The 15^th annual Fantasy Hockey Guide is out and ready for download! Also – the Draft List too! To my knowledge, this is the only fantasy hockey guide available right now. So if you're hankerin' for a fantasy guide and haven't tried mine yet, I guess now is as good a time as any.

Soon after we know the length of the NHL schedule, I will dive back into my projections and re-analyze them for the new target GP. So your Guide purchase is safe and relevant.

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With the release of my Top 50 Fantasy Prospect Goaltenders list Saturday, I've seen (and debated) some interesting commentary. Naturally it all depends on league and roster size, but generally speaking it is very important to consider the wait time. Do you want that guy who looks like he'll be a star in the NHL if you have to wait seven years? Six? Five? Where's the line? He was drafted in the second round two years ago…does that make him better than a guy drafted in the first round this year (i.e. Yaroslav Askarov)? What if a goalie was drafted in the third round three years ago, is looking pretty good, but a goalie this year was drafted in the second round – is the newer guy the better own? How do you balance this?

Well, you know the way your particular league works best. But generally speaking, I say that I don't want to wait more than three years on a prospect goalie. And by "wait" I don't mean 10 games in the NHL. I mean a strong chance at being a starter who gives me a 45-game season (at least!) in that timeframe. How do I do that? Well, I draft a guy I think could get a shot in the coming year, or two years at most. Because no matter how 'close' I think he is, I'm always off. I always overrate how quickly he arrives. And, frankly, I'm probably better at it than most people. Everyone dives at the top goalies, taking them over lesser goalies who are ready now, thinking he's just a couple of years away. But even Ilya Samsonov was drafted five years ago. This will be his first season in which he helps a team. So his fantasy owner used up a spot for him for five years, passing up draft picks year after year, just to keep him. It will pay off, but what if it didn't?

Jacob Markstrom was drafted 31^st overall in 2008. The wait time on him to help out in fantasy hockey? Nine years.

So why is everyone diving at a guy like Drew Commesso? He was drafted 46^th overall. Meanwhile, a guy like Collin Delia is available. Or Jonas Johansson. Neither of those two have great upside…but the wait time is pretty close to zero! Could a backup-caliber goalie be fantasy relevant? Well, I suppose you could ask Darcy Kuemper owners that question. Or Craig Anderson owners. Pekka Rinne was a mediocre AHL goalie and at 26 had hardly had a sniff of the NHL. How did he end up doing?

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Let's take a look at the 2004 NHL draft. Highly-drafted goaltenders were as follows:

Devan Dubnyk 14^th, Marek Schwartz 16^th, Cory Schneider 26^th, David Shantz 37^th, Justin Peters 38^th

Let's look at 2005:

Carey Price 5^th, Tuukka Rask 21^st, Tyler Plante 32^nd, Jeff Frazee 38^th, Ondrej Pavelec 41^st, Pier-Olivier Pelletier 59^th

Let's look at 2006:

Jonathan Bernier 11^th, Riku Helenius 15^th, Semyon Varlamov 23^rd, Leland Irving 26^th , Michal Neuvirth 34^th, Jhonas Enroth 46^th

Let's look at 2007:

Joel Gistedt 36^th, Antoine Lafleur 48^th, Trevor Cann 49^th, Jeremy Smith 54^th

2008:

Chet Pickard 18^th, Tom McCollum 30^th, Jacob Markstrom 31^st, Tyler Beskorowany 59^th, Peter Delmas 61^st

2009:

Mikko Koskinen 31^st, Robin Lehner 46^th, Anders Nilsson 62^nd

2010:

Jack Campbell 11^th, Mark Visentin 27^th, Calvin Pickard 49^th, Kent Simpson 58^th

2011:

Magnus Hellberg 38^th, John Gibson 39^th, Chris Gibson 49^th, Samu Perhonen 62^nd

2012:

Andrei Vasilevskiy 19^th, Malcolm Subban 24^th, Oscar Dansk 31^st, Anthony Stolarz 45^th, Joonas Korpisalo 62^nd

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If the above doesn't wake you up to the fact that goaltenders, even highly-drafted goaltenders, are not guaranteed, then nothing will. The numbers:

– I listed only those goalies drafted in the first two rounds, other than a couple who were drafted with the first pick of Round 3.

– 12 goalies panned out. And that's me saying Pavelec, Korpisalo and Koskinen panned out. But did they though? Pavelec had one pretty good fantasy season, plus four seasons in which he got in a lot of starts but his numbers were in the bottom third. Yeah, it counts, but somebody in your keeper league tripped over their own mother to draft him, sat on him for four years…and got this result. Koskinen is 32 years old. Yes, maybe we can call him "panning out" but come on, did anyone sit on him for nine years first? And Korpisalo I counted despite his busiest season was last year at just 37 starts.

– 30 out of 42 goalies drafted in the first 62 picks in the drafts 2005 through 2012 were fantasy busts. I included Subban, Bernier, Campbell and Nilsson here.

So, while drafting Askarov is a no-brainer, are you really going to draft a Drew Commesso over Daniel Vladar? If you draft Commesso this year, even on a team in desperate need of a goaltender like Chicago, you will probably be waiting for five years and possibly as many as seven. Can you imagine waiting for five years and his AHL numbers and ECHL numbers suck so you finally decide to drop him? Well, that was the case with more than two-thirds of the goalies drafted high between 2005 and 2012.

I think I've given my case for why you should avoid drafting 'most' (Askarov and Price are my only exceptions over the last 20 years) 18-year-old goalies. Or 19-year-old goalies. Wait until they are at least 20, and ideally 22 or 23. Goalies in the latter age range that I myself have drafted in the last dozen years include Corey Crawford, Delia, Cal Petersen and Kaapo Kahkonen. Older goalies (25 to 27) I've grabbed include Cam Talbot and Mike Smith. The one time I 'kind of' broke my rule, I drafted Hellberg…but he was 20. Still, it was a lesson learned. I still do fine with goaltending. I only wait about three years instead of twice that, and the odds of success are so much better.

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I was given some pushback on having prospects with less-obvious skill (for want of a better term) higher just because they were older and closer. Goalies like Adin Hill and Jonas Johansson, who are probably going to be NHL backups or career AHLers. But you could easily go through the Top 50 list and pull out a dozen more.

The reality is – we just don't know. There are dozens, even hundreds of starting NHL goalies throughout history where, as a prospect, you would swear up and down that they would be backups at best. When Darcy Kuemper was taken in our league a couple of years ago I had to hold in my laughter. Well who's laughing now? And Joonas Korpisalo? You know how I felt about him after his being a backup for two years (and not doing very well at it) prior to last season. Jordan Binnington was a prospect on the edge of being a bust, and certainly had no business being even considered a potential starter those last couple of years he was a prospect. Frederik Andersen was let back into the draft by Carolina, unsigned! Mike Smith was a backup and was 29 before becoming a starter (and boy was he ever, jumping from a career high of 42 games played to 67 just like that). Martin Jones (hey, he had a couple of good years, especially for leagues that only valued wins) and Thomas Greiss are others of note.

Backups who 'almost' did something, enough to get us all excited, include Aaron Dell and Linus Ullmark (who is actually probably going to be Buffalo's starter in the coming year). Ullmark isn't a great goaltender. He's good, but not great. But he's all they got. And in fantasy hockey, that's all we need. And funny enough, Ullmark was supposed to be a backup for Carter Hutton – who we all swore up and down had the upside of a backup at best. But Hutton had that one great year and boom, he was fantasy relevant for a bit.

So, Lesson #1 was – hold off on drafting teenage goalies. Ideally you want to wait until they are 23 or 24, but if you lose patience and really like a guy and fear you won't get him if you wait a year – take him at 22.

Lesson #2 is – look closer at opportunity and wait time. Pedigree counts, but it's not a rigid requirement if the organization is thin on goaltending. Little competition and a job that is opening up within three years – well, there's your guy.

You can see this reflected in some of the guys I've taken the last three years, in order: Cal Petersen three years ago, Collin Delia two years ago, and Kaapo Kahkonen last year. I saw Quick faltering and nobody else in the Kings' organization. I saw Crawford faltering and his contract running out. I saw Dubnyk's contract running out as well (one more year on it, but it's a moot point – he's gone now).

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I had a lot to say on this on Twitter. And last I checked, a Tweet can't contain 1600 words. So I put it here. Food for thought, anyway.

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See you next Monday.