guys fell in the draft (in many, many leagues) for various reasons. Some of these guys are obviously injury prone, as almost all have missed games here and there, but overall still get it done on the scoresheet and in the fantasy categories. None of them are expected to slow down any time soon, which means relatively smooth sailing for the forward crop.
On defense, Dan Boyle has been the top guy all season long. He was also the highest d-man taken in the draft and has been well worth it. Scotty Niedermayer isn’t having an amazing season but he’s still producing. Timonen is currently injured but still chips in decent production. Shane O’Brien was brought in for PIMs and he’s already delivered in the short couple weeks that he has been on the squad. The real diamond in the rough is Sergei Gonchar, who was on IR for a long time. His return sparked the Pens to even deal away fellow blue liner Ryan Whitney to the Ducks, because Gonchar is the real deal for the Penguins backend, especially on the power play.
Overall, just about every position is set and has been set for most of the season. None of the positions are in dire straits, regarding production or max games. The two weakest categories are PIMs and SOGs, and that is being worked on at this very moment. Those are classic cumulative stats, so only time will tell how much can be made up there.
Goalie Emphasis team’s max game numbers
The maximum games count screenshot above shows that there are games in hand mostly at D and G. The forwards are relatively set at the moment, as they are not too far over or too far under and are on pace to finish out the season normally. Once the season gets closer to ending, a defenseman will probably have to be added in favor of a current forward, which likely means a good winger will have to be sacrificed. It’s a tough call to drop any of the current forwards because, honestly, they are all producing at a good rate, but by next update the remaining games to be played at both LW and RW will be drying up anyway because there is an extra winger at both positions. As for the goalies, their stats are pretty solid in all the categories, so even though the game usage pace is behind where it shoudl be, it won’t be too big of a deal even if all the games aren’t used up, because two of the goalie categories are not cumulative (SV% and GAA). Nabby and Lundy are quite capable of carrying the load for the rest of the season all on their own.
Current leader’s max game numbers
The real key to this league comes not from the team itself but actually from the current leader. His game utilization is way over the normal pace and as you can see from the picture above, he only has 5 LW games to use and only 8 at RW. He’s also over at C too. It is highly likely that he will max out his games at both winger positions very soon, within the next week or so. Then the C will be maxed out as well within a couple weeks, slowing down overall producion for his team by a large margin. Essentially, all the goalie emphasis team has to do is stay the course and because the current leader will have stalled out long before the season is over, it’s possible that the league championship will be decided even before next update for this team comes out, which will be in just three weeks or so, due to this current update being late.
Things have looked good for this goalie emphasis team all season long, from draft day to now. It’s unlikely that much changes from here on out. This team looks likely to be guaranteed at least second place. That doesn’t mean it’s time to get complacent, but realistically, things are looking very positive.
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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