Yesterday, I took part in my first of many hockey pool drafts for the 05/06 season and besides having the last pick in a field of 11 people, I have to say I did a-okay. For this particular pool, there must be 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 2 goaltenders on one team. Forwards and defencemen get 2 points per goal and 1 point per assist. Defencemen get an additional point for their +/- rating. Goaltenders get 2 points per win, 1 point per tie (shootout loss I'm guessing) and 5 points for a shutout (which may be a rarity in the upcoming offensive-minded season).
Here's my team:
Forwards
Todd Bertuzzi, VAN
Joe Sakic, COL
Jason Spezza, OTT
Peter Bondra, ATL
Alexei Kovalev, MON
Alexander Mogilny, NJ
Mike Modano, DAL
Defencemen
Rob Blake, COL
Tomas Kaberle, TOR
Marc-Andre Bergeron, EDM
Goaltenders
David Aebischer, COL
Jean-Sebastian Giguere, ANA
I went pretty hardcore and took stats from the last 3 years for about 200 players and ranked them based on the point scheme. The funny thing is I didn't pick from the list according to the ranking. Instead, I used a little bit of intuition to make my picks. I tried picking goalies from teams that will top the same conference. And I tried to pick d-men that were from the same conference (same team would be priority) since +/- will help. Then I tried picking forwards from the other conference (if they're from the same conference, I tried sticking to the same teams as the goalies/d-men). The reason being is that they won't affect the goalies/d-men from the other conference as much and hence a better chance at obtaining more points. That's what I figure. Hopefully, it works out.
How do you guys make your picks?
