I just got a last minute invite to a keeper league that is starting this year (no keepers from last year). I have never done a keeper league before and was wondering if anyone could give a few tips. The draft is Monday at 7:00, so I'm doing a lot of last minute prep. Anything helps.

The league is structured as a head-to-head point system. The following is the way it's scored:

Skaters
Goals: 3
Assists: 2
+/-: 0.5
Points: 1
SHG: 4
SHA: 2
GWG: 2
Hits: 0.5
Faceoff W: 0.5
Faceoff L: -0.5
Blocked S: 0.5
PP Pts: 1
D-man Pts: 2

Goalies
Wins: 4
Loss: -2
GA: -1
Save: 0.2
SO: 3

Rosters are composed of 9 forwards, 5 d-men, 1 util, 2 goalies, and 5 bench spots. I will be allowed 6 keepers next year. Again, any little insight would be greatly appreciated!

We're only allowed to Keep guys for 3 years. So Mackinnon has another 2 years for me. That's a no bainer.

I'll probably keep Holtby too because I'm a sucker and also there really ins't too many goalies option from 2006 onward, get starting time.
- tomburton99

just curious:
Kuemper (just resigned, backstrom always hurt/sucks and Harding just broke his foot and is out 2 months + has MS).

maybe he is available? just a thought, hes not 100% starter at this point though so hard to say.

Ok thanks you probobly hate all these questions but it's nice to have different opinions before you make a decision.

One last one. Trouba or Rielly?
- JVR_42_PK81

total toss up

rielly will get a few more points and +- will be better.

trouba will get close to the same points, worse +-, more PIM

you are a leaf fan, on this one, go rielly, better for cheering purposes

I just got a last minute invite to a keeper league that is starting this year (no keepers from last year). I have never done a keeper league before and was wondering if anyone could give a few tips. The draft is Monday at 7:00, so I'm doing a lot of last minute prep. Anything helps.

The league is structured as a head-to-head point system. The following is the way it's scored:

Skaters
Goals: 3
Assists: 2
+/-: 0.5
Points: 1
SHG: 4
SHA: 2
GWG: 2
Hits: 0.5
Faceoff W: 0.5
Faceoff L: -0.5
Blocked S: 0.5
PP Pts: 1
D-man Pts: 2

Goalies
Wins: 4
Loss: -2
GA: -1
Save: 0.2
SO: 3

Rosters are composed of 9 forwards, 5 d-men, 1 util, 2 goalies, and 5 bench spots. I will be allowed 6 keepers next year. Again, any little insight would be greatly appreciated!
- mmcclatchy

Grab the best player you can in the first round.

make sure you grab a few young upcoming all star players.

grab at least one super good goalie, Rask, Lundquist, Quick, Price, something along those lines....i have a blog i made that listed the top 20 goalies, top 50 forwards and top 25 D

Take a look at that, it should help a lot.

any specific questions let me know

I'm in an ongoing league with a very basic point structure.
G 1
A 1
W 2
SO 2

I managed to survive and win the league last year even though my second overall pick of Stamkos went down to injury. I replaced him right away and cycled players being careful to watch the number of games played per person.

We are allowed 8F,4D,2G and 2 bench. I've usually survived by drafting strong forwards to start but end up with weak goalies and very weak D.

If I get stuck in a middle position of a 10 team draft, who would be my best bets for the first three rounds?

Top 5 drafted last year were Crosby, Stamkos, Malkin, Tavares, and Ovechkin. FYI, in that order. If I draft in the top 3 I know who I'm going to take and if I draft late I have an idea but the middle is the hardest, no back to back or close to back to back picks. if I pick 9th or 10th I usually try and get team mates like Perry, Getzlaf (most likely they will go before the end of the first round after last year)

Thanks for your help in advance.

Regards,
Phil

I'm in an ongoing league with a very basic point structure.
G 1
A 1
W 2
SO 2

I managed to survive and win the league last year even though my second overall pick of Stamkos went down to injury. I replaced him right away and cycled players being careful to watch the number of games played per person.

We are allowed 8F,4D,2G and 2 bench. I've usually survived by drafting strong forwards to start but end up with weak goalies and very weak D.

If I get stuck in a middle position of a 10 team draft, who would be my best bets for the first three rounds?

Top 5 drafted last year were Crosby, Stamkos, Malkin, Tavares, and Ovechkin. FYI, in that order. If I draft in the top 3 I know who I'm going to take and if I draft late I have an idea but the middle is the hardest, no back to back or close to back to back picks. if I pick 9th or 10th I usually try and get team mates like Perry, Getzlaf (most likely they will go before the end of the first round after last year)

Thanks for your help in advance.

Regards,
Phil
- currphij

Well, lets see...half of your pool is goalie stats; if not more.

goals, assists worth 1 each
and wins and shutouts worth 2 each.

SOOOO, if you get a super good goalie like Rask, you should gather a ton of points off his wins, and of course any shutouts. Boston has great depth and solid D, they may have the most shutouts this season....do you pick Rask in the first round? Nah, but maybe look at getting him in the second round so that you are fully set with 1 quality goalie, then you can wait til your last picks to get your second goalie.

here is my list for top 50f, top 25d, top 20g

it should help a lot...

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=62167

grab the best player in round 1, then honestly id consider getting rask in second round if you can, especially if you end up picking like 8th or something. after that, yes, i agree, load up on forwards...grabbing at least 1 quality D man who always puts up points can hurt...karlsson, keith, weber, subban, etc.

but 1 great goalie and a lot of high end forward talent and you should be dancin!

In 5 player keeper league. No brainer keepers are Ovechkin, Toews and Subban.
My last 2 keeper picks are the ones I'm having a hard time deciding.

I have to pick 2 of the following:
Kyle Turris
Ryan O'Reilly
Ryan Suter
Craig Anderson
Jonas Hiller

Right now I am leaning towards O'Reilly and Anderson.

Thoughts????

In 5 player keeper league. No brainer keepers are Ovechkin, Toews and Subban.
My last 2 keeper picks are the ones I'm having a hard time deciding.

I have to pick 2 of the following:
Kyle Turris
Ryan O'Reilly
Ryan Suter
Craig Anderson
Jonas Hiller

Right now I am leaning towards O'Reilly and Anderson.

Thoughts????
- frenchy94

O'Reilly 100%.

After that, Suter should be good for 40 pts as a D man
Turris should be good for 55 pts
Hiller is done IMO
Anderson puts up good numbers but I think Ottawa is going to stink this season, so i wouldnt count on a ton of wins or shootouts, but a decent save % and likely a somewhat high GAA.

If there are going to be some decent goalies available, id consider taking Suter as he is one of the better D men in the NHL. Turris will likely max out around 60 pts.

so, my 2 cents = O'Reilly 100%

Suter if you want an excellent D man for years to come...

Anderson if there is going to be hardly any goalies available..

hope that helps

Lucas, can you write a post about scoring systems and how they can impact your draft list?

I'm in a league that awards points based on the following:

G - 3
A - 2
PPP - 3
SHG - 10
SHA - 3
Hits - .5
Blocks - .5

Wins - 5
Losses - minus 1
Shutouts - 10

To build my list I had to build an expansive spreadsheet that took me the better part of 3 hours.

Obviously my draft list won't look at all like a typical points driven draft, and while I'm hoping that all of my work will pay off for me, some tips for a rookie in a similar situation would probably be well received.

Lucas, can you write a post about scoring systems and how they can impact your draft list?

I'm in a league that awards points based on the following:

G - 3
A - 2
PPP - 3
SHG - 10
SHA - 3
Hits - .5
Blocks - .5

Wins - 5
Losses - minus 1
Shutouts - 10

To build my list I had to build an expansive spreadsheet that took me the better part of 3 hours.

Obviously my draft list won't look at all like a typical points driven draft, and while I'm hoping that all of my work will pay off for me, some tips for a rookie in a similar situation would probably be well received.
- jtommyt

interesting lay out, i dont see many like this to be honest.
seems to me you are going to want to load up on players who are on both the powerplay and the penalty kill..Toews comes to mind.

Thats what I would do, some research on who gets both powerplay and penalty kill time, there isnt exactly a ton of guys who produce in both categories, but E staal is another i can think of.

As for goaltending: shutouts are huge, and losses; well - don't pick a bad team that has a good goalie, if you do, sounds like you will be hurting yourself more than you are helping. (make sure you get playoff goalies) as you never want to go backwards in fantasy land!

Of course your high end forwards are still going to be the best to draft. Think about it this way; if Tavares goes out and scores 2 goals and gets an assist -and one of the goals was on the PP thats going to be a TON of points...so going back to my first paragraph above, you really will score big getting guys who get powerplay and penalty kill time. thats what you want to key in on in this setup, at least thats what i think

interesting lay out, i dont see many like this to be honest.
seems to me you are going to want to load up on players who are on both the powerplay and the penalty kill..Toews comes to mind.

Thats what I would do, some research on who gets both powerplay and penalty kill time, there isnt exactly a ton of guys who produce in both categories, but E staal is another i can think of.

As for goaltending: shutouts are huge, and losses; well - don't pick a bad team that has a good goalie, if you do, sounds like you will be hurting yourself more than you are helping. (make sure you get playoff goalies) as you never want to go backwards in fantasy land!

Of course your high end forwards are still going to be the best to draft. Think about it this way; if Tavares goes out and scores 2 goals and gets an assist -and one of the goals was on the PP thats going to be a TON of points...so going back to my first paragraph above, you really will score big getting guys who get powerplay and penalty kill time. thats what you want to key in on in this setup, at least thats what i think
- Lucas Neilson

It's a unique enough system that I had to build complicated weighted formulas in a spreadsheet.

The final list is actually heavily weighted with guys who score (especially on the PP) and hit, and defensemen that block a lot of shots and play on the PP.

So AO was 1, Shea Weber was 2, and the rest of the list is full of guys like Blake Wheeler, Dustin Brown, Brent Burns, Dustin Byfuglien and the like.

The real noticeable thing to me was how low a guy like Pavel Datsuyk fell... despite his PP work and his strong defensive play, he doesn't hit or block shots and it dropped him way down.

So I've fully committed to the tank this season. I traded away all of my picks for this season in an effort to draft McDavid next year. Im a keeper poolie junkie and I've built teams this way and won in the past.

My question is, who are some decent rookies or longs shots that I can draft in the latter rounds who i can potential trade off and upg my picks next year? Unfortunately, my draft is before the rosters are set but im willing to take long shots because if they dont pan out then this helps me not get any points. I dont even mind drafting people that get sent down to the minors as they will get me 0 points.

Suggestions?

Well, lets see...half of your pool is goalie stats; if not more.

goals, assists worth 1 each
and wins and shutouts worth 2 each.

SOOOO, if you get a super good goalie like Rask, you should gather a ton of points off his wins, and of course any shutouts. Boston has great depth and solid D, they may have the most shutouts this season....do you pick Rask in the first round? Nah, but maybe look at getting him in the second round so that you are fully set with 1 quality goalie, then you can wait til your last picks to get your second goalie.

here is my list for top 50f, top 25d, top 20g

it should help a lot...

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=62167

grab the best player in round 1, then honestly id consider getting rask in second round if you can, especially if you end up picking like 8th or something. after that, yes, i agree, load up on forwards...grabbing at least 1 quality D man who always puts up points can hurt...karlsson, keith, weber, subban, etc.

but 1 great goalie and a lot of high end forward talent and you should be dancin!
- Lucas Neilson

Is for some reason Rask goes in the first round, which I believe he did last year, would it still be worth picking up one of the other 3, Lundqvist, Quick or Price?

I grabbed Keith in a later round last year and he was a beast for me! He will go a lot higher this year for sure.

Thanks for the pointers!