My fantasy sports passion is largely focused on fantasy hockey, but I do partake in the occasional league for other sports. I play in one league each year for fantasy football, and it's one that I have found a fair degree of success in having finished no lower than fourth in the last four years, with a pair of second place finishes as my ceiling. In those four years, I have watched a total of three games (all Superbowls) and not done much research at all. In fantasy football, more than most fantasy sports, it's not about knowing more, it's about a bit of strategy and a whole lot of luck.

I want to borrow a few fantasy football strategies and see how they can be applied to hockey.

Eschewing the deepest position

In fantasy football, all of the top point scorers are quarterbacks, yet they don't start going off the board in earnest until around round four at the earliest. Their stats are also very projectable, unlike NHL goalies, and yet they don't command nearly the draft capital that you would expect had you never played fantasy football before. The reason is that ALL of the quarterbacks put up solid point numbers, so there isn't the same scarcity that you see with the top end players at other positions.

There isn't a direct comparison in hockey, as goalies can be voodoo and also have very broad tiers, but they are also generally worth fading in my opinion because of the inconsistencies and the fact you can usually get better value earlier in the draft with the surer things as your skaters. Breaking up the skaters into positions though, centres tend to be plentiful, and you can typically find value on them later than wingers, and especially later than defencemen (who are more the like RBs in that the good ones go early and there is more of a drop off).

Loading up on prime pieces and their handcuffs

In football, with the big producers being those key volume RBs, when those players go down with an injury, often the entire role is assumed by the backup RB. Now, the backup isn't usually quite as talented as the incumbent, but given the same opportunity they can put up close to similar numbers. What this means is that even the backup RBs are owned for most teams, and their stock can go through the roof at the twist of an ankle.

In hockey, roles aren't quite as defined, and even taking over a wing spot with Connor McDavid or becoming the defenceman running the powerplay for a team with a load of firepower up front doesn't guarantee success. Oftentimes injuries for hockey teams are filled in with more of a committee approach (except for goalies of course). That being said, paying attention to roles, and who is coming into opportunity is important in hockey as well, but usually more so in the offseason. Who went in or out from a specific team that will drastically change a role is a key thing to review before your drafts. Luckily, we have you covered there too with the Offseason Fantasy Grades articles. Here's the link to the first one: Anaheim Ducks.

Making your own luck (And Playing the Schedule)

The biggest thing for fantasy football, and often for H2H fantasy hockey leagues, is having lady luck on your side. Luck can be as simple as having your players be healthy, but it can also mean coming up against opponents when they have a slightly worse week than you do, or maybe just having your waiver add go off for a big game. Oftentimes research plays a part in creating your own luck, and having that extra little push, whatever you want to call it, can be the difference between a win and a loss when it really counts.

I discussed research and luck a fair bit in an article from about a year ago now, and I don’t think I can explain it any better than I did here. If you don’t read the linked article, the gist of it is how to approach trying to make your own luck and how that fits into the grand scheme of things.

It also doesn't hurt to give your team a killer name. The fantasy gods really do appreciate when you put in some effort there, and pay you back in good mojo.

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Doing a quick mock draft with these tips, let's see what I end up with. I'll be sticking to some of my usual tendencies for mock drafting, and if you want to read up on those strategies then check out my ramblings from a few weeks ago. I drafted from the #14 spot for this one.

I Present Team: Hughes the Foxy Nurse

Jonathan Huberdeau – Claude Giroux – Elias Lindholm

Gabriel Landeskog – Nico Hischier – Tyler Seguin

Kevin Fiala – Oliver Bjorkstrand

Adam Fox – Quinn Hughes

Roman Josi – Darnell Nurse

Jeff Petry

Jacob Markstrom

Tristan Jarry

Casey DeSmith

I took four defencemen in the first seven rounds and five in the first nine, waited until my top nine were set before taking my first goalie (Markstrom), and left centres until my last few picks before picking up the tandem with my last selection. I could have taken Markstrom's backup Dan Vladar, but after the roller-coaster goalie performance in Pittsburgh the last few years, there looked to be more value in the Pens' handcuff.

Overall a pretty solid team, but that's just from going through the motions and working against a Yahoo auto-draft (which you can take advantage of much more precisely if you try). The point of this exercise though was to show what kind of value you can let slip in drafts versus what value you may want to target based on some positional similarities with fantasy football – which tends to be a little more strategy based in the draft than fantasy hockey.

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Speaking of Jarry, in this week's column (coming out Wednesday morning), Rick Roos goes over three goalies (Igor Shesterkin, Tristan Jarry, and Mackenzie Blackwood) and whether they over-performed or under-performed. One of them had a surprisingly poor outlook for this season, and it might be worth looking into picking up that particular backup.

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The Blues brought back Tyler Bozak on a one-year, league minimum salary deal. Not too much to get excited about there for fantasy, but a good reinforcement for the bottom-six.

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As a new dad of a now seven-week-old, I have no idea how I would manage playing in the NHL at a high level with the same kind of sleep schedule I have right now. It did make me think though, after Alex Pietrangelo had triplets and saw his game slow in the aftermath, then again after having his fourth child, I wondered whether it was something that affected every NHLer similarly or not. From some anecdotal research, it does appear that most NHLers don't seem to see a noticeable dip in production following having a child. Triplets would definitely be a different story though – I can't imagine even dealing with two!

Where that leads me though, is having a (likely incomplete) list of NHLers that had kids in the last few months or so, and having it in the back of my mind that they will likely be somewhat sleep deprived, and how that may impact their play.

Notably, Torey Krug, Brock Nelson, and Blake Coleman have been through this before, and none saw their production suffer, so I don't expect it to be an issue this time around. However, I wonder most about the goalies and the necessary mental sharpness that they need on such a consistent basis. With Elvis Merzlikins, Matt Murray, and Connor Hellebuyck welcoming children in the past year, I may look at other options at similar spots on the draft table this year (Joonas Korpisalo, Adin Hill, and Robin Lehner respectively).

Other notable names to keep an eye on are Roman Josi, Darnell Nurse, Patrick Kane, Mattias Ekholm, Travis Konecny, Bryan Rust, and Devon Toews. Right now I'm going to treat this as a notice, but not something I am going to act on for skaters. However, if these names do all show some signs of decline compared to numbers we would expect from them this season, then the baby theory will be something I keep an eye on in future summers.

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Feel free to either drop a comment, or find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions.

Stay safe!