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Every year there seems to be a few players that come out of nowhere to magically to give you a surprising boost, (Corey Perry, Pekka Rinne, Kari Lehtonen, Dustin Byfuglien, or Lubomir Visnovsky last season), or one that you ranked so highly but ended up destroying your season because you invested so highly on them, (Steve Mason, Bobby Ryan, or Evgeni Malkin). With a few weeks remaining before the first puck drops in the 2011-12 season, hopefully I can provide you with a last-minute look of some players out West who will either make or break your fantasy season.

The addition of peripheral stats, such as HITs and BS, has become more prevalent amongst fantasy hockey pools this season. Although there are plenty of similarities between drafting in a standard settings league (G, A, +/-, PIMs, PPP, SOG, W, SV%, GAA and SO) and a league that includes HITs and BS, the addition of two extra stats could really throw a curveball in how you approach the draft.

Over the course of the last few weekends I participated in a few Yahoo! mock drafts to gain a better grasp of what’s been going on in the “real” fantasy hockey world. I thought I’d pass my findings onto you Dobberities. I participated in random drafts ranging from eight to 14 teams from H2H to Roto leagues with standard settings. This is what I have concluded.

Over the course of the last few weekends I participated in a few Yahoo! mock drafts to gain a better grasp of what’s been going on in the real fantasy hockey world. I thought I’d pass my findings onto you Dobberities. I participated in random drafts ranging from eight to 14 teams from H2H to Roto leagues with standard settings. This is what I have concluded.

Once again, much like last year, here’s a list of players who just don’t tickle my fancy. There are a variety of reasons, ranging from my dislike of some players, changes to the team during the off-season, recovery from off-season surgery, overvalued rookies/prospects, or just plain over-inflated stats from last season.

But first a recap of the hit or misses for the players listed from last season’s column:

Following the last couple of years, here’s a list of some of the Western Conference underachieving veterans from last season. Many of them underachieved or were simply injured, which resulted in lower than normal overall numbers for 2010-11. Most pool providers generally base their draft rankings on the previous year’s stats, which could lead many of the following players to be severely undervalued heading into this season. Make sure you make a mental note of these players and don’t fall into the trap of undervaluing them like some of your competitors might on draft day.

If you are an avid reader of the DobberHockey website you probably are familiar with the popular mantra the “magical fourth year”. There has been plenty of debate on whether or not this concept truly exists with plenty of arguments for and against. I’ve spent quite a few hours compiling all of the numbers and doing research in an attempt to finally settle (?) the debate.

Part five of this ongoing series breaking down the scoring lines and depth options.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part four of this ongoing series breaking down the scoring lines and depth options.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

For the past couple of seasons, I’ve written a few columns breaking down each of the Western Conference team’s top-six from the bottom-six. I’ll go back to the well once again and give you better insight of each of the Western Conference teams for the upcoming campaign.