First Draft - the Khyber No-look Pass

The Sunday of the draft, I was ready to go. I had crammed for information from websites and podcasts, and was trying not to let my fantasy football and baseball seasons distract from the most important night of the season for this new effort.

I got an email from a guy I’ve played football against for years inviting me to play in his hockey league. This was a complication. First of all, his draft time was only one hour prior to my chosen main league. Second, the stat categories of his league were non-standard, and required trying to figure out a lot more (and dealing with ever less-accurate pre-rank lists) as new categories threw off the “values” I was identifying.

In any event, I figured two leagues might be OK and decided to join up. This league is only 8 teams, head-to-head, with 7 offensive and 5 goalie categories. Now I need to figure some way to get shorthanded points and get goalie shutouts.

When the first draft (my “buddy” league) started, I found my franchise had the first pick. It took me about 0.3 seconds to take this as I sign I would be watching Caps hockey this year. Picks 16/17 saw Marc Savard and Dany Heatley join my squad. This league allows two centers and two LW, so picking Joe Thornton in round four pretty much meant my starters at the two prime scoring spots were wrapped up. Hmm. Maybe I should have held out and got a star at a tougher-to-fill position?

Before I had too much chance to second-guess (draft was whipping by), I took my first goalie, Tim Thomas. Luongo and Brodeur were my targets at the position, but they went half a round earlier. Hope you are right about those Bruins, Puck Prospectus. Next time up, I started filling out my two remaining positions, with Daniel Alfredsson at RW and Nicklas Lidstrom on D.

Puck Prospectus star Tomas Vokoun was still there in round 8 (remember, 8-team league) and Scott Niedermeyer in 9. By this time, I was thinking of filling out my remaining defense and taking a RW when it worked out, then filling out the bench. Sergei Gonchar was sniped right before my next pick, leaving me to grudgingly take Jay Bouwmeester. In my first true leap of faith pick, I picked up Brad Boyes, who I had never heard of. Next came David Krejci, which the websites loved, and Niklas Kronwall, cuz you can never have too much Detroit D.

Around this point, I was getting nervous that my second draft was about to start. I had five more players to take and a utility player and bench to fill out. Mikko Koivu seemed an obvious choice to get some more shots on goal, and I gather there is hope Minnesota’s new offensive attack allows him to break out.

My last four picks had a common theme: Nashville Predators past and present. Since I live near Nashville and they are the team I’ll mostly be watching this year (not to mention most of their players are available really late in this format) it doesn’t seem foolishly homerish to pick some Preds up. Especially when I can bench them when they might kill my plus/minus. Steve Mason (OK, ex-Pred), Ryan Suter, JP Dumont, and Steve Sullivan combined to give me one bench player at every position. The last couple of picks were made as my second draft was starting in another window.

One down, and I hope the team doesn’t stink. With the weekly head-to-head format, and the shallow bench, I guess no matter what happens, I have a fighting chance of fixing it during the season.