Twitter: @Nichols_NHLPool/ Email: chris.nichols@sportsnet.rogers.com
The twitter feed has timely NHL & fantasy info with a few funnies along the way. Inane babble is generally kept to a minimum and known starting goalies will be posted leading up to the first games of the night, where possible.
Live NHL recaps run every game night, seven evenings a week. The start time is generally around 7pm et, depending on the schedule. Log on for fresh line combos, defensive pairings, power play times, analysis, statistical trends and more from each and every game. Refresh the recap page while the games are on to see new info as it gets added.
Hockey Hearsay runs each weekday, providing you with a mix of stories, quotes and more from around the hockey world. You can also submit your fantasy hockey question for a Hockey Hearsay blog via email. One per person, please and include your first name and hometown to represent!
PROSPECTING FOR GOLD
The past two Hockey Hearsay blogs have been dedicated to exploring issues that you'll want to address if you're building a fantasy hockey keeper league from the ground up.
We've covered issues like ownership/ commissioners, league parity, scoring categories and trades.
If you truly want to take your keeper experience to a new level though, you should consider adding some sort of farm system to incorporate prospects. The only limit to that aspect of a league is your imagination, really, since you can form any sort of hybrid system you want that fits your particular group of owners.
The basic premise of rolling a farm system into your league is so that owners can add prospects that aren't necessarily ready to contribute at the moment, but that will have a chance to do so down the line. Ideally, you're going to want to add some sort of entry draft each summer to allow the bottom teams the first chance at adding the elite players. More on that further down.
Before you even think about how many farmers you'd want to allow per franchise, think about which criteria you'll use for owners to add one to his system in the first place. My league, as an example, has a rule loosely based around Calder Trophy eligibility. We're free to add any non-draft-eligible player (so either once they're picked/signed by an NHL team or once they've run out of draft-eligible years and would then be free to sign with any NHL team) up until the point where he has played his 25th career NHL game. If he has already played 25 games, he'd have to be added to the active roster and would be subject to the same rules as any free agent addition. He'd then have to be protected on an owner's active list each summer, instead of being farm-protected.
So while we can't go out today and add Adam Larsson before he becomes Edmonton Oilers' property, we can add any of the recent influx of NHL college signees or the Europeans who could sign with NHL clubs.
On the other end of the spectrum from the 25 games or fewer rule: Our farmers have to be either called up permanently or dropped outright by the time they've played their 246th game (forwards), 328th game (defencemen) or 200th game (goaltenders, using GP and not starts).
Where did we get those limits? We figured three NHL seasons was a fair enough number to allow a forward to develop, while four was close enough for a blueliner and 200 GP for a goalie seemed like enough time to get his feet wet and then some. Again, you can choose numbers that best fit what you're trying to accomplish.
The big question, if you decide to take the plunge: How many farmers would you like to have for each franchise?
The more players that are covered, the more important an owner's scouting acumen. If you're talking about only a handful of prospects per team, then you're basically only looking at the big names and pretty much everyone can figure out who'll be an impact player.
We're allowed to own up to 40 prospects per team in addition to our 17 active keepers. So even though not every owner has all 40 slots filled at all times, we basically account for 570 NHL properties on some level. That allows for some real gambles and/or hunches and it's actually really fun to watch guys you spotted several years back finally hit the NHL and do something positive.
HOW FARM SYSTEMS CAN IMPACT TRADES
As intimated in the trade section of this blog series, farm systems add an entirely new dimension to deals.
Just to give you a quick example of some deals involving farmers I've executed for my team this season alone:
I gave up Jarome Iginla, who'll turn 34 this summer, for a guy I feel will be an impact player in the NHL several years down the line: Brett Connolly with Tampa Bay. We're talking about a proven stud for a guy who hasn't played a game in the bigs yet, which can be a scary proposition. Couple that with the fact that I'm a contending team each year and there's some definite risk. But it became apparent early on this season that too many factors were working against my roster for me to win this year, so do I go forward with a 34-year old star or cash in now to land a guy I think can be a star for the next decade on a team with a bright future in Tampa Bay?
A week later I landed another piece of the Lightning's future by securing Victor Hedman, whom I think will take that next step in his offensive development next season, by giving up assist-machine Tobias Enstrom. Enstrom is only 26, but my hope is that Hedman's points will eventually catch up and he'll add more of a PIM dimension to my team. In general, I'm also just really optimistic about TB's future under Steve Yzerman and I think potential studs like Hedman and Connolly will benefit from that scenario.
Also, at one point I thought I wanted a third starting goalie on my team to complement Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Brodeur. So I packaged a first round pick in 2012 (meaning an entry draft pick that summer of no worse than 10th overall) along with Marc-Andre Gragnani (the blueliner has been tearing up the AHL and has recently been called up to the Sabres, where he's doing well) for Niklas Backstrom of the Wild. What I quickly remembered is that with only 164 goalie starts available per season, I absolutely HATE having to pick and choose starts for my goalies. I'm much more of the mind that you just put your studs in and what happens, happens.
So, knowing I have depth like Braden Holtby (FA addition years ago), Anders Lindback (acquired this season for Jonathon Blum) and Robin Lehner (traded for him a few years ago) among others, I then flipped Backstrom to a team that was decimated by its goaltending this season to get Henrik Zetterberg.
Now, assuming good health, I'll have every forward slot accounted for next season with no need for any of my prospects to deliver immediately.
HOW SHOULD YOUR FARM SYSTEM LOOK?
Headed into this season, we made a tweak to our minors layout and we have all 40 farmers per team in one location. They're available for call-up whenever an owner wants and, as long as they haven't passed their limits, they can be sent down at any point as well.
Prior to this season (and I'll go into detail here in case this is something you want to try), we had chosen to have our farm system split up into two sections: AHL and junior.
The names are misleading because they have nothing to do with having strictly AHL or junior players on one or the other. We basically had it set up where players on our AHL teams (regardless of where they actually play in real life) could be shuttled up and down from that team to the active roster any time... much like a real AHL team serves its purpose for the parent club.
Players on our junior team (again, regardless of where they play in real life) were basically locked out of the active roster until the off-season, when they could be promoted to the AHL team. We did allow for a brief trial period of a junior player, which was based loosely on the 10-game experimentation NHL teams are allowed each season before having to decide to keep a junior player up with the big club or not.
If you're interested in implementing something similar in your league, here was the exact wording of our rules to give you an idea of the movement between the active roster, AHL and junior teams:
"Promotions:
AHL roster >>> active roster: call up as often as you see fit.
Junior roster >>> AHL roster: off-season only.
Junior roster >>> active roster: pre-season to 11:59 p.m. (Pacific) on October 31st and only once per player, per season.
Demotions:
Active roster >>> AHL roster: send down as often as you see fit.
AHL roster >>> junior roster: never. Once a player has been promoted from junior, he can't go back.
Active roster >>> junior roster: can only happen once each season between the time they're called up to active roster and October 31st. If you give a kid a try on the active roster and he's not quite ready for the show, you have one chance within those dates to send him down and give him some more seasoning until next year.
*** Junior player note: juniors still on the active roster as of November 1st have officially lost their junior eligibility and can never be sent back down to juniors. If you drop them in-season, post-November 1st for any reason aside from IR eligibility, they are free for any owner to claim via waivers and the player would then be subject to the same rules as if that was the new owner's junior player on the active roster post-November 1st. This means his new owner would have to create a spot on his junior team for him immediately, even though that player could not be sent back down to juniors.
If you keep a junior player on your active roster for the season he will continue to occupy a slot on your junior team during that season. At the conclusion of the regular season, you may clear a space on your AHL team for that junior player and demote him from the active roster to the AHL roster. Otherwise, he'll have to be included on your active roster keeper list."
BUILDING THROUGH THE DRAFT
Remember that the point of any sort of farm system is so that you can let the weaker teams have a crack at the hotshot, can't-miss prospects so they can rebuild their team via the draft. Like the Detroit Red Wings, savvy fantasy owners who finish in the top of the league each season can still find golden nuggets by having a good drafting program in place.
In our league, we have (at least) a two-round draft each summer beginning on the same weekend as the actual NHL draft. The past few years in particular have see increased interest in prospects, so we've even had the draft extend into the fourth and fifth rounds. Since there are 10 teams in our league, we have it set up where the 10th place team through the first place squad pick in that order in the first round and that's repeated in the second round. We do have a lottery system of sorts in place to prevent intentional tanking.
We're allowed to trade those draft picks, which adds an element of fun and creativity to trading overall. Although I value having a draft pick, I've honestly pretty much treated my draft picks like candy - giving them out pretty much every single season to land a key piece in an effort to help add another title to my collection.
While I won't win this season, I still have four championships in eight campaigns and this year will also be my third second-place finish. Seven of eight top-two finishes? I'll live with having dealt away virtually every significant draft pick and a host of blue chip prospects. Franchises have to pay a price to win and thanks to some age shaving around the edges this season, my team still had a core of incredible youth and you can be damn sure I'll be back with a vengeance next season.
But if you're not already involved in a keeper league, you can see how all of these elements we've discussed in the past few blogs can really add an entirely new feel to playing fantasy hockey. Even when you're out of a race any given season, there's still a lot of work you can do as an owner to make sure you're back in the thick of things as soon as possible, which helps keep a higher interest level leaguewide year-round.
If you have any questions about a certain aspect I've described or you have some ideas of your own you want to run by me, my contact info is at the top of every blog and I'd be happy to discuss it in a future reader question section of HH.
