In fantasy football, Yahoo sends out a letter grade and a detailed report after your draft, similar to a school report card. Obviously demand and financial resources are main factors in why the same isn't done for fantasy hockey. I've experienced this firsthand, having previously worked for another fantasy hockey site that had a much larger accompanying fantasy football site, for those of you not in the know about the size of the NFL industry compared to the NHL industry.

In my recent fantasy football draft, I was able to pull an A despite having barely studied fantasy football during the offseason. I do follow the sport of football (both NFL and CFL), so I at least have a working knowledge of the teams and players. Based on how I handled my fantasy football draft, I'll share some tips on how to get the most out of your fantasy hockey draft.

Consider projected point gaps. Undecided as to whether to pick a goalie, defenseman, center, or winger? If your league has a point-scoring system, sort by the projections. If you see a major gap between one player and the rest of the field at that position, get that player into your queue. You can't guarantee that the player will be there when it's your turn, but look for the tiers between groups of players.

Don't like the Yahoo default projections, or you play in a multicategory league? Refer to the Fantasy Hockey Geek, which assigns a score to each player based on their overall value from all of the categories in your league. Combine the Fantasy Hockey Geek Draft Kit with the Dobber Fantasy Guide for a discount (more here).

Consider ADPs. You probably already know that you should never reach for a player in a certain round – in particular an early round – if that player will still be around a few rounds later. Likewise, a player falling in a draft with no one noticing might provide great value at that position. The ADPs consist of what the entire body of drafters thinks, but even those can be skewed if Yahoo ranks a player too high or too low. Remember that the ADPs are only a guide, but they can provide some insight in terms of what might happen next in your draft.

Be flexible. How many times has the team drafting right before you grabbed the player you were about to draft? For me, countless times. Always have a Plan B (or Plan C, depending on how many picks before your turn). As Elliotte Friedman has said a few times, "You plan, but God laughs." Drafts are very fluid. Don't get stuck to a plan. Roll with the punches. You can also design your plan around the nuances particular to your league in recent seasons (ie. what to do about the early goalie run).

Use your late-round picks on sleepers. The later a player is drafted, the more likely you are to drop them at some point during the season. It's not a perfect line, but you'll give your early-round picks more rope if they are off to a slow start. Why not throw that late-round pick on a potential rookie star or a young player that might be about to hit his breakout? To me, that beats drafting a player that does not stand out among other waiver-wire options. In this week's The Journey, Victor Nuno offers up some Calder Trophy candidates that might have some value in single-season leagues. 

Use your very late-round picks for your first week head-to-head matchup. If you play fantasy football, you'll know that one bit of advice is to wait until the last few rounds to draft a kicker. That is because one kicker is statistically not much different from the rest. On top of that, I tend to stream team defenses based on matchups. One reason I do this is out of necessity, as every team has a bye week. So when I fill these positions in the late rounds, I tend to look at Week 1 or early-season matchups. You could do the same for your Week 1 head-to-head matchups for certain players. Get ahead of everyone else and grab a player or two with a four-game week or a string of home games and/or easy matchups.

It's easy to focus on projections for an entire season and the next few years (in keeper leagues), but what about the benefits of a very short-term strategy such as simply winning the week or even the last day of the scoring period? In one of my leagues, streaming is the norm. Many of the league members use all of their maximum four adds per week to maximize games played. It's hard to do that when you get too attached to certain players. On top of that, player values change during the season. For some players, they change a lot. Then there are injuries, which force roster moves – especially if you have more injured players than IR slots.

If I've given you a bit of advice for your fantasy football draft, great! I know this website is called DobberHockey, but I'll help in any way that I can. If you have no interest in football, hopefully you can apply some of this thinking to your fantasy hockey draft.

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Here are results from my keeper league's entry draft for 2025-drafted players. One round and 12 teams, so it's not the deepest draft out there.

Note that Misa was picked first overall over Schaefer. Someone asked me earlier if I would do this and I said I might. Not to say that Schaefer won't turn out to be a great fantasy-league option, but I think defensemen are judged by their all-around game more than forwards are. I mentioned the Fantasy Prospects Report comparable of Miro Heiskanen for Schaefer, which might mean that Schaefer is a slightly better real-life player than fantasy player. Add in the development time for defensemen, and Misa might be more of a sure thing, especially right out of the gate.

The surprise pick for me was Martin at #3. He already seemed like a reach at the real-life fifth overall pick, let alone third overall in this draft. His offensive upside doesn't seem as high as those drafted around him, but he seems to bring multicategory value. The trouble is, this is a pure scoring league more than it is a multicategory league. I think I would have gone with one of the next three players chosen at this spot – Desnoyers, Hagens, or Martone.

Remember that these players are only 18 years old, so a lot can happen between now and the time they reach their prime. I'm not a prospects watcher specifically, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I just share how I make these decisions with the information at my disposal.

Who did I pick, you ask? No one. I traded my pick away in a package for Brayden Point in an attempt to win the league. I finished third in the league – lost in the semifinal but won the bronze-medal match. The pick I traded was for 10^th overall, which was used on Aitcheson.

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If you're looking for a new fantasy hockey challenge, try the DobberHockey Tiered Invitational League. For more information, click on the link.

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Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social