This is the draft experiment wrap up for the Goalie Emphasis draft. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, go back and read the original post: the great draft experiment.
This team’s draft strategy was to grab a couple top notch goalies before any other position, as good goalies are tougher to come by overall. The first two picks were goalies (Nabby & Lundy) and then afterwards it was some wingers and D, followed by Cs as late as possible because they’re so plentiful. Turns out this strategy worked well because this team ended up taking 1st place.
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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 goalies certainly did their part. Nabby and Lundy were very solid and the third goalie, Khabibulin, who is now Chicago’s starter in the playoffs, also did well when he was not injured. Even though they were not in 1st place across the board in goalie categories, they provided peace of mind, because they were not a liability at any point, unlike some of the other draft experiment teams.
The goalies provided stability and that enabled time and energy to be re-directed to the skaters, who also performed well, being first in several key categories, including assists and power play points. This team was also first place in +/- which can be a tough category to do well in when also doing well in PPP, since a lot of power play producers can sometimes have poor plus/minus ratings. This team was second in goals and third in PIM. The weakest category was easily SOG. Nonetheless, this team ended up with a very solid 110 standings points. Considering that 120 standings points is the absolute maximum (1st in every category), this team performed extremely well in relation to its competition in the league.
Final Roster:
Again, the goalie categories were not all swept, but they were all high up there. This team was first in wins and GAA and tied for 2nd in SHO. The weakest category was SV% and even that was still in the top 3. This is definitely the best goalie performance, naturally, of all four draft experiment teams. Nabby, Lundy, and Khabi were easily the best trio in net in this particular league and likely would be in most leagues out there.
The wingers were extremely good all year long. Vanek, Gagne, Semin, Perry, Hemsky, and up until the end of the season, Martin Havlat was also in this group. Every single player had a very solid season and you really cannot ask for more than that. Clearly this was a good draft in terms of the wingers, as they were all drafted and besides Havlat, all were retained from draft day to the end of the season.
The two young pivots at season’s end for this team were Backstrom and Zajac. Neither were even drafted by this team initially, they were free agent pick-ups. They both had breakout seasons playing with good wingers on their lines. Centers are so much easier to replace than any other position, so waiting to draft Cs is really not an unreasonable strategy.
The defense was also solid with Dan Boyle, Scott Niedermayer, and Kimmo Timonen holding down the fort on the blue line. Sergei Gonchar was a fortunate pick-up midway through the season, right before he came back from his several month absence. Jim Vandermeer and Shane O’Brien were picked up at the end of the season strictly to shore up more PIMs and widen the gap between 1st and 2nd. It definitely worked because PIMs were one of the weaker categories all year long for this goalie emphasis team. With the wingers and free agent Cs producing so well, it was not a problem having two specialty category guys on the team at the same time. The depth of talent on this team was enough to be able to offset it and in the end it turned out that the higher number of PIMs certainly helped the end result.
Drafted Players Retention
This team only had 10 transactions total, which is pretty solid in terms of not making too many moves. The goal of trying to keep transactions (and player movement overall) to a minimum was probably most successful on this particular draft experiment team. Only five of the player positions were ever touched and one was due to a pre-season injury (Erik Johnson) and the other was due to a max games situation where there were simply too many good wingers (Havlat), which is a pretty fantastic problem to have.
Overall, 11 out of 16 of the initial drafted players remained until the very end, which is indicative of a very good draft. Erik Johnson’s injury was tough to take but considering he was the last pick, it was not that bad. Filip Kuba was dropped as the season went on due to injury. Since the other players were doing so well, it was perhaps a bit hastily done, as Kuba ended up returning quickly and continued to produce, but considering his eventual replacement was Sergei Gonchar, it was not a big deal in the end. Also, keep in mind that Kuba was the second to last pick for this team in the draft.
Both drafted centers were dropped as the season went on and were easily replaced by players who ended up producing quite nicely. Langkow and Plekanec were both dropped and their eventual replacements were Backstrom and Zajac, who both had breakout seasons. Backstrom was dropped by another team very early in the season, when both he and AO were in a mini-slump. Patience is underrated in fantasy hockey these days. Zajac was also grabbed as a free agent, as he had a great season centering another breakout young player in Zach Parise. Yet another example of how plentiful good centers are out there and also the fact that getting players who have good linemates, and are on good teams, overall, is a worthwhile strategy.
The first nine picks were all retained. The 10th rounder, Langkow, was the earliest pick to be dropped, which is very good. Replacing a middle-tier player is much better than having to replace a player drafted early. This also proves the strength of the draft going into the season, as they all performed well enough to make it to the end. This draft seems like it was successful in almost every facet. Easily the best draft experiment team and thus probably the best strategy, at least it seems that way on the surface.
There will be a couple more posts, comparing and contrasting the teams against each other and their leagues. The teams themselves will be compared and then the leagues will be compared, as well. Would so and so team have fared better in a different draft experiment league? 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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