Penalties are bad regardless of if a PP goal is scored on the ensuing powerplay or not. It puts your team in a hole either way. Doesn't make sense to reward some and punish others.

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GO WINGS!

12 team H2H dynasty, most categories under the sun, incl. hits/blocks. Main team, farm

C: Kopitar Backstrom Stepan Cammalleri Little Bolland Laich Johnson
LW: Parise Lupul Erat McDonald Martin Silfverberg Nyquist Schwartz Morin Nieto Conacher
RW: PKane Doan Pominville Nash Clowe Lupul Rinaldo Stafford Rattie Stone Chiasson Ritchie
D: Green Suter Seabrook Dillon Beauchemin Schenn Letang Schultz Hamilton McNabb Rielly Harrison
G: Bryzgalov Pavelec Holtby Neuvirth Nihlstorp Lack CalPickard Andersen Stalock Sateri Eriksson
IR: Halak

I still enjoy PIM as a category personally. I can understand how leagues that are really competitive would want to cut it out but in my main league which is with all of my buddies it's hilarious.

I got the short end of the stick when Ryane Clowe got hit with like 35 penalty minutes against the Canucks on that Sunday. Hoooly I was pissed, I had been winning PIM before that lol.

While I love fantasy hockey, I've always disliked PIM.

A good fantasy hockey pool should allow an avid fan who knows their hockey to join & do well.
With PIM, you have to explain to somebody that Milan Lucic is more valuable than Pavel Datsyuk.

I run my friends & family league with the following categories (no PIM):
Skaters: G, A, +/-, SOG, PPP
Goalies: W, SV%
It makes for a nice balance of just 7 categories... IMO.

While there are lots of statistics available - adding some new ones is only right for a pool if ALL of the GMs understand how it will impact the value of all players.

If a fantasy host (Yahoo!, Fantrax, ESPN) can accurately reflect a player's "fantasy value" based on all categories & pre-rank players for that value... that's a case where I'm fine with new/added categories.

As an example, while I realize that leagues are beginning to incorporate HITS, Yahoo!s default rankings still do not build in the value of HITS into a player's "rank". Therefore, a player with ZERO stats and 1 SOG will show up as being more valuable than a player with ZERO stats and 100 HITS.

My (long) 2 cents on different categories & PIM.

This explicitly excludes rotisserie leagues from being a good fantasy hockey pool. This may be true of fantasy points leagues, but being an avid fan who understands hockey has very little to do with success in category totals -style leagues.

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true. and people who are very good at hockey pools can have very little idea about the true value of a hockey player in terms of contributing to wins for their respective teams.

I agree that all GMs should be in favour of adding a stat (or changing any setups related to the league) before it goes forward.

I slightly disagree on your point about Yahoo and Hits. Our league is 12 guys who are ultra-competitive and love to trash talk. We use espn and started using HITs a few years ago, even today most rankings including espn don't project HITs or include them in their rankings. I like this! It means a guy can't just pick the highest espn (or tsn, hockey news etc.) ranked player each round to build his team. By having a scoring setup that is different than standard guys are required to do more analysis and thinking when considering players, its rare that Player A is always better than Player B.

This setup works best in a competitive league where managers are looking for an edge over each other. In a casual family & friends league where you want everyone to have a chance without lots of preparation or hockey knowledge a simplier setup is best. I think the takeaway here is consider the goals of your league before creating the league rules.

Also I completely agree that being good at and understanding fantasy hockey is different from being good at and understanding a hockey players real life value. When in arguments I often have to remember if I'm talking about the real world or the fantasy world!

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12 team H-2-H 1 year league, daily roster 3 goalie start minimum
2xC, 2xRW, 2xLW, 4xD, 3xUtil, 2xG, 5 Bench
G, A, P, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, GWG, Hits, W, SV%, GAA
C: Stamkos,Thornton, Riberio, Stepan, Desharnais, Clune
LW: Moulson, Dupuis, Prust,
RW: Kessel, P. Kane, Wheeler, Stempniak
D: Hamonic, Zidlicky, Franson, Muzzin
G: Bryzgalov, Hiller, Fasth

While I agree with your basic sentiment on hockey knowledge, I disagree on your implementation. To me, its not just hockey knowledge, its a certain level of intelligence and aptitude with numbers and math, stats and trends. You might be the smartest hockey scout ever for real world talent and still be useless in a fantasy league. As a commish myself I could give 2 shits about the former usually but I try to only recruit GMs with the latter as a given and a healthy dose of the former.

As far as providers go though, that's ridiculous, friends don't let friends use Yahoo. I'm sorry dude, I know its super easy and tied to your email and everything but they suck donkey balls, stop rewarding them, use a real fantasy hockey provider that understands the game and responds to feedback

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Thats me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish.





P=1 DPts=1.2 +/-=.32 PIM=.08 PPP=.4 SHP=.6 S=.015 Blk=.2 Hit=.08
W=2 OTL=.8 GA=-.64 SV=.08 SO=3

Pro (23 keep 17)
C- Filppula,Turris,Stastny,Backstrom
D-Boyle,MDZ,Karlsson,Robidas,Goligoski,Schenn,Seiden berg
G-Anderson,Hiller,Rinne
LW-Malone,Parise,Rolston,Eriksson,Ruutu
RW-Alfredsson,Callahan,Setoguchi,Brown,Ryder,Vrbata

Farm (9 keep all, max 200 GP, 100 Goalies)
Colborne,Leblanc,Loktionov,Perreault,Tangradi,Blum ,Poulin,Markstrom