Welcome back to the Top 100 Roto.

It will be coming to you mid-month, every month, until the hockey season is over. Not much movement at the top this month and in general things are starting to settle down.

As usual, the Top 100 Roto shows you who is the most valuable, as well as why they are valuable, and if they have gotten lucky. The Roto uses Fantasy Hockey Geek's proprietary formula for evaluating different categories against each other and the Top 100 Roto's category scores and multi-year averages allow for easy and informed evaluation.

Remember, if you do not count one of the categories listed here, just remove it from the calculations since all the category scores add up to the overall score! Without hits, Ovechkin score becomes 138, Crosby's becomes 144, and Malkin's 139, vaulting them past Ovechkin for the top spot.

To see how lucky a player is getting, we look at two things (for both, green is good, it means he should get better as the season goes on):

1.Change in 5-on-5 Shooting Percentage: How different a player's shooting percentage this year (for September, it will be showing last year) is from the average of his last three years. So if a player is usually a 10% shooter, but shot 15% last year, it will say +5 in a red box since his shooting percentage may go back to normal. If you think that their talent level has really changed, or if they are really young, you can disregard this, but most players will eventually regress. Patrick Sharp has still scored zero goals at even strength, but you can expect that to change in time for next month's rankings!

2. PDO: Adding on-ice shooting and save percentages. A PDO of 100 means that when a player is on the ice both goalies are letting in shots at the same rate. If your opponent's goalie is letting in shots at a much higher rate, that could be talent, luck, or both, but in most cases it is just luck. For both PDO and shooting percentage, we are only looking at 5 on 5 stats, so different amounts of powerplay/penalty kill time doesn't change things. Sharp also has the worst PDO of the Top 100, with Chara and Staal not far behind. Remember that next time someone says Chara/Staal have lost a step, or Sharp isn't fitting in Chicago any more.

Each statistic is weighted based on predictability among other things, so Ovechkin's plus-minus doesn't hurt him nearly as much as his goals help him. The Top 100 Roto does not account for scoring differences between wingers and centres, but it does account for the differences in production from a defenseman to a forward: 70 points from Karlsson are worth more than 70 points from Henrik Sedin. A player's total value is obtained from simply adding up his category values. Doing it this way makes it very easy to use the list in any league, simply add up the category values for the ones you have in your pool. Last but certainly not least, the Top 100 Roto takes into account past production as well as Dobber's projections, not just one or the other as is standard for Fantasy Hockey Geek. As the season goes along, the rankings will gradually incorporate current-season production at a higher and higher weight.

The only notable removal this month was Klingberg, whose plus/minus craziness vaulted him prematurely into the rankings. Check in next month, and see if some rookies start to rise up the ranks.

Pick up the Roto Rankings PDF (free) here

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To get valuation specifically customized to your specific league setup, check out the Fantasy Hockey Geek Draft Kit. Fantasy Hockey Geek‘s rankings are customized for your league so you’ll know which players hold the most value to you. It should be noted that the Top-100 Roto is for a specific league setup, and that changing even one scoring category or the distribution between positions will greatly change the value you see here. With FHG, you end up with a set of rankings, built off Dobberhockey’s projections, which fit your league like a glove.

In addition to customizing rankings for your specific league, the power is in the Draft Guru tool which provides real-time advice on what players are the best fit for your evolving team as the draft unfolds so you make the right picks early, get the best late-round steals, and best value out of every pick.  There is simply no better way to get ahead at the draft.

For those of you that like cells more than colors, I am including the XLSX file here.