Monday night, Dobber passed up the opportunity to participate in the Y! Friends and Family draft, so I had the privilege in taking Dobber's spot in the league. I'll recap the draft along with my overall thoughts about how the draft went round-by-round and hopefully take on some opinions as to what you think I can do to better represent our DobberNation community. WARNING: This is quite a long read, so if you just want to view the team just fast forward to the last page of the column.

Settings

12- team Rotisserie

G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SOG, W, GAA, SV% and SO

3 C, 3 LW, 3 RW, 5 D, 2 G, 4 BN and 1 IR slot

http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/friendsandfamily07

Participants  in draft order

Matt Buser (busersports.com)

DobberHockey (yours truly)

Rotowire (Mike McLarney)

Fantasy Hockey Cafe (Tony)

Rotowire (Maingot)

NHL.com (Rocky)

Y! (Pianowski)

McKeen's (KatsHockey)

Rotowire (Eagleson)

Fantasyhockey.com (IG)

Y! (Romig)

Y! (Behrens)

First Round

1. Alex Ovechkin (Buser)
2. Evgeni Malkin (Ma)
3. Sidney Crosby (McLarney)
4. Ilya Kovalchuk (Tony)
5. Roberto Luongo (Maingot)
6. Martin Brodeur (Rocky)
7. Evgeni Nabokov (Pianowski)
8. Dany Heatley (McKeen's)
9. Corey Perry (Eagleson)
10. Ryan Getzlaf (IG)
11. Joe Thornton (Romig)
12. Jeff Carter (Behrens)

My Pick: Malkin, pretty much no brainer here. I initially wanted a later spot on the draft to get set up with goalies, but with the amount of goalies flying off the boards in the first round I wouldn't have landed the combo that I would have wanted anyways, so I'm pretty content with Malkin.

Value Pick: Nothing out of the ordinary here as you would suspect with the first round in an Expert's draft.

Questionable Pick: The only questionable one that I would make is Carter going at 12, he's not a bad option by any means, but just someone I wouldn't have picked if I had the 12^th overall pick.

Second Round

13. Tim Thomas (Behrens)
14. Nik Backstrom (Romig)
15. Jarome Iginla (IG)
16. Miikka Kiprusoff (Eagleson)
17. M.A. Fleury (McKeen's)
18. Mike Green (Pianowski)
19. Alex Semin (Rocky)
20. Zack Parise (Maingot)
21. Patrick Kane (Tony)
22. Rick Nash (McLarney)
23. Steve Mason (Ma)
24. Pavel Datsyuk (Buser)

My Pick: Mason, heading into the draft I wanted to establish my goalies early, with six goalies gone before my second pick, it was a no-brainer for me to pick up the best goalie available. With 40 percent of our stats dedicated to two goalie spots, I had to take the statistically best goalie, which was Mason.

Value Pick: Once again nothing much out of the ordinary, Pianowski already had Nabby, so he added another top-tiered player in Mike Green, which was a steal at 18, to his squad. Parise was also a bit of a surprise considering he's ranked fourth overall according to Yahoo rankings, but fell 20^th overall. 

Questionable Pick: Nothing really questionable in this round, a lot of the Yahoo Crew commented that Thomas is going to experience a dip in numbers and at 13 it was a bit high for him.

Third Round

25. Dion Phaneuf (Buser)
26. Henrik Lundqvist (Ma)
27. Daniel Sedin (McLarney)
28. Thomas Vanek (Tony)
29. Nicklas Backstrom (Maingot)
30. Dan Boyle (Rocky)
31. Henrik Zetterberg (Pianowski)
32. Vinny Lecavalier (McKeen's)
33. Simon Gagne (Eagleson)
34. Cam Ward (IG)
35. Mike Cammalleri (Romig)
36. Tomas Vokoun (Behrens)

My Pick: Lundy, following along my strategy heading into the draft. I wanted to cement goalie stats early, and did so with a combo of Lundy/Mason.

Value Pick: If Lecavalier can get back towards the century plateau, he could be a great steal at 32. Vanek probably might not have survived till the next round, so even though it was a bit of a reach, it made sense for Tony.

Questionable Pick: A few questionable picks in this round as there were a few reaches. Gagne's injury history doesn't bode well for this season, so the Eagle snatching him at 33 is a bit of a reach. Vokoun, over Miller and Turco could be called questionable, considering his inconsistent play in the last few seasons.

Fourth Round

37. Jonathan Toews (Behrens)
38. Ryan Miller (Romig)
39. Mike Richards (IG)
40. Zdeno Chara (Eagleson)
41. Scott Hartnell (McKeen's)
42. Patrick Marleau (Pianowski)
43. Shea Weber (Rocky)
44. Martin St. Louis (Maingot)
45. Chris Pronger (Tony)
46. Niklas Lidstrom (McLarney)
47. Jason Spezza (Ma)
48. Eric Staal (Buser)

My Pick: Spezza, I don't like drafting centers early because there's always a plethora of quality centers available late in fantasy drafts, but I just couldn't pass up Spez. He's still top-dog in Ottawa, although losing Heatley hurts, he still has plenty of offensive potential to hit 90 points this season. Also with a combo of Malkin/Spez I should be firmly set for centers moving forward.

Value Pick: Staal, I debated between Spezza and Staal for about five minutes before my pick. I went with Spez, but Staal could easily out produce Spez this season by being alongside Erik Cole full-time.

Questionable Pick: LW was running very thin early, but I thought Hartnell at 41 is a reach, especially before Marleau and my pick in the seventh round.  Don't get me wrong he's a great across-the-board producer, but at 41 too much of a reach for me.

Fifth Round

49. Johan Franzen (Buser)
50. Patrik Elias (Ma)
51. Henrik Sedin (McLarney)
52. Marc Savard (Tony)
53. Shane Doan (Maingot)
54. Devin Setoguchi (Rocky)
55. Marian Gaborik (Pianowski)
56. Sergei Gonchar (McKeen's)
57. Scott Niedermayer (Eagleson)
58. Marty Turco (IG)
59. Bobby Ryan (Romig)
60. Sheldon Souray (Behrens)

My Pick: Elias, after watching all the LW drop like flies, I had to do something to make up ground, so I took a chance on Elias. I quickly popped on the Rotoworld.com, and found the latest news on Elias, which was that he's only out till mid-October, which would really only set his production back just a few points. That plus the league is Roto, which counts production/game over a course of the year, so if he stumbles out of the blocks I could just utilize one of my bench players while keeping Elias benched until he heats up again.

Value Pick: Savard was ranked ninth overall in Yahoo settings last year but fell to 52^nd in our draft. Losing Kessel hurts, but he's still one of the most under rated passers in the game.  Gonchar has also flown under the radar in many drafts this season, I thought I probably could have waited another round to snag him, but was beaten to the line by Kat from McKeen's.

Questionable Pick: No big questionable picks in this round. I'm not a big fan of Ryan as you all know, so if I had the 59^th pick I would have passed on Ryan.

Sixth Round

61. Jason Blake (Behrens)
62. Brian Campbell (Romig)
63. Andrei Markov (IG)
64. Carey Price (Eagleson)
65. Daniel Alfredsson (McKeen's)
66. Cristobal Huet (Pianowski)
67. Jonas Hiller (Rocky)
68. Brian Rafalski (Maingot)
69. Pekka Rinne (Tony)
70. Semyon Varlamov (McLarney)
71. Mark Streit (Ma)
72. Nikolai Khabibulin (Buser)

My Pick: Streit, similar with LW earlier in the draft, I fell behind compared to the rest of the competition, so I had to make up for it. Streit was the only remaining potential 60-point D available, so I plucked him up.

Value Pick: Rafalski, I had him queued up right before Maingot snatched him up three picks before mine. He'll put up a great across-the-board performance this season.

Questionable Pick: Nothing really majorly questionable this round. My pick was sandwiched between four goalie picks all of which could be considered marginally questionable. Rinne hasn't had a great pre-season, Varly has big competition with Theodore and Khabibulin is nowhere near safe street in Edmonton.

Seventh Round

73. Chris Mason (Buser)
74. Brendan Morrow (Ma)
75. Martin Havlat (McLarney)
76. Ray Emery (Tony)
77. Chris Osgood (Maingot)
78. Paul Stastny (Rocky)
79. Brad Boyes (Pianowski)
80. Tomas Kaberle (McKeen's)
81. Alex Burrows (Eagleson)
82. Alex Kovalev (IG)
83. Olli Jokinen (Romig)
84. Duncan Keith (Behrens)

My Pick: Morrow, quality LWers were getting desperately thin, so I figured I might as well pull out the trump card early. I probably could have gotten away waiting another round, but thought about my left over alternatives in David Booth and Ray Whitney and thought better of it.

Value Pick: Emery, there are a lot of doubters out there on Emery, but he'll be solid.

Questionable Pick: Burrows this early was really questionable. With the way Sergei Shirokov has been playing with the Sedins in the pre-season, it looks like Burrows will be dropped down to the second line.