In case you missed it, I made my first-ever appearance on the Keeping Karlsson podcast on Sunday. Elan wanted to discuss the Fantasy Guide and a few particular projections, and I was more than happy to oblige. You can listen to an audio-only version of the podcast here, or you can watch it on video below.

When Elan asked me about sleepers, I brought up my Ramblings from the weekend before where I discussed players that I thought were being drafted too low in Yahoo leagues. Within that group were a few centers that I thought you should target in single-season drafts: Mark Scheifele, Brayden Point, and Roope Hintz in particular. These centers may be falling in drafts because they're not getting the respect that they deserve, but that's only part of it. They are also falling simply because center is believed to be the deepest forward position in fantasy leagues. Or is it?

When I completed a mock draft the other night, I had a hard time passing up the centers that were available.

Just a late-night mock draft. Loaded up on centers while using the Zero G strategy. pic.twitter.com/MExIH8GASj

— Ian Gooding (@Ian_Gooding) September 14, 2022

My last three picks were Troy Terry, Elvis Merzlikins, and Matty Beniers, in case the tweet was cut off.

I can draft a strong group of scorers that way, but the downside is that I may be wasting having a bona fide center on my bench during a busy night. For that reason, drafting Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and Nathan MacKinnon on the same lineup might not be ideal, as dreamy as that might be. In addition, I might be forced to drop one of those centers if I have to take care of needs elsewhere on my roster, or I want to pick up someone from the waiver wire. In other words, there's opportunity cost.

Since standard Yahoo leagues have 12 teams and two of each forward position (LW, C, RW) in a starting lineup, I'll assume that the top 24 players at each position will be drafted as such. Any player ranked 25 or after could be on a team's bench or on the waiver wire. Here's the ADP for the 25^th-ranked player in Yahoo at each position (dual eligibility included):

C: 96

LW: 69

RW: 107

Well… that's not quite what I expected. Centers are on average being drafted higher than right wingers, but it also appears that left wing is the deepest forward position in terms of ADP. Yeah. I was going to tell you to use C-only eligible players at the center position when designing your team, but I don't think I need to now. But if you did, the ADP for the 25^th-ranked center would drop down to 143. That's right in the ADP range for Point (117), Scheifele (132), Hintz (132). Yes, load up on centers. In the words of Elan, don't you forget about C!

(By the way, if you use that hashtag to try to win a free Fantasy Guide, that contest just expired. But keep listening to the KK podcast because they have a ton of useful fantasy info.)

Compare Fantrax's ADPs for the aforementioned three centers. Which fantasy provider's ADPs make more sense for these three? You've really got to study those rankings to make some savvy drafting decisions.

	Yahoo	Fantrax
Point	117	73
Scheifele	132	76
Hintz	132	69

If you're in a deeper draft, the 50^th-ranked player at each position in Yahoo is somewhere around the 160-165 range. I think that's because the lower the pick, the higher the number of available options. Although we as fantasy experts often design rectangular-shaped tiers with each tier having roughly the same number of players, the tiers should be more pyramid-shaped with the truly elite at the top and the many commonly-available options at the bottom.

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Have you checked out the new player news page on Frozen Tools yet? I used to often frequent NBC Sports Edge (previously Rotoworld) when writing the Ramblings, particularly on busy nights when I don't have an eye on all the games. You get the news highlight and a link to the source tweet. For analysis, you can subscribe to RotoWire, but you may also find analysis here in the Ramblings.

In the news was a Brad Marchand injury update. The Bruins winger is expected to skate today (Friday) for the first time since his double hip surgery. His return is expected to be after US Thanksgiving (late November, for those of us who are non-American). That means Marchand should miss at least the first 20 games of the season, barring a faster-than-expected recovery. Marchand has a 113 ADP in Yahoo, which I'd actually consider great value if your team can stay afloat for two months. The shallower the league, the higher you should consider drafting him because of the gap between Marchand and the top waiver-wire options.   

Another news item: Sean Durzi signed his RFA contract, a two-year contract extension worth $1.7 million. That brings the number of RFAs down to eight. I wrote about Durzi during Bubble Keeper Week, so I don't feel the need to add any more than that. If you're wondering whether I kept him, I decided not to, although I can attempt to reacquire him at a lower auction value than what I would have had to pay him had I decided to keep him.

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The Top 100 Roto Rankings have been updated for September. Use them in your fantasy drafts (at least for the first several picks, anyway). Let me know if you think anything should be changed within the rankings. This month's changes are largely focused on adjusting players more toward their ADPs. Just because I dropped a player doesn't mean that I don't like the player – in fact, quite the opposite. Both Scheifele and Point were fallers, but at the same time I also just told you to draft them above their Yahoo ADPs. The key is to draft them exactly at the right spot – low enough that you can grab enough high-ranked talent before them, but high enough that someone else sends the chat message "nice pick" or "hey, I was just about to draft him!" Remember that the draft is a value-building exercise.

By the way, I list all forwards as F in the Roto Rankings and don't differentiate between C, LW, and RW. That is because some forwards hold multiple positions, and also because some fantasy providers have the same player listed at different positions. For example, Hintz is listed as a both a C and LW in Fantrax but only a C in Yahoo. If you want to break down the Top 100 forwards by position, here's what I have:

C: 27

LW: 24

RW: 16

Note that these are Frozen Tools positional designations and may not exactly reflect your fantasy provider.

Again, left wing shows as at least comparable to center in terms of fantasy talent, with right wing the weakest of the three forward positions. I've noted in my numerous fantasy drafts that right wing seems to be the most difficult position to fill, where I've often had to make my RW2 pick after pick 100 in mock drafts. It may not matter as much to move any C/W forwards to the wing as it does to specifically move any RW-eligible forwards to that position. Of course, you can move any player to whichever position they can play on any given day, but strong coverage at the weakest position ensures that your roster doesn't have any holes on those all-important busy nights where you need to rack up the points.

Follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding for more fantasy hockey.