Just so you know, it’s early Sunday night and my teams need Seth Jarvis to have his breakout season, tonight. Seriously.
This one should take about 3-5 minutes. You can do this.
O.k, then.
Was that like the longest, most disjointed seven days ever?! And the entire time, I’m picturing Nate calmly helming the bridge with his spreadsheets, surrounded by computer monitors while I’m spinning around in my own mind trying to…Damn it Jim. I’m a doctor!
Thankfully the combined mantras of the gurus here at Apples and Ginos helped this (no) hair on fire guy put things in fantasy hockey perspective. I mean, I went to bed with a lead…What the heck.
Ideas like don’t blow up your team in the first week, identify your weakest link to establish potential streamer spots, and it’s a marathon not a sprint were all common themes I heard from my collective therapists.
Been saying this for the past year: if you really want to succeed in your respective leagues, you need to subscribe to and listen to the Apples and Ginos Podcast. Nate, Blake, Hutch, and Binsky do all of the hard work for us. Use their insights and analytics to help guide your decision making.
Two things with this first week’s article:
- Super brief look back at my draft and,
- An even briefer look back on Week 1.
Being a General Manager in the Apples and Gino’s Listener League 2 is no joke.
I learned this fairly quickly in the draft.
The league settings:
I drafted at the 6th Position and the results were:
Comments on My Draft Strategy:
By the time you read this, the fantasy hockey season will be well underway. And I’m not going to go through my picks and analyze them because you probably aren’t really all that interested. That’s fine. I get it. Nonetheless, I thought the following observations might serve you well:
- As mentioned in my last article, I knew my draft position going into the draft (6th out of 12 teams) and conducted approximately 347 mock drafts in preparation. But as I learned training to run a marathon two lives ago, nothing can suitably prepare you for the actuality. The Professor had to dig down deep to bust out these moves ‘cuz, You’ve got to use your imagination…
- Fluidity is the key especially when up against mongo savvy fantasy hockey general managers. Even the best laid plans have to be adjusted on the fly. I sort of employed Zero-G by grabbing Saros early and then picking up Korp and Veggie toward the back end. I didn’t want to get left holding the bag and noticed that a lot of goalies were going early-ish. I also felt that if I couldn’t get one or two of the top D-men around value, I’d fade defense. And that’s what happened to a degree.
- Adopting a best player available strategy can be unnerving especially if it means you’re drafting centers with your first two picks. I wasn’t crazy about drafting two centers that early but talked myself off the ledge because Hughes is dual eligible (plus it’s the whole “Let’s Go Devils” thing) and Petterson was what I believed to be the next best player available with my second pick.
- All in all, I was a bit disappointed with the team, especially right after the draft. After a few days of not so quiet contemplation, I came to appreciate that this was my first “deep” draft in the call of the wild. No auto-drafting here folks. Anyway, upon further reflection (and a decent night’s sleep), I’ve come to terms with my draft choices and think I have as good a team as any other.
Week One Thoughts:
- I listened to every episode of the Apples and Ginos Podcast for streaming ideas. You love to see and hear it. Have you checked out the YouTube Channel? Well you need to.
- I employed The Professor’s First Principle: Roster Maximization. In the A&G Listener League 2, the scoring margins are so tight that every little bit helps. I ended up with one more game played than my opponent and never had a night where I had any players on my bench which is the bane of my fantasy hockey existence, btw.
- Half way through the week I remembered The Professor’s Second Principle: Always start your best players REGARDLESS OF MATCHUP. I agonize whenever I’m trying to decide on who to start and who to sit if I have players on my bench. If I can’t avoid having players on my bench, I always default into starting the better player. Not as easy as it sounds however.
- And with all of that, I was also reminded of the adage that you cannot make chicken salad out of chicken gizzards. Because no matter what, if your players don’t perform, it doesn’t matter…unless you had Frank Vatrano with the hat trick late Sunday night on your Week 1 bingo card.
Anyway, it’s a marathon not a sprint right?
Thanks for reading.
Mike@TheFantasyHockeyProfessor
Apples and Ginos 