Ok, since we've got a considerable break in the schedule thanks to the Olympics, I think it might be a decent time to consider how the pool is or isn't working.
I'm in three different NHL pools and they're all pretty different. Each has its own pluses, each has its flaws.
My work pool is thus:
Forwards 6
Defense 3
Goalie 1
bench 1
Point for assist and goal. Goalie 2 pt win, -1 pt loss.
Over at the spawn.com board the pool has the following stats/setup:
Can you guys access league settings of leagues you're not in? That'll explain it better anyway, but if you can't:
C, LW, RW 2 each
Utility and Forward 1 each
Def 4
3 bench
Goalie 2
Lots more stats over there, some good, some bad and it's really a very, very different way to evaluate the players. I think that league is too deep for too few quality players, but oh well.
Points there are generated for +/-, G, A, PIM, PPG, SHG, GWG, GTG, W, GA, SHO
Positive points for everything except being on the minus side of +/- and GA (-0.25 each).
I like the broader point categories but I wasn't sure if guys here would or not. I'm not a huge fan of game winning goals, game tying goals or short handed goals, those to me are an artifact of luck as much as anything else. Power play goals are ok, because that tends to be a calculatable stat with some sort of figureable knowledge associated with it.
That leaves us here:
I'm not really in agreement with Jesse and Jason's earlier comments, even at this point (though I'm not opposed to raising the cap on a position for number of games). I know it hurts leaving guys on the bench, I understand that. But I'd prefer to resolve that next year by adding maybe a flex position or two, like the spawn.com league with a forward and utility or something like that.
I'd also like to reduce the number of bench positions. Lots of good players tied up for no great reason and the frustration can be generated from that. Goalies would be a good example. Not trying to blame anyone for anything here, those with more goalies are smart, it's that simple. They saw that multiple goalies would be needed to cover off all the games and did something about it. I didn't and now I've traded away my star player to get a goalie (granted he's a star player as well, so I think the trade was fair). I'd like to reduce the number of goalie games played as well so the max can be maybe easier to reach?
I'm also not a fan of rotisserie either, at least not at this point. I'm not sure how it's necessary if we resolve some of the other issues.
So next time around here's what I'd like to see:
C - 2
LW - 2
RW - 2
Util - 2
D - 3
G - 2
Bench - 3
IR - 1
That's one position less than our current roster size, so not much change, but some more flexibility.
For scoring, I'd like the following:
G - 1pt
A - 1 pt
+/- +0.5 pt/-0.5 pt
PIM +0.25
PPG - 1 pt (in addition to the G or A pt)
For goalies, I'd like to add G/A points, but Yahoo doesn't allow it at this point. I know it's mostly trivial, but I see no reason for guys to lose out on points their players actually achieve. In other leagues we've actually had goals as 5 points and assists as 3 points. Anyway, the rest of the stats for goalies:
W - 2 pts
L - -1 pt
SHO - 3/4 pts
In terms of the number of games, I'm still not a huge fan of limitless numbers of games at a particular position. Must be the traditionalist in me but you can't actually have a player play more than 82 games in a season, so why do it in fantasy? Regardless, I'm not always right, so how about the following:
We add those two utility positions.
We bumpt the number of games per position to 90 games. With the flex positions that moves up the number of games a very considerable amount and you'll have fewer guys sitting on the bench.
Maybe we should reduce the bench positions to only two slots? I'm a fan of that to free up the goaltending situation a bit as well. Like I said, I understand why guys have five goalies on the bench, but that's a big unrealistic as well. I'd even entertain thoughts of reducing the number of games a goalie can play, but I don't think Yahoo allows a separation of number of games based on position, so if we go up for the others, goalies will too. How about reducing the number of active goalies on a daily basis to just one? 90 games for the goaltending position is pretty subtantial and would require two starters in many cases.
Anyway, just some food for thought since we've got a dryspell coming for the next couple of weeks. Looks like the league gets going again on the 28th of the month.
