Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011
NHL Fantasy Draft Strategy 2011
This is for rotisserie players in 12-team leagues with the traditional 10 statistical categories. It's a checklist of 10 important tips to follow on draft day, based on patterns that I have noticed doing numerous mock drafts online. As a two-time winner of the Yahoo! Friends & Family league over the past five years, some of these tips have served me well previously, especially tip #8.
1. Draft one of Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Tomas Vokoun, Pekka Rinne, Tim Thomas, Marc-Andre Fleury, or Ilya Bryzgalov in rounds 1-2.
2. Draft a LW in the first 3 rounds (Alexander Ovechkin, Bobby Ryan, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Zach Parise, Patrick Marleau, Ilya Kovalchuk).
3. Draft a RW in the first 5-6 rounds (Corey Perry, Martin St. Louis, Jarome Iginla, Claude Giroux, Daniel Briere, Marian Gaborik, Dany Heatley, David Backes, Martin Havlat).
4. Draft a 50-point D-man by the end of round 6 -7 and another by round 9-10. Pass on Big 5 in early rounds and go for Kris Letang, Dan Boyle, Brent Burns, Mark Streit, Andrei Markov, Chris Pronger, Alex Goligoski, Alex Pietrangelo, James Wisniewski, or Alexander Edler.
5. Draft a second goalie by round 8 (Cam Ward, Jaroslav Halak, Dwayne Roloson, Kari Lehtonen, Ondrej Pavelec).
6. Draft a C by round 8 (Jason Spezza, Peter Stastny, Logan Couture, Derek Roy, Mikko Koivu, Tomas Plekanec, David Krejci).
7. Draft Scott Hartnell, Steve Ott, or Steve Downie for PIMs.
8. Draft a backup goalie on a top team by round 11 or 12 (Cory Schneider, Tuukka Rask, Jonathan Bernier, or Mathieu Garon).
9. Target D-men in late rounds: Joe Corvo, Marek Zidlicky, Anton Babchuk, Ian White, Michael Del Zotto, Andy Greene.
10. Target Andy McDonald, Patrik Elias and Simon Gagne late in drafts.
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