Keeper Leagues:

The world of Fantasy has grown tremendously over the last few years…there are so many different types of pools; it’s awesome! Right now everyone is trying to figure out who to keep and who to drop off their ‘keeper’ Fantasy teams. For those of you not really familiar with a keeper league, they are all set up somewhat differently, but one of the common themes I’ve noticed is keeping six players on your roster. The remaining players not picked, (depending on how many are included on each team’s roster) are put back into the free agency pool and able to be drafted by anyone in their upcoming Keeper League Fantasy Draft.

It’s never an easy decision as you don’t want to give up a player who ends up having a dominant season, nothing worse. You also don’t want to hold onto a vet who’s starting to get washed up and isn’t producing like they used to. Here are a few pointers to make the decision a bit easier:

- Does this player get top line minutes/top line power play?
- Who will be their line mates and does this line or defensive pairing have consistent production?
- How many years of success are left in the tank for the player you are deciding to keep?

When it comes to a keeper pool, the hardest thing to decide is whether to go with the youth movement in preparation for the future or the win now mentality. Personally, I think it all depends what your team looks like at the time…It’s like trade deadline for NHL General Managers…Do you have the team to make a run? If not, don’t bother wasting your ‘keepers’ on guys who will keep you in the middle of the pack. Either go for the home run, or prepare for years of quality on your Fantasy team with grabbing high renowned young players.

If you are in a keeper pool and unsure who to keep and who to draft (maybe you are debating between two or three players). Feel free to ask in the comments section, send me a private message; maybe you have friends on the boards and you don’t want them to see the conundrum you are in. Ask away as another opinion never hurts as a bit of reassurance.

HockeyBuzz SuperLeague (HBSL):

Last week HockeyBuzz SuperLeague registration opened, since then I have noticed a lot of chatter about team names, who guys are picking, how much money they have left over from the 69 million dollar cap and so on. So what I would like to do is build off of that and try to give some advice on how to keep your team in the mix for a chance at taking home a prize!

First thing I did was look for Mackinnon…he makes 900k a year and is an absolute STUD. Beautiful, I have 68 million left over and I already have one of the best centers in the game, and he’s only a sophomore. You are going to want to pick players who have high output, with a low salary cap hit. Obviously any rookie or sophomore player is going to be very cheap as they are just starting their careers. These are the prime candidates to target so that you are able to spend the cash you saved on them on beauties like Crosby, Stamkos, Ovechkin, Rask, Karlsson and so forth.

Personally, I think it’s a huge advantage to line your week up with the most man games played. For example, just say Kessel and P. Kane are two guys you want to draft for the week…one of them plays three games in a week, and the other plays two games. Sure both players are equal in output, but be smart about it, take the player who has three games in the week versus the player who only has two games. Where it gets complicated is if their salary is far apart, that can mess up your allotted cap space, or just as important, who they are up against that week. If the Leafs play Boston twice in the week and Chicago plays against Carolina and Winnipeg, well; you would be much wiser to take Kane as history shows the Leafs struggle versus Boston and Chicago should light up both Winnipeg and Carolina.

It’s all about cap management, taking the player(s) who have the most man games that week and of course who they are up against. That’s a good start to get your lineup in shape for week one in the HBSL. If you have yet to come up with a team name and entered the HockeyBuzz SuperLeague, here is the link:

http://fantasy.hockeybuzz.com

Thanks again for reading, and of course don’t be shy to ask any questions you may have about Fantasy Hockey.

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