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Listen for the soft steps of the Diabolical Backups, lest you fall victim to a sneak attack! Those pesky, conniving, crafty, devious teammates are like a swarm of locusts digging into your skin. They test the patience, irritate the mind and eat away at one’s focus. They pressure starters to play at their best on a nightly basis, and like a virus, can exponentially destroy confidence from within. The diabolical backups - they force other goalies to keep their foot on the gas. The diabolical backups - anything can happen when a starter’s playing time is cut in half.

The Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament is one of the first tests a draft-eligible prospect will face as they attempt to prove themselves worthy of a pick. Oddly enough, the class’s top two talents- Adam Larsson and Sean Couturier- were ineligible due to age, leaving the field wide-open for surprises. Beyond a Gold Medal game in which one goal made all the difference- literally- who stood out at the Hlinka?

Welcome to Hockey Pool Geek’s Deep Analysis.  Our goal is to dig deep into the team and league that is being analyzed in order to bring out some insight and push you into really getting the most out of your team and ultimately taking down the rest of the league.

Doing a Deep Analysis on a team owned by one of the hottest analysts in fantasy hockey is in the same breath exciting and daunting.  Jeff Angus, of Dobberhockey.com fame, knows his stuff… in fact, he deeply knows his stuff, so the odds of showing him something useful in managing his team aren’t all that great, but on the other hand, having the opportunity to use the Hockey Pool Geek tools to aid a guy who will ‘get it’ right away and who isn’t afraid to lay waste to marginal contributors and invest in promising contributors is one that we just can’t pass up.

After signing Martin Gerber to a one-year, two-way deal on Friday, the Edmonton Oilers now have quite the interesting fantasy goalie situation heading into the season. Since it happened on an otherwise boring summer day, tons of interesting depth chart topics came bubbling to the surface from hockey writers and Oilers analysts everywhere.

The 2010-11 DobberHockey Pool Guide has been updated as of September 4th, and it will continue to be updated into October. Kovalchuk signing, Torres signing, MacArthur signing, Kennedy signing, we got it all! The beauty of our guide is the ability to update as trades/signings occur throughout the off-season.

Wanting to retain your crown in 2010-11? The will make you a (much) better fantasy hockey player. Guaranteed. Sleeper picks, goalies to watch for, RFA's, UFA's, veterans, breakout candidates, it is all jam-packed into 94 pages of information. No fancy pictures, no full-page advertisments. Simply fantasy hockey gold on each and every page.

In the first two parts of the Business of Fantasy Hockey series, my co-author for this article series (Mike Colligan) and I have focused on the business principles of Value Investing (Part I) and Intrinsic Value (Part II). In today’s instalment, we focus on further defining the meaning of Intrinsic Value and how it relates to fantasy hockey, and specifically how to correctly value players. The topic is the Psychology of Crowds, and I guarantee you will come away a smarter fantasy hockey poolie after reading this.

The Chicago Blackhawks walked away from Antti Niemi’s one-year $2.75 million arbitration ruling this morning and promptly announced they agreed to terms with Marty Turco for what’s reported as a one-year deal worth between $1 and $1.5 million. Niemi is now an UFA and is free to deal and sign with any team and any price thrown his way.

Angus was on the Team 1040 today (Sunday). He talks about his favorite sleeper picks, how the Canucks will spread out their ice time on the power play, Claude Giroux, and more. Listen to what he had to say...