I participated in a Fantasy Hockey Pool with 30 guys and each guy puts a bid on an NHL franchise.
The highest bid becomes the owner of that franchise, but most importantly, each of the individual players.
I was lucky enough to have purchased the Blackhawks so I have some decisions to make now and I\'m looking for some advice.

1. Who to protect?
We can protect 12 forwards(top 9 count), 6 d-men (top 4 count), 2 goalies. Each point a player gets counts as 1 fantasy point. Goalies get 1 point for a win and another for a shutout.
There is also a 4 man farm team to help develop your prospects. (once a player is designated on the farm team you can\'t move him up to the regular roster until next year)

2. Who are some guys I could trade away that may be over-rated?

3. Which players should I be after on other teams

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www.1stopfantasyhockey.com

I would actually wait until the season starts before making any trades. There is lots of speculation around havlat/toews/kane, but i would hold onto these guys. (maybe not havlat if the right deal came my way). Your main trade bait are going to be guys like samsonov, who hopefully put up some good numbers early, paving the way to a good trade.

Out of curiosity, how much did the hawks cost? how much did pitty/LA end up going for, lol?

Do yourself a favour get rid of the Band-Aid guy(Havlat).

I bid $60 and won the Hawks.
There is also a base fee of $10 for them.

The Kings went for $80 and had a base fee of $30.

I\'m just wondering about some 3rd or 4th line players that I might be able to steal. Sharp, Lapointe etc. would be guys I wouldn\'t care about losing too much.

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www.1stopfantasyhockey.com

Quite interesting. Are teams auctioned to highest bidder? Also, of the total money taken in, how is it divided for prizes?

12 Forwards
1. Jonathan Toews
2. Tuomo Ruutu
3. Martin Havlat (should have a monster year)
4. Robert Lang
5. Yanic Perreault (trade midway through season)
6. Sergei Samsonov (could bounce back to old form)
7. Jason Williams
8. Martin Lapointe
9. Rene Bourque
10. Patrick Kane
11. Jack Skille
12. Patrick Sharp


6 Defence
1. Cameron Barker
2. Duncan Keith
3. Jim Vandermeer
4. Brent Seabrook
5. Andrei Zyuzin
6. James Wisniewski

2 Goalies
1. Nikolai Khabibulin
2. Corey Crawford

4 Farm
1. Igor Makarov
2. Danny Richmond
3. Dan Bertram
4. David Bolland

Thats where I would start, players in no real order