I\'ll start by saying that I don\'t. The question is should changes to a pool be made if one roster gets too dominant.

I started this keeper pool and we just finished our 4th season. I finished 6th the first year, then the lockout happened. Due to some smart drafting in year 1 (picked prospects who have now matured) and some nice trades that have panned out well (like when I got Heatley at a great price while he was still in the hospital after the car accident), I finished first the past 2 years and look dominate for the near future.

We use goals and assists 1 point each, wins=2pts, OTl=1 point, SO=3 (SO win =5pts) for goalies.
The point total is for the top 8 fwds, 3 Def, 1 goalie.
There are 10 of us and we carry 25 players, and draft 5 each year for a total of 30. It is required to have 22 NHL teams on your roster after the draft.

My 25 man roster going into this years draft
Fwds Thornton/Bertuzzi/Heatley/Demitra/Allison/Lecavalier/Havlat/D.Sedin/H.Sedin/Spezza/Ovechkin/Zherdev/Malkin/Vanek/Svatos/McDonald/Kobasew

Def
Lidstrom/Jovanovski/Pitkanen/Liles/Whitney/J.Johnson

Goal
Brodeur/Lehtonen

One of the guys thinks we should drop or number of keepers down to around 10 players each so that my roster will be shed of some talent. Should I feel guilty and think about this suggestion?

Post edited by: Nuckfan, at: 2007/08/23 19:21

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13 GM Points only Pool (keep 20 players)
Top 8 Fwds, 4 D, 2 Goalies (2 W,1 otl, 2 so)
(Fwds) Ovechkin*, Hossa*, Datsyuk*, H.Sedin*, D.Sedin*, Backstrom*, Kovalev*, OSullivan*, Erat, Wolski, Oshie*, Brassard*, Wellwood, Radulov*, Hodgson
(Def) Whitney*, Kaberle*, Liles*, Wideman*, Corvo*, Harrold, Barker*, Edler
(goalies) Luongo*, Nabokov*, Rask*,

Depends entirely on what your league is like. If it\'s a group of buddies and you\'re just doing this for fun, then you might as well change it. If nobody else can win, then are you the only one having fun out of your friends?

That being said, you shouldn\'t be directly penalized just because you made some smart moves. My suggestion would be to slightly decrease the number of keepers (by 5 or so) and to add restrictions on how LONG you can keep players. Pick a number of seasons (2, 3, 4...) and say that you can only keep a player for that long. This way you don\'t get robbed of your talent, but you don\'t effectively cripple the rest of the league.

Another idea is to classify players by production. You may only keep X players scoring 100+ points. You may only keep X players scoring 80-100 points. On and on, this way you can keep a lot of your young, promising prospects but the established talent will be distributed a bit more evenly (the way it is in the NHL with salaries).

Finally, consider how the draft is done. If you lose a few or a lot of your players, then how many of them do you stand to regain in the draft? Will this result in the same sort of problem down the line?

It looks like your league is deep, which is good, but when talent gets too concentrated like this you need to consider stopgap measures. In the end, if you\'re the only one having fun, you might end up the only one.

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http://pfhl.adrstudios.com -- the coolest league around.
Counts all offensive/defensive stats except pims
12-team H2H weekly points league, 2LW/2RW/2C/4D/2G

LW: Ovechkin, Vanek, Prospal
C: Savard, Getzlaf, Frolik
RW: St. Louis, Doan, Hossa
D: Green, Niedermayer, Kaberle, Goligoski, Letang
G: Miller, Steve Mason, Osgood
Farm: Hodgson, Tangradi, Markstrom, Neuvirth

Tough to know the real details of the league and the guys you play with. I suppose in the interest of making the league fun for everyone you might consider doing that. My guess would be that when guys are playing for 2nd year after year, they might start to lose interest.

You obviously did a great job of getting to where you are with your team and of course you want to enjoy the benefits of that work.

Another possibility to reinvigorate your league might be to go with a salary cap structure as opposed to just cutting down the # of keepers. The NHL to some extent uses this structure to try and flatten the field a little (among other reasons). Might work for you guys.

I guess in the end you likely have to weigh the health of the league vs the health of your team. Sounds like you enjoy the building challenge - perhaps this is an opportunity for you to wrestle with a new challenge.

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Yahoo weekly starts 12 team league, keep 17 plus farm

GS, W, L, SV, GAA, SV%, SO G, A, P, +/-, PIM, SOG, GWG, PPP, SHP, HITS, FOW

3C: H. Sedin,Stepan, Stastny, R. Johansen, Hanzal, Anisimov,
3LW: Burrows, Vanek, Ott, Lupul, Dubinsky
3RW: Doan, Pavelski, Brown, Okposo,
6D: Franson, Doughty, Voynov, Subban, Markov, Gonchar, Karlsson
1Util:
2G: Price, Emery


Farm: (< 100 games): S. Elliott, J. Bernier, Galchenyuk, Etem, Eakin, Atkinson

I\'ll say it. No.
Every one knew the rules going in. You took the chances on those guys, it could have easily flopped and no one would want to change the rules if you were dead last.

Just like the NHL the teams at the bottom have first crack at new prospects like the recently drafted Kane and future Tavares.

I\'ll assume that first place isn\'t the only place that wins a prize.

But if you did want to be nice and change the rules, make the changes take effect one year later. Not this season.


And if anything else, they should know better than to trade with you

Nuck - I took a quick look at your team.
If you keep 10 (pretty clear which ones) you will still dominate this league.
I think you can look good adding talent back and still crush them yet again .

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2010 - 2011 Signature Team
RFHL: Founded 1989 Rochester, NY
10 Man Keeper League
G, A, PTS, 2W+OL, SV%, GAA
C: Tavares, Kopitar, Benn, Roy
LW: Hall, Vanek, van Riemsdyke, Nyquist
RW: Seguin, Carter, Yakupov, Tarasenko
D: Green, Fowler, Elliott, J.Schultz, Streit, Wisniewski
G: Price, Ward

If you have only dominated for 2 years then I think it is a little early to say they need to shake the pool up. Things change faster then most people realize. I remember when a guy in our pool won 3 straight years, his team looked unbeatable (guys like Kovalev, Hedjuk, Jagr, Thornton, Bure, Lalime, Theodore, Hasek). It really felt like we were battling for 2nd. Then out of the blue a bunch of had bad years and he finished 8th (out of 12). He made a bunch of trades and was back in the pack with his victories long forgotten. His has still been in the money regularly but power does shift.

Another thing to consider: A lot of those guys you picked up early didn’t exactly come out of no-where. Maybe you are just too knowledgeable compared to the rest of your pool. You might want consider handing you team over to someone else and joining a league with people who know more.

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Too many leagues this year... I think I own every player somewhere.

I agree with Loki, If this is a bunch of buddies, keep them happy, drop to keepers to ten. I can guarantee you will still dominate with your top ten keepers. I have won the last two years in my buddies pools and we can only keep 3 forwards in different point ranges. Keep em happy and still win, everyone wins!

Keep slapping everyone, unless, people start loosing interest in the pool. Sure its awesome to win your hockey pool, but if people dont care, dont follow it or don\'t make moves it really sucks, and even you will start losing interest

First of all, you should never change rules of a keeper league that way in one season with no notice. If you were to agree to it, drop the keepers to 12 this year and 10 next year. That sort of thing.

Second of all - I don\'t agree with limiting keepers at all. They get better draft picks, so the rules are structured for cyclical winning. If you dominate too much, then tell them about my site. Then they\'ll start to turn it around. B)

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DobberHockey Rules
14 Team Keeper, points only, best 12 skaters 2 dman 2 G count. Playoffs count.
F - Crosby, C.Smith, Wheeler, Parenteau, Hudler, Clowe, Grabovski, Atkinson, Frolik, S. Kostitsyn, Marchand, Peverley, Tavares, Read, Brouwer, Bickell, Gionta, Setoguchi
G - Anderson, Hiller, Markstrom, Brodeur
D - Letang, Del Zotto, I. White, Kronwall, Brodin, Nikitin

If the GM\'s in your pool are hard-core Dobber fanatics then you can tell them where to go with their suggestions. If not you may consider the changes [and still own them...like Loki said].

Pools are about the fun factor and you have to structure them in such a way as to cater to the majority. If you\'re the only super knowledgable person in the pool you should re-structure so at least it appears everyone has a greater chance to win [which they don\'t].

The worst pools are the ones the GM\'s don\'t care about and slowly drop out of!

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9 Team [keep 10 + 3 prospects]
Scoring F=1[g/a]; D=2[g], 1[a]; G=2[w], -1[L], 1[OT], 2[SO] Top 12 F, 6 D, 2 G count

Forwards
Crosby, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Iginla, Pavelski, Ribeiro, Marleau, Huberdeau, Moulson, Lupul, Wheeler, Pacioretty, Fleischmann, Weiss, Ennis, JVR, Burrows
Defense
Byfuglien, Letang, JJ, Carlson, Kulikov, EJ, Pitkanen, Faulk, Giordano, Orlov
Goalie
Fleury/Price/Rask