So far in this weekly space, I’ve been aiming to help out fantasy hockey players who might lean more casual or intermediate. The debut bit is the easiest example, as it’s basically a guide to being reasonably competitive without putting in a lot of work.
The painful truth is that the devil is often in the details with fantasy hockey.
Now, sure, you can burn yourself by getting too deep in the muck.
Sometimes tinkering to an extreme might prompt you to accept a bad trade because you feel burned by Brent Burns, or maybe you’d drop a guy worth keeping because you’re trying to grind out every rotisserie point or head-to-head battle.
There might be some wisdom to taking a zen approach, but what if you want a mix? And what if you’re an intermediate type who wants to ratchet the intensity up a level or two? This post aims to share a few tools that could help you if you feel the urge to push a little harder.
Naturally, the Internet is a cornucopia of different options, so this is an especially strong case of speaking up in the comments section regarding your own suggestions (just don’t let your league opponents see it). If the responses between that, email, and Twitter replies end up being robust, perhaps we’ll even follow up on this in the future with another set of tools.
Anyway, while this isn’t comprehensive, here are a few things that might help you get an edge. Some are pretty simple, others might be new to even the more obsessive out there.
Drop down, climb up
Apologies to ESPN fantasy owners, as I haven’t been in one of those leagues in a few years, but I’d imagine that their tools boast some similarities.
In this specific instance, allow me to shout out Yahoo’s drop-down categories, which you can peruse by clicking on “Players.”
There’s a lot of jelly in these donuts, and it seems to me that the information becomes more robust with each year. The best stuff can be found under “Stats.” One category that’s either new or I hadn’t previously noticed is “opponents,” which lists each player’s schedule for the next two weeks. If you want to get really granular with things, or you’re in a league where it makes extra sense to live week-to-week, at least with your fringe players, that opponents tool could be your buddy.
Over the years, I’ve really found some value in cutting the season into chunks to identify who’s on a hot streak, who’s cold, and sometimes which players might be getting a boost in ice time.
Yahoo gives you the option to sort by “Last 7 days” and “Last 14 days,” which could be useful in cases of injuries and so on. Personally, the 30-day option probably gives you the best sample size, and this becomes increasingly useful as you get deeper into the season. Maybe an AHL call-up is quietly gaining more confidence with his coach? Perhaps an early-season cold streak obscures a talent who’s regained their status?
Recency bias can be an issue whenever you’re parsing through results, but here’s the thing: coaches suffer from recency bias, so you might as well see who might be the apple of their eye, even if it’s a flavor of the month thing.
Some references
It’s a great idea to gather “cheat sheets” for drafts, but quick references are helpful during the season, too.
Rotoworld NHL boasts a slew of great features, but allow me to single out Michael Finewax’s Week Ahead feature. It’s like the “opponents” bit from the above section, only Finewax goes deep to provide more context on each team.
Daily Doses are great too, yet another gem is Rotoworld’s injuries page. It might be the best single-page source for injuries, if you’re in a hurry or just want to look at the league as a whole from a health standpoint.
Now, there are some references that come down to habit or preference, as a lot of sites provide options along these lines.
For what it’s worth, I often go to Goalie Post for starting goalies, but feel free to share your preferences in the comments, as many sites provide their own updates.
Along similar lines, Left Wing Lock is a handy guide for line combinations, as they share regular, timely updates. They also provide tools to check power-play units and you can go back and see which line combinations were most common during the season and other stretches. Such considerations might help you identify a forward who has higher odds to stick with high-level linemates versus a guy who merely is getting a fleeting audition.
This is more esoteric, but NHL.com’s team power play stats can be a quick way to sort which teams have played a lopsided amount of home games (sort by “Home GP”) and the same with road (sort by “Road GP”). If you need a tie-breaking mechanism when pondering an add/drop, it might come down to which player’s team has more home games remaining.
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Again, many thing in the “references” section come down to personal taste, as many sites provide robust options if you want to geek out to get the most information possible.
If you really want to spelunk in that fashion, just tinker in ways that you can stand/entertain you. I’m not the type to drum up a spreadsheet unless it’s for work, but if you are, then have at it.
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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.
