Do we now need to account for players who may be resting injuries before the playoffs?

As promised, I’m back with a second column to help you best prepare for the 2017-18 fantasy season. Building on tips from the Part 1 column, the focus is now on the home stretch: the four remaining weeks until the start of 2017-18. Before I go any farther, if anyone reading this still has somehow not purchased the DobberHockey 2017-18 Fantasy Guide (available here and updated right up until the puck drops on 2017-18), stop right here, buy it, then come back after you finished the download.

Also as a reminder, these tips are mostly geared toward non-keeper leagues, since keepers not only can vary significantly in terms of how many players are kept, whether they’re a dynasty league, etc., but also with regard to when keepers are (or already were) due. Yet as was the case with my Part 1 column, I think there will be useful information for everyone, so be sure to read on.

Revisiting Part One, and What’s Covered Here

If you followed my earlier tips and study timeframe, you should be all caught up on events of the offseason (i.e., the expansion draft, the entry draft, free agency and other player movement/signings) and have a firm understanding of which season-long totals are unreliable as well as how current/past injuries might affect the coming season. That, in turn, has provided you with what I’ll call differentiated knowledge, which is the knowledge you need – along with the DobberHockey Fantasy Guide – to have a leg up on poolies who merely look at ratings and lists and stop there. Now comes where you apply that differentiated knowledge and build on it to hone the edge over your fellow GMs. Here’s the recipe for how to do so.

Think tiers, not players

When you’re ranking players for drafting and even trading, you need to resist the urge – and it’s a strong one – to become convinced that a specific player has no equal or near equal. Truth is, while of course no two NHL players are truly alike in fantasy hockey and every season a few are in a class of their own, the other 98 percent are comparable to at least some others, often in fact many others.

Why is this an important urge to resist? Because it inevitably leads into the trap of reaching for players or giving up too much value for them in trade, since you see players as unique assets that you can’t risk not landing. Before you know it, the dust has settled on your draft/trade and only then do you realize the mistakes you made and the harm you’ve done to your team.

The best way to resist this urge and guard against falling into this trap is by objectively assigning players to tiers, where each tier has players who are close to each other in value given your league’s categories. Tiers ensure you don’t reach for players in a draft, because you wait to make sure you don’t draft a player from that tier until after someone else does so first and, preferably, not until players in the higher tier(s) are all (or at least mostly all) gone. In a trade context, you compare the player(s) you want to receive to others in the same tier(s) and then mentally make sure it’s a fair trade by seeing if you’d still made the trade if instead you’d be receiving one of the other players in the same tier(s).

Tiers also are important because they prevent panic at your draft. If you didn’t use tiers and had your mind set on a specific player, what happens if that player is sniped right before you pick? Often that leads to an unprepared selection or disappointment that can linger into later rounds and throw you off your drafting mindset. When using tiers, you’re protected from those pitfalls since you’re not wedded to a particular player.

How you make your tiers is up to you, but be sure to be objective. Normally, each skater tier should have at least as many players in it as GMs in your league, preferably up to twice as many so that way if you have a snake draft you can’t possibly miss them all. You can make tiers which are more specific to categories as well, like for penalty goons who can still give you a few points.

One challenge might be to decide when to pick from which of your tiers. For example, when it’s your turn to draft, do you grab a guy from a 45-50 point defenseman tier or a 65-70 point forward tier? My advice is to draft from the tier which is more important given your categories and how many you start (or roster) at each position, plus also factor in which tier might be closer to running out of players. In the end, tiers don’t guarantee perfection, but you’re all but assured a better result by using them versus just drafting on the fly or from an untiered list.

Know your fellow GMs, and adjust your ratings/strategy accordingly

Unless you’re brand new to a league, you have the benefit of drawing from previous experiences with respect to your fellow GMs. What you should do is go back and look at past drafts (and trades and free agency pickups) to see what their predispositions are, since that can help you better predict how things might unfold at your draft and during the season. Do some GMs reach for players from their hometown team, or always pick the same players, or tend to grab players at one position earlier than others? A lot can be gained by spending time sniffing out past trends and tendencies of your fellow GMs.

While you’re at it, audit yourself too. Have you fallen into bad habits in the past that, with the benefit of hindsight, you can now sniff out and avoid? Are you reaching for players, or violating tiers? Do you favor players from certain teams or positions? Even if you won your league, you still can look back and learn, and improve.

Of course what you learn should not cause you to substantially depart from sound logic. The goal is to better understand the approach of your competitors and– at least in the back of your mind – factor that information into your preparation process. It’s helpful food for thought and, in some instances, could simplify a decision of who to draft (and in which round) plus what types of trades are more/less likely to be accepted by certain GMs. Either way, even a small edge gained from this exercise can still be an edge, and in fantasy any edge is a good thing to have.

Don’t give too much weight to preseason scoring

In Part 1, I cautioned against reading too much into playoff scoring and stats because they’re often not an accurate reflection of regular season reality. If anything, this is even more true when it comes to the preseason. Many a road to fantasy failure has been paved by poolies latching onto a preseason phenom, when in truth that player either benefitted from playing on an undermanned squad or had no realistic shot of parlaying his preseason success into the regular season. Of course there are exceptions where preseason breakouts are sustainable, but they’re rare. To sniff those out, look for things like contract status, salary, and depth at his position. In other words, think before you reflexively react.

Also, don’t mistake this advice for me saying to ignore the preseason entirely. Pay attention to lines and power-play times. Focus on which proven players are scratched in a particular game, since that will reflect how reliable the game’s data might be. To sum up, preseason is something to be aware of but generally not to cause a rethinking of your ratings or approaches to the upcoming season.

Realize the importance of the power play

Maybe your league is straight points only, or PPPts is just one of more than a dozen categories. Even still, you must pay attention to the power play above and beyond nearly anything else. Why? Because it’s such a huge key in determining who is poised to produce, and how well. Need proof? Since 2013-14 there have been 188 instances of a skater scoring 60+ points, and only two were by a player where fewer than ten of those points came with the man advantage.

You need to know which teams have migrated toward using only one defenseman on PP1, since that has the potential to create a feast or famine type of PPPts situation among those squads’ rearguards. Be sure to also see which teams have moved to a flatter PP Time structure among forwards, where, instead of a couple of forwards seeing the lion’s share of PP Time, more than a handful are on the ice for similar amounts of time and there is perhaps no true PP1.

Look closely at PP Time received vs. PP production, since that could signal a shift in how much time a player might get with the man advantage in the upcoming season. For example, last season Pavel Zacha had 13 PPPts despite skating for barely a third of New Jersey’s PP Time in games he played. Given that, it’s probably safe to figure he should see an uptick in his PP Time for 2017-18. On the other side of the coin, last season Josh Bailey had the 34th highest number of PP minutes among all NHL forwards (and a full 100 minutes more than Zacha), yet Bailey only managed 12 PPPts, which was one less than Zacha and tied Bailey for 107th in PPPts among all forwards. As such, Bailey might find himself seeing less time with the man advantage, especially amid the arrival of Jordan Eberle. Try to key in on these types of details, since PPPts are so integral to scoring.

Coaching styles and real NHL standings matter

Much like some teams have opted for a PP1 that consists of 4F and 1D (rather than the formally traditional 3F and 2D) and others are deploying two true units (rather than a true top unit), some coaches have settled into patterns that for sure influence player production. With Mike Yeo at the helm in St. Louis, Alex Pietrangelo is poised to get the “Ryan Suter treatment,” ala Yeo’s years in Minnesota and see scoring gains because of it. On the other hand, there’s Alain Vigneault in New York, who doesn’t lean heavily on a top forward unit, thus making it harder for a 70+ point player to emerge even if he might have the talent to produce at that level.

Also, last season we saw unfold a late season trend that I think will continue and perhaps even become more pronounced, that of resting players. Teams who had nothing to play for were letting their stars sit one or more of their last couple of games, wreaking havoc upon fantasy playoffs. Also, we witnessed Evgeni Malkin miss the last 13 games of the regular season, then lo and behold suit up for all 25 Pens’ playoff games, not missing a beat with 28 points. Could Malkin have played some of the regular season games he missed? Probably, but the Pens didn’t rush him back because they didn’t need to do so. I think other teams will take notice of this and we might see it happening more going forward.

Is there a way to prevent being victimized by players who get rested or not rushed back from injury like this? Not entirely of course, although perhaps when deciding between two players in one of your tiers you could opt for the one who not only has a better track record of health, but also who might play for a team that figures to be fighting for a playoff berth or position, since it stands to reason that such teams would be less inclined to allow important players to miss crucial games.

Stay within the box

What this means is don’t overthink things. If you try to get too clever, you can actually undermine your preparation rather than bolster it. In poker, there’s a term called “fancy play syndrome,” which refers to using higher-level thinking than is necessary to succeed. The term also applies to fantasy hockey.

Let me caution you though – avoiding fancy play syndrome in fantasy hockey doesn’t mean you should stop getting an edge or going the extra mile in how you prepare and study, and for how long. Hard work and ironclad preparation are the keys. What you want to avoid is drilling down to a level that leaves you prone to divert from sound logic. Can you still consider advanced stats if you want? Of course – those are quantifiable and meaningful sources of information. You just want to avoid going too far down the rabbit hole because it will undermine your recipe for success.

How to effectively study over the next four weeks

Rather than a team-by-team studying approach ala what you had been doing to drill home the Part 1 tips, I advocate doing your most intense studying of these concepts in the next ten days before the preseason starts on September 16. That way you’ll not only be well prepared, but also leave yourself less vulnerable to being swayed by the preseason “fake news”.

Then I would rehash your studying again and again, but tapering down the time you spend as you get closer to your draft. Yes, I realize it sounds counterintuitive to study less as draft day approaches, but once you’re fully up to speed in ten days you’ll just need refreshing and reminding thereafter. In other words, with all your learning having already occurred by the time preseason starts, you can turn your attention to doing enough to keep things on your mind and at your fingertips.

Lastly, I’d recommend you not study for a single minute on your draft day. If you’ve done all you need, then you’ll already be well prepared. Plus, last-minute cramming tends to invite self-doubt or lapsing into old habits. Instead, be confident that you’re prepared and come into the draft ready to conquer!

Stay tuned for more cage matches between now and the start of the season, and be sure to check out my annual 10 Fearless Forecasts column that will go live on opening day of the 2017-18 season!