Be boring, be smart, win your fantasy hockey league in 2016-17

Watch as Brad Marchand splits the defence to waltz in and score on the Devils.

Flash is fine and dash is dandy, but if you want to have success in your fantasy-hockey league, it’s better to target substance over style. This season, play smart, not sexy. It’s a tough strategy to stick to—the lure of star power can be difficult to ignore—but if fantasy success is all about maximizing value (and it is), then it doesn’t matter where you find it.

A quick example to illustrate the point: One of the top-ranked fantasy hockey players during the 2015–16 campaign was Brad Marchand, perhaps the biggest “love-to-hate” player in the league. There he was, right alongside leading scorers Patrick Kane and Jamie Benn, and perennial Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy winner Alex Ovechkin and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Sidney Crosby.

Depending on which scoring categories you used, Marchand might even have been the top fantasy player in your league. What’s notable here is that the pesky Boston Bruins forward didn’t lead the league in any single statistic. He probably got under the skin of opponents more than any other player, but “annoying” isn’t a fantasy category. Marchand isn’t a huge star. He ranked sixth in the league with 37 goals, which is impressive, but he was 40th in overall scoring. Three of his teammates put up more points than the 61 he registered in his 77 games. What separated Marchand from many of the NHL’s top stars was that he put up respectable numbers in nearly every important category.

G 37 | A 24 | +21 | PIM 90 | S 250 | PPP 8 | SHP 6

Racking up PIM might be detrimental to an NHL club, but if your league counts them, it’s great news for your squad. That’s why Wayne Simmonds was more valuable in fantasy than his Flyers teammate Claude Giroux, even though Giroux had more points.
Marchand and Simmonds are two solid examples of players who help you in more than goals and assists. Success in the peripheral categories—and every league has them, from PIM to shots to power-play and short-handed points—is usually the difference between making the playoffs and winning a championship. Veterans Corey Perry, David Backes, Scott Hartnell and Shane Doan have provided that type of value for the bulk of their careers. They’ve been consistent fantasy contributors and, with the exception of Perry for a couple of seasons, they’ve never come with first- or even second-round price tags. Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri, Boone Jenner and Max Domi appear to be among the next wave of all-around forward threats.

Latch on to the leeches

This one is pretty simple, but it requires you to pay close attention—you need to be the first to add average or underappreciated forwards who play on good lines. For example, if you don’t want to spend a first-round pick on Connor McDavid but want to benefit from his dynamic play, target one of his linemates in a later round. Benoit Pouliot wasn’t playing well with the Oilers, and he was collecting dust on the waiver wire in fantasy. Once he was put alongside McDavid, though, Pouliot added valuable depth and production to fantasy lineups. Similarly, we saw what Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust were able to do playing on lines with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, respectively, en route to a Penguins Stanley Cup victory.

The same goes for blueliners. Shea Weber is always drafted ahead of his former Preds defence partner, Roman Josi, because Weber is the bigger star, yet Josi has put up better numbers and has been the better fantasy option two years running.

If you have one of the top picks, you’re not going to pass on sure things like Ovechkin, Crosby, Benn, Kane or Erik Karlsson just because you think a player like Ryan Johansen might have a breakout campaign. But you won’t land more than one of those studs, while you can likely target several of their linemates.

Be frugal, not flashy

Think of this as a “moneypuck” strategy. It doesn’t matter who produces for you—only that production occurs.

Here’s an example of how star power can be deceiving. Hypothetically, if you drafted a team last year on which your top players at each position were Henrik Sedin (C), Phil Kessel (RW), Henrik Zetterberg (LW), Alex Pietrangelo (D) and Pekka Rinne (G) you would have been thrilled. Five all-stars. Five Olympians.

You know where this is headed. You would have been better off having Evgeny Kuznetsov (C), Justin Williams (RW), Jussi Jokinen (LW), Colton Parayko (D) and Martin Jones (G)—and none of them were ranked in the top 150 prior to the season. They were late-round picks who contributed in multiple categories, played with good players or simply didn’t have the reputation to make them attractive targets.

Williams in particular has been the poster child for “moneypuck” fantasy players for the past decade. The veteran often goes undrafted, yet he’s as consistent as they come. His ceiling is low relative to most stars, sure, but his floor is high. He’ll get you around 20 goals, somewhere between 40 and 60 points and finish with a positive plus-minus. He doesn’t get as many PIM as he used to, but he was second on the Capitals with 201 shots, behind only Ovechkin. In a deep league, players like that are often discarded for the latest hot streak, but at the end of the season they’re usually on a winning roster somewhere.

However, for every GM thrilled about taking a flier on Artemi Panarin last year, there are others still wallowing in misery after gambling on Valeri Nichushkin, Teuvo Teravainen or Cam Talbot. Potential is enticing in fantasy, but it can burn you. Keep it simple. Substance over style. Production over potential. Winning doesn’t have to be sexy.

A LOW-COST, HIGH-UPSIDE SECOND UNIT FOR 2016–17 DRAFTS

Robby Fabbri
With such a strong crop of rookies last season, Fabbri’s stellar performance went largely unnoticed—until the playoffs. Fabbri led all rookies in post-season scoring and tied Vladimir Tarasenko for the team lead in St. Louis with 15 points in 20 games. He has the potential to put up Sean Monahan–type numbers.

Reilly Smith
Following a slight sophomore slump with the Bruins in 2014–15, Smith regained his form in his first season with the Panthers. He’s only missed one game in the past three seasons and put up 25 goals, 25 assists, a plus-19 rating, 31 penalty minutes and 173 shots in 2015–16. He gives you consistency and quality numbers across the board. He’ll also be excellent value considering fellow Panthers Aleksander Barkov, Jaromir Jagr, Aaron Ekblad, Jonathan Huberdeau and perhaps even Nick Bjugstad and Vincent Trocheck will probably be picked before him—and he’ll be skating right alongside them.

Devante Smith-Pelly
No Devil is ever a sexy pick, but someone has to score in New Jersey. Smith-Pelly had more goals and points in 18 games with the Devils than he did in 46 with the Canadiens. The trade-deadline acquisition worked out well, as the winger developed solid chemistry with Adam Henrique, another player who often performs better than his average draft position would suggest.

Mattias Ekholm & Ryan Ellis
P.K. Subban and Josi will get all the attention in Nashville, but Ekholm and Ellis have established themselves as one of the best defensive pairings in the Western Conference. They don’t operate on the top power-play unit, which limits their points potential, but both are trending upward and will be available late in your draft. Each should wind up somewhere in the 40-point range with a positive plus-minus rating.

Petr Mrazek
His name doesn’t carry the same clout as most of his contemporaries, but his numbers from last season—plus what we saw from him in three playoff appearances—show that he is a top-tier netminder. Mrazek finished in the top seven in both save percentage and goals-against average among goalies who played in at least 50 games. If you target established stars like Henrik Lundqvist, Pekka Rinne or Tuukka Rask, you’ll have to take them much earlier than Mrazek—even though he had better numbers than all three last season.

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