Draftitng today

[flubber]

12 teams--- Cats are goals assists plus minus PIMS PPP SHP HIts and GS W GAA SV% and SHO

So its only 7-5 stats split so goalies are key. UNfortunately its a keeper and I had no shot at the top goalies when I took over this team last year .. and still dont. My keepers are S Weber, H Sedin and K Lehtonen. Trades last year have given me one additional pick in rd 7 ( round 4 of the actual draft) and 2 additional in rd 8. Note we are changing the league over time in that we will have 3 keeper players this season, 4 the year that follows and 5 the year after that

Roster is C, C, C, W, W, W, W, W, W, D, D, D, D, D, D, Util, Util, Util, G, G, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, IR, IR -- The 3 utility slots make position pretty meaningless IMHO

Top available skaters include
Parise(Min - W) Ilya Kovalchuk (NJ - W) James Neal (Pit - W)
Eric Staal (Car - C) Taylor Hall Edm - W) Milan Lucic (Bos - W)
Jordan Eberle (Edm - W) Jarome Iginla (Cgy - W) Patrick Kane Chi - C,W)
Gabriel Landeskog (Col - W) Nicklas Backstrom (Was - C) Patrick Marleau (SJ - C,W)
Brad Richards (NYR - C) Martin St. Louis (TB - W)
Jeff Skinner (Car - C,W) Mike Richards (LA - C,W) Dustin Byfuglien (Wpg - W,D) Thomas Vanek (Buf - W)
Zdeno Chara (Bos - D) Logan Couture (SJ - C,W) Loui Eriksson (Dal - W)
Marian Hossa (Chi - W) Joe Thornton (SJ - C) Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Edm - C) Brian Campbell

Top available goalies include


Halak , Mike Smith Braden Holtby (Was - G) Miller (Buf - G) Roberto Luongo Van - Craig Anderson (Ott - G) Martin Brodeur (NJ - G) Devan Dubnyk (Edm - G) Brian Elliott (StL - G) Miikka Kiprusoff (Cgy - G) Niklas Backstrom (Min - G) Semyon Varlamov (Col - G) Ondrej Pavelec (Wpg - G) Jacob Markstrom (Fla - G) Antti Niemi (SJ - G) Crawford (Chi - G) Evgeni Nabokov
Josh Harding Min - G) Anders Lindback TB - G) Sergei Bobrovsky (Cls - G) Jose

etc etc

I was thinking my initial targets would be MIller Neal Lucic or Niemi for my first pick-- probably in that order.. what fo you thinkÉ I draft fourth.

With 8 picks in the first 5 rounds of drafting I plan to pick two goalies and hihghlight hitting tough forwards that score. Whyen PIMS and Hits are two of your seven offensive categories that makes sense to me

[Rocketman9]

Your strategy seems sound to me, I would do the same

[flubber]

Any thoughts on my top 4

I am actually thinking Miller, Neal, Lucic Callahan now-- Basically I want Miller and if I cannot get him picking 4th ( i assess 75% chance of the other 3 drafting before me grab him, then I get really ambivalent as to whether I get Backstrom, Kipper, Niemi, smith , varlamov etc etc-- One guy already kept 3 goalies and a few folks kept 2 so I figure they have to be going for skaters and some reasonable goaltending (one of these 6 ) will be available in round 5

[Mike]

Any thoughts on my top 4

I am actually thinking Miller, Neal, Lucic Callahan now-- Basically I want Miller and if I cannot get him picking 4th ( i assess 75% chance of the other 3 drafting before me grab him, then I get really ambivalent as to whether I get Backstrom, Kipper, Niemi, smith , varlamov etc etc-- One guy already kept 3 goalies and a few folks kept 2 so I figure they have to be going for skaters and some reasonable goaltending (one of these 6 ) will be available in round 5

The GS category would make me less inclined to target a Backstrom/Varlamov type guy since their backups will leech some of their starts (Miller might also suffer from this to some extent). I would think a Niemi/Kiprusoff type guy will bring you solid GS numbers with the former also contributing to solid W/SV% numbers.

If you think Niemi would fall to your 2nd round pick, then I'd go Neal first and Niemi second.

[Rocketman9]

I would swap Cally for Chara

[flubber]

Draft is over -- How did I do

I got Miller in round 4 and felt I could not pass him by ( remember the first 3 were keeper players not draft picks really ). Then my other choices were gone (including Niemi and Chara) so I took a gamble and took Couture instead of Callahan in rd 5 and then was happy Callahan was avaialable in rd 6 . I went Varly for my 3rd goalie as pickings were getting slim. My big disappointment was missing out on Pietrangelo but I still like my d of

Weber-Doughty
Green-Carle
Leddy-Staal

I have way more good shorty guys and hitters than I expected even after I deweighted PIMS, HITs and SHP by 80%. I will talk more about that in the draft kit section



1. (9) Henrik Sedin (Van - C)
2. (16) Shea Weber (Nsh - D)
3. (33) Kari Lehtonen (Dal - G)
4. (40) Ryan Miller (Buf - G)
5. (57) Logan Couture (SJ - C,W)
6. (64) Ryan Callahan (NYR - W)
7. (77) Evander Kane (Wpg - W)
8. (81) Jamie Benn (Dal - C,W)
9. (88) Semyon Varlamov (Col - G)
10. (92) Steve Ott (Buf - C,W)
11. (93) Brad Marchand (Bos - C,W)
12. (105) Drew Doughty (LA - D)
13. (112) Mikko Koivu (Min - C)
14. (136) Adam Henrique (NJ - C)
15. (139) Mike Green (Was - D)
16. (149) Matt Carle (TB - D)
17. (160) Tomas Plekanec (Mon - C)
18. (184) Matt Read (Phi - W)
19. (208) Matt Martin (NYI - W)
20. (213) Nick Leddy (Chi - D)
21. (225) Cody Hodgson (Buf - C,W)
22. (232) Ryan O'Reilly (Col - C)
23. (249) Andrew Shaw (Chi - C)
24. (256) Guillaume Latendresse (Ott - W)
25. (280) Marc Staal (NYR - D

[Tim]

I would've taken Niemi or Luongo before Miller but that's just me. I'm in that group that believes Miller is pretty overrated and his stats aren't much better than the league average. The draft turned out solid for you either way.

[flubber]

I would've taken Niemi or Luongo before Miller but that's just me. I'm in that group that believes Miller is pretty overrated and his stats aren't much better than the league average. The draft turned out solid for you either way.

Luongo is a risk. I wanted starts and Luongo is a question mark for those unless he gets traded to Toronto or something ( I think the Florida teams are a no go as Tampa signed Lindback and Florida is seeing Markstrom as "the guy " and are unlikely to take on a long term Luongo commitment .

Niemi would be a good choice and I could have and maybe should have gone in that direction. But for whatever reason, MIller usually carries the " elite " tag in more pundits eyes than Niemi so could attract better trade value if I want to go that way. ( I was half thinking of seeing if there might be a Miller fan that might overpay a bit for him..... ) Also after a somewhat shaky start, I recall Miller's number's later in the season being more stellar and I am hoping that that is the Miller I see this season. I have Miller in my keep 12 league and I hated him in the early season but he was pretty great down the stretch.

[Tim]

Luongo is a risk. I wanted starts and Luongo is a question mark for those unless he gets traded to Toronto or something ( I think the Florida teams are a no go as Tampa signed Lindback and Florida is seeing Markstrom as "the guy " and are unlikely to take on a long term Luongo commitment .

Niemi would be a good choice and I could have and maybe should have gone in that direction. But for whatever reason, MIller usually carries the " elite " tag in more pundits eyes than Niemi so could attract better trade value if I want to go that way. ( I was half thinking of seeing if there might be a Miller fan that might overpay a bit for him..... ) Also after a somewhat shaky start, I recall Miller's number's later in the season being more stellar and I am hoping that that is the Miller I see this season. I have Miller in my keep 12 league and I hated him in the early season but he was pretty great down the stretch.

With what's happened in Vancouver, I just don't see any way Luongo isn't traded.

[flubber]

With what's happened in Vancouver, I just don't see any way Luongo isn't traded.

I agree that van will want to trade Luongo. I just am not sure who the buyer is when the contract has 10 years left, some big money in the next couple of years and Lou has not been a clutch guy in the playoffs..... Both Florida teams seem not to be a match unless lindbeck flops in Tampa. Florida has Theodore playing well enough until Markstrom has his chance.

I can't see Columbus spending the money etc etc..... Toronto seems an option though