We're into mock draft season, which is basically as soon as mock drafts open up on Yahoo or Fantrax, right up until training camp starts. I've read my guide, I've sorted out my keeper situations, and now it's time to lean into the mock drafts and glean all we can from the current ADPs, depths by position, etc.

Every year I do a bunch of mocks to get a sense of how I feel about tiers at each position, and when I imagine I'll be trying to grab my second defenceman (usually earlier than you might think) or my first goalie (usually a lot later than you would think).

The problem with mock drafts on fantasy websites is that even if they fill up, the GMs don't take them seriously enough to re-create what your draft might feel like, and they don't stick around the whole time so there is a lot of auto-drafting (which mean players never fall and you end up reaching back all the time for players you don't like). We can't do much about the lack of players falling in drafts, other than being prepared and ready to jump on it when it does happen, but to get used to the challenge of drafting for your league, there are a few things you can do.

I've mentioned before in my ramblings that for my 10 or 12 team leagues, I like to prep by doing mock drafts for 14 teams. This means that the player pool depletes a little more quickly, and you get more used to having to pick between players you may not quite like as much when a certain pick rolls around. If you can start to ace the 14 team drafts with a good-looking team for a 12-team setup, then when the real draft comes around for your 12-team league, you're going to be drafting on easy mode.

A few notes early on:

Wingers seem shallow this year:

Usually in the round 2-7 range I stock up with a fair number of wingers every year, and though this year I don't expect it to be too different, I'm having trouble getting all that excited about the W options available at a given time.

In my most recent mock, I had pick 56, and looking down the list the best winger options were Pavel Buchnevich, William Nylander, Evander Kane, and Sam Reinhart. Three 70- to 80-point wingers with upside for a little more, and Kane who is a wild-card this year, but in leagues with Hits/PIMs where he's more valuable, he won't be available at this point in the draft anyways.

After the top options are off the board around pick 30, things start to open up, and I have found myself filling up my centre and defence spots more than my wings. As a result though, I end up with at least two or three centres right off the bat, and zero troubles with my D-core (more on that later). With older/rebound options available past pick 30 like Jack Eichel, Evgeni Malkin, Brayden Point, Patrice Bergeron and others, and a lack of standout wingers with star potential past that range, it's looking as though I will likely be targeting wingers with at least two of my top three picks in redraft leagues.

Defence appears to be deeper than usual:

Obvious this comes with the caveat that there are always less defencemen than forwards of fantasy relevance, especially since most power plat units around the league include four forwards and one defenceman. However, with the league evolving towards somewhere that smaller skilled defencemen can thrive, there is more variance in the options available in fantasy leagues.

Usually I find it make the mid and later rounds of a draft a lot easier if I can slot in a top-tier defenceman in the first four rounds. Someone like Roman Josi, Victor Hedman, or Adam Fox. Having one of these players pushes the rest of your defencemen down a rung, and allows you to take a few more risks later in the draft.

This year though, it feels like there are more options to use as your top defenceman. Dougie Hamilton shoots a lot, and should rebound above 50 points. Darnell Nurse and Seth Jones put up points and stuff the secondary categories better than most. Quinn Hughes, Miro Heiskanen, Moritz Seider, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, and so many other young defencemen are just scratching the surface of their offensive potential. As long as you aren't waiting past pick 150 to grab your top-two defencemen, there are tons of options for you to wait on and see who falls from one of the top few tiers.

Landing a defence core of Jakob Chychrun, John Klingberg, Neal Pionk, and Ryan Pulock may not be the sexiest set you've seen, but all four are going after pick 120 on both Yahoo and Fantrax. I can't remember a previous year where I was so open to waiting on defencemen with so many good options that seem to be available later than usual. Depending on how much faith you have in your own drafting, Charlie McAvoy is also one to target, as a high-upside defenceman that garnered Norris attention last season, he's slipping down the draft board this year (ADP of 130 on Yahoo and 85 on Fantrax). He's set to miss the first two months of the season, but taking him in the 80s and then Mike Reilly late should provide a ton of value. On a per-game basis, McAvoy was the sixth ranked D-man in standard Yahoo leagues last year.

Lots of variance in goalie opinions:

There are a lot of different goalie strategies out there, and their effectiveness varies depending on the league, but generally I am very much in favour of any strategy that involves punting goalies. Their variability year to year, and even the streakiness in-season makes them a much riskier asset to spend a lot of value on – be it a high draft pick or in a trade.

This year there are two goalies that are often going in the top-10 in fantasy drafts, with both Igor Shesterkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy rightly vying for the number one spot at the position. I'm not spending a top-25 pick on either of them though.

Past the top tier, there's a group of five or six others that are solid goalies on playoff teams that should see at least 55 starts. After that top group of eight or so, there are a lot of different options. Between the good goalies on bad teams (Ilya Sorokin, Elvis Merzlikins), the uncertain role goalies (Vitek Vanecek, Logan Thompson), the pure timeshare goalies (Jeremy Swayman, Cal Petersen), and the just-good-for-volume goalies (Philiipp Grubauer, Karel Vejmelka), I typically lean towards the ones in an uncertain situation. With those guys, you either win big, or you know early on that you have to pivot.

The goalies like Sorokin, Merzlikins, and John Gibson will go off the board well before the guys like Vanecek, Thompson, and Ilya Samsonov, but the latter group has an even higher upside for their win totals, with the earlier group capped due to the team they play on. This is where I focus. Teams like New Jersey, Toronto, and Vegas are likely to be playoff teams. With only one of their goalies being drafted in the top-190 on Fantrax, and only two of them in the top-150 on Yahoo, you can easily snag the tandem and sit on them to a 40+ win season with solid peripherals.

How high will some players jump?

There are always some players whose ADPs look way out of line early on, and it's interesting to see how those averages change as we get closer to the season.

A few notes on low ADPs at the moment:

Brady Tkachuk – Yahoo ADP: 33

The points-only crowd may be dragging this down, but he's a top-15 asset in multi-category leagues. Ovechkin went top-five for years for similar numbers to what Tkachuk can put up (obviously a few less goals for Brady though).

Jack Eichel – Yahoo ADP: 42

Another possible top-10 talent who had a healthy offseason to get back up to speed after looking just a half-step behing the play in his return last season from a tough surgery recovery.

Noah Dobson – Fantrax ADP: 83 / Yahoo ADP: 94

Dobson continues to be undervalued as his new contract even shows. He has 70-point upside, and showed even better than that in the second-half of last season. His peripherals are very solid, and trended up with his ice time as well. Not being tied to Zdeno Chara should help him this year too, and the Isles can't be worse offensively than they were last year.

Seth Jones – Fantrax ADP: 107 / Yahoo ADP: 127

When drafting I generally ignore plus-minus anyways, so when a player is falling because their plus-minus should be bad, while their points, shot, hit, and block totals are equivalent to players at their position going a full 70-picks earlier, that's value I jump on board with every single time.

Alexandar Georgiev – Yahoo ADP: 108 / Fantrax ADP: 139

If you're going to swing on a goalie, then this is one of the higher upside guys to do it with. Playing for Colorado, if he's healthy all year he could put up 40+ wins with some solid peripherals – just make sure you grab the Francouz handcuff.

Thomas Chabot – Yahoo ADP: 114

A 60-point defenceman who saw the offence in front of him upgraded this offseason, and the goaltending behind him got some added support too. Yet his stock seems to have fallen anyways. Perception should rebound fast.

Sergei Bobrovsky – Fantrax ADP: 120

Starting goalie on a big contract for a team coming off of the President's trophy? Yes goalies are fickle and a lot can happen year to year, but Spencer Knight is not an NHL starter yet, so Bob's floor is safe as the 1A in a very win-heavy situation.

Vitek Vanecek – Yahoo ADP: 173 / Fantrax ADP: 200

I think it's likely I end up with Vanecek in all of my Yahoo leagues this year. I think that he is a solid goalie, and that the Devils were decent goaltending away from being a playoff team last year. With a healthy Jack Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, and a few other offseason adds, we could see 35 wins and some solid peripherals from a goaltender that you can get outside the top 150 picks (outside the top 25 goalies being drafted).

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Find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments. See you next Wednesday!