One of the things many fantasy hockey general managers use to gauge a player’s talent is draft position. For a brief time, that can be helpful, but one thing you have to remember is that a draft position is only a snapshot in time.
Zack Kassian’s 20-game suspension this week has probably made him persona non grata for many fantasy hockey GMs.
After all, in many fantasy hockey formats, reliability is an important factor. Many GMs don’t want a guy who can snap and get long suspensions.
You have to be patient with prospects, and that’s especially true with goalies and defencemen. Forwards are most likely to jump into the NHL at a young age and have a fantasy impact, but there’s a certain breed of forward that requires just as much patience as goalies and defensemen: power forwards.
As most loyal Dobber readers know, some players are more prone to injury than others. When they’re on your fantasy team, they hurt your team's performance, but a player can very easily return from injury and still be just as good (as long as the injury is not a serious one). But major or frequent injuries at a young age can derail development by reducing playing time or negatively affecting long-term health.
Statistics must be used properly -- and with caution -- when evaluating prospects
As a fantasy hockey GM, the easy thing to do when evaluating prospects is take your cue from NHL teams. They spend a lot of time and money scouting players, so one can safely assume that the higher a player was drafted, the better he is, right? Wrong.
With 66 NHL games under his belt, Kyle Turris doesn’t really qualify as an NHL prospect does he? But there he is, toiling away in the AHL with other prospects.
Expect Turris, the No. 4 prospect on Dobber’s latest ranking of the top 215 Fantasy Hockey Prospects, to stay there for more seasoning because he needs it. The Phoenix Coyotes have realized they need to be more patient with their talented first-round draft pick from 2007. If you’re a fantasy GM who owns Turris, you need to be patient, too. Don’t get discouraged that he’s been demoted to the AHL after playing almost a full season in the NHL last year as a 19-year-old.
