The Wild West

(NOW CLOSED - Dobber's note - the first person to comment below the name of the Phoenix blueliner with the most shots on goal gets into the draw for a free putter from Musty Putters)

Last year, I began the column by discussing a widely debated topic in fantasy hockey. Do defensemen really make a major difference in fantasy pools? As much as many fantasy poolies want to deny it, defensemen do play a vital role on influencing the outcome of your fantasy league. Last season, I pitted three offensive players with three defenseman. But based on comments from last season’s column, I’ll try to make it more realistic with a typical Yahoo! six-by-four setup. Let’s visit this example:

Back by popular demand - players who are earmarked for success. We’ll label the players as stand pat, buy or sell candidates based on what we’ve seen so far this campaign. We’ll begin this series by examining the two top goalies from each of the 15 Western Conference teams.

We’re into the fourth week of the NHL season and there have been plenty of surprises as well as disappointments so far. Much like the last few weeks, I’ll toss out a few of my thoughts on all 15 of the Western Conference teams to generate some discussion.

This week, I thought I’d take a look at 10 hot starters from the West and give my prediction/analysis on whether or not their production will be sustainable for the duration of the fantasy season. (Thanks to Mike Hess for suggesting this idea in the comments section of the daily ramblings Monday)

The start of the 2010-2011 NHL season is well and truly underway. There have been a few pleasant surprises, as well as few “red alert” moments involving key injuries. The main thing that you need to keep in mind is that the season is still young and there’s still seven months of quality hockey remaining. Similar to last season, I’ll provide you with weekly updates so that you have access to the latest news that’s been happening from the Western Conference front.

Every year there seems to be a few players that come out of nowhere to magically to give you a surprising boost, (Henrik Sedin, Ilya Bryzgalov, Craig Anderson, Jimmy Howard, or Tom Gilbert 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 two days before the first puck drops in the 2010-11 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.

A look at hits and blocked shots

I spent the weekend planning for my favourite league to play in, which is my very competitive friends’ league. After finishing in second place in consecutive years, I thought I’d be pulling a Marian Hossa and be earmarked for a championship. Surely the fantasy hockey gods would be smiling down on me considering two very close and heartbreaking 8-6 and 8-4 losses for the last two campaigns. After coming out pretty happy in my last few drafts, I was pretty confident heading into this one.

Boy was I disappointed.

Over the course of the last few weekends, I participated in a few, (about 35), Yahoo! mock drafts to gain a better grasp of what’s been going on in the real fantasy hockey world and thought that 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. Last week I covered players that seem to be overvalued and overreached at the draft table, this week we’ll take a look at the opposite.

Over the course of the last few weekends, I participated in a few, (about 30), Yahoo! mock drafts to gain a better grasp of what’s been going on in the real fantasy hockey world and thought that 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 won’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.