Sportsnet magazine’s 2015-16 NHL Pool Guide is on newsstands now. It has everything fantasy GMs need to get ready for the upcoming season, no matter the format of your league—rotisserie, head-to-head, keeper, whatever. So don’t delay, go out and get it—and read it, because what you’ll find will give you advantages over your opponents you can’t find in any other publication.
There’s really nothing else you need to be ready ahead of the season. Here’s an example of what we mean:
Context is king. And ultra-specific predictions are the worst kind. Take those two maxims to heart along with the information in this book and you’ll be as prepared as possible for a winning fantasy-hockey season. Allow us to explain.
As you flip through our Pool Guide pages, you’ll notice that it’s stats-heavy in some parts and light on numbers in others. That’s because we shied away from presenting numbers out of context in order to sell you on a player. If we’re high on a guy, we’ll tell you. What we won’t do is falsely inflate a player by cherry-picking statistics.
Raw numbers can be used to sell almost anything. An example: If we were trying to acquire a cheap-but-serviceable defenceman, we might approach our pool’s Marek Zidlicky owner with a lowball offer. “He’s 38,” we’d say, “and his points-per-game dropped by almost 25 percent last season. And he’s a minus-24 over the past few years.”
Presented without any context, though, those are just numbers. Here’s what we’d be hiding: Zidlicky is 38, sure, but he’s missed just one game in the past three seasons and played 84 regular-season games last year thanks to a well-timed trade. His points-per-game average fell, but it was still in line with his career numbers, which are solid. And yeah, he’s a minus—but that minus was earned on bad teams, and it’s also the only thing keeping him out of the select group of a dozen defencemen we’ve identified in the book who contribute a lethal combination of points, hits, blocked shots and power-play numbers.
Obviously Zidlicky’s not Shea Weber—or even Ryan McDonagh—but his stats, in context, are far closer to those guys’ than the price of acquiring him would suggest. Our Market Value section has 19 statistical sorts that take the information you’re likely to be looking at on draft day and in trade offers and place it in the proper light so you can study how it fits into the bigger picture.
As well, there’s still some time before the season begins. Training camp looms. Coaches will experiment. Jobs will be won and lost. Lines will be shuffled. All of that impacts a player’s season, and none of it is settled until opening night. So in our traditional rankings sections, you’ll find a floor and ceiling for each player, and an indicator arrow that tells you if we think they’re headed for the higher end of that range, the lower end, or somewhere in the middle.
It’s an easy guideline to use, and can help you balance your roster. If you’ve gone with non-volatile players in the first few rounds, you might want to mix it up as your draft moves along and shoot for players lower down in the rankings who are more boom or bust—perhaps an Alex Galchenyuk, with a 50-point floor and a 70-point ceiling over a more reliable 55-to-65 point player like Ryan O’Reilly.
Used together, context and roster balance should help you maximize value and minimize risk—and that will lay the foundation for a successful season. The rest is up to you.
Good luck.