This is the final 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 grabbing good forwards primarily before D and goalies. This strategy is not one that is actually that great because of the differences in depth between positions in the talent pool. Good goalies and good defensemen are much more rare than good forwards and they are as important, if not more so, as you will see when the wrap ups for the Goalie emphasis and Defense emphasis are posted. All in all, this forward emphasized team did relatively well and ended up in 4th place in its league. Somewhat of a disappointment, since it was in the top 3 for the first couple months, but not a terrible outcome overall.
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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.
The standings reflect the strength of the forward crop as this team was first overall in goals scored and second overall in total assists. A nice standing of 3rd in the +/- department and also SOGs. The real obvious weakness was in goal, which was not unexpected. The goalie stats were pretty much middle of the pack in each one. It is highly likely that if a better goalie was taken early in the earliest rounds, sacrificing a forward, that this team would be in the top 3. While this is just pure speculation, the fact that the skater categories all had strong numbers and the goalie cats did not really puts the blame on the goalies’ collective weakness on this team.
Final Roster:
Due to the max games numbers, the team finished out with only one pivot, Getzlaf. Getzlaf did finish the season strong, though, as he had been pretty much all season long aside from the first week or so. At left wing was Vanek and Semin and at right Iginla and Hossa. This starting winger group was the strongest in the league. There were a couple other pretty good wingers on here a few weeks back in Hemsky and Elias but they were both dropped as sacrifices due to the max games numbers. Hemsky had slowed down his production anyway and Elias was injured for a bit at the end of the regular season.
The defense group was okay but certainly not great. The anchor for this D crop was Markov but he had gone down with an injury at the end of the season and was a non-factor. However, his good production overall makes him one of the more valuable players drafted back in the fall. Ryan Whitney is the other offensive defenseman of the gang and his trade to the Ducks really boosted his value, as he was somewhat struggling after his return from injury with the Pens. O’Brien and Vandermeer were strictly brought on for increased PIM production and they certainly did their jobs well, as this forward emphasis team climbed several ranks in that category from just a couple months ago.
The #1 goalie in this squad was Biron, which is pretty bad if you really think about it. Biron had a weak first half of the season, statistically, and while he finally started getting it going for the last couple months of the season, the first half numbers really brought the overall averages down.
The missing link here for the goalie squad is Manny Legace, one of the original draft choices. He was dropped after Mason took over and he was sent down to the minors. From the start of the season Manny Legace struggled, putting up mediocre numbers and also dealing with injuries. This was a bad omen for the forward emphasis team’s goalie crew. The failure here was giving Legace (and Biron) too much time and patience to improve. There were some other upstart young goalies doing well by mid-season and had there been less leeway given to the incumbents, this team may have done better overall in the standings. Nonetheless, what’s done is done, and there is no use worrying about what could have been. The lesson here is that goalies are quite important. One goalie is much more important than any single skater due to the fact that they have a stronger individual impact on stats; most fantasy teams have several skaters and on the other hand, only a couple goalies are usually kept on teams.
Drafted Players Retention
This forward emphasis team ended up with 19 transactions total for the season, the highest of all the draft experiment teams. One of the goals for the whole experiment was to attempt to retain as many originally drafted players as possible, by limiting the number of total transactions and also having a personally imposed strict no trading rule. Nineteen transactions on the season is not a lot, so that goal was fulfilled. Of course, it would have been nicer to see less transactions done, but at the end of the season, the max games numbers and also the weaknesses in net forced some transactions to be made. It’s possible that without those moves, the team would have ended up in fifth place rather than fourth. Not a huge deal, but obviously, placing higher is always better.
The first five draft choices–Iginla, Hossa, Getzlaf, Vanek, and Markov–are still on the team at the end of the season. Kopitar (round 6) was a strictly logistical sacrifice due to usable games running out at C early and the fact that goalies were needed at the end, otherwise he would’ve stayed on the roster until the end as well. A similar situation was true for Patrik Elias, except it also involved an injury, so the decision to drop him was easy.
Out of the final eight draft picks, only Alex Semin, who was taken in the 11th round at pick 125 overall (a bona fide STEAL) is still around at the end. The others were all dropped for poor production as the season progressed.
Aside from the poor choice of goalies, the biggest blunder for this team was the fact that Rob Blake was drafted but subsequently dropped. Blake had a somewhat mediocre October (4 points) and thus was dropped. Had a little more patience been exercised there, Blake would’ve paid dividends for the rest of the season. Obviously, in hindsight, this is easy to say, but at the time the rationale was that Blake was seeing the effects of age creep into his game and was let go early. Poor foresight was exercised in this scenario. That early drop should have been saved for Legace. The worst draft pick of the bunch was Martin Gerber, easily.
Overall, seven out of the sixteen total draftees were retained through to the final day of the season. If not for logistical issues, Kopitar and Elias would have also been retained, so fudging it to 9/16 is not too out of line. Either way, it is around half retention, which is mediocre, but certainly not a gigantic roster overhaul.
The fact that this team did well in pretty much all the offensive and skater categories was expected at the beginning of the season. The fact that this team did poorly in goalie categories was also more or less the expectation at the outset. Basically, using pre-season expectations, this team somewhat exceeded expectations overall by taking fourth place. Luckily, the forwards, especially a couple of the later draftees like Elias and Semin were exceptionally strong. The overall comparison (to come later) between each draft experiment team should better elucidate the strategic success or failure.
The other draft experiment teams’ wrap ups will be coming in the next few days. Then afterwards, there will be a couple more posts, comparing and contrasting the teams against each other and their 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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