What can be done to spice up a keeper league after the trade deadline for teams that are not in the running for the title, and do not have a playoff team (and so cannot really look forward to the post season)?

Any ideas? Interested to hear any suggestions.

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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

Set up the teams out of the playoffs with a separate \"playoffs\" bracket that will determine their draft order in the next years draft.
This would be a one round playoff, wherein the 7th place team would play the 8th place team, the 9th would play the 10th,and the 11th would play the 12th, with the WINNER of each round getting the better of the two possible draft pick positions.

So, if its a 12 team league, and 7th place team beat the 8th, the 10th beat 9th, and the 11th place team beat the 12th, the draft order would be:

1st pick - 11th place team
2nd pick - 12th place team
3rd pick - 10th place team
4th pick - 9th place team
5th pick - 7th place team
6th pick - 8th place team

This would then discourage teams from tanking the season, while not providing a means by which a team could fall greatly in draft position (i.e., if its a 12 team league and 6 teams don\'yt make the playoffs, with this set-up, the worst you could fall in draft pick position is one spot).

This isn\'t a perfect system, but at least its something.

In our 16-team weekly-change deep roto keeper (split into 2 divisions of 8) we allocate a share of the prize money to the best Mover and Shaker. To win this, the team must have the largest roto-points increase from Jan 4 to season-end, but teams that finish in the top 3 in their division are ineligible (they get their own prize money for 1st thru 3rd in the division).

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19 tm x 30 plyr, 12F+6D+2G active weekly
8 Rotocats: F-G, F-A, D-G, D-A, Tm PIM, Tm +/-, G-Pts, GAA
0 to 15 keepers (LTC options), auction to 20, draft 10 more
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F: Malkin M.Koivu Ribeiro Benn A.McDonald Hornqvist C.Stewart Gallagher Matthias Beleskey Frolik Zuccarello Loktionov Hendricks Burmistrov Atkinson Sheppard Nyquist Bjugstad
D: Byfuglien Chara Ju.Schultz Josi Myers Brodin Dillon Postma Orlov
G: Price Dubnyk

For roto-style leagues, you could switch to head-to-head format for the bottom x teams. Or perhaps better, maintain your roto-style while adding head-to-head matchups and standings for the lower places. That would add a little competition between the bottom ranked teams, in addition to the competition between those vying the championship.

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T.G.

What we do to try and avoid teams tanking the season is we implemented a fee of 50% of the entrance fee to the team that comes in last. The league decided to do this after I decided two years in a row to put guys that were hurt into my lineup so I could be sure to get the first pick in the next draft. This money is given to the 4th and 5th place teams.

It\'s a great idea for our 10 team league because it means that 50% of the league gets money back so guys in 6th and 7th are trying to get up to 4th or 5th and the 8, 9 and 10th place teams are actively managing their rosters to avoid paying the fine.

It\'s worked well for us.

We do something along the lines of veronespek. It\'s a 16 team league with the top 8 playing for the big dough. The bottom 8 then play for the first overall rookie pick. It\'s a bracket with quarter finals then semis then finals. You lose you move to a C bracket and then a D bracket. You lose all your games you would get the 8th pick in the rookie draft, the winner of the tourney gets 1st rookie pick. In our league its possible to keep a rookie for 6-8 years(although rarely happens), so getting a rookie young can be huge.

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GWNHL Fantasy Cup Champs 06-07

as i can see the logic in most of these formats, still see how the REAL weakest team in the league deos not have much of a chance of improving his team through the draft since they don\'t have a good chance of winning these \'round robins\' or \'draft tournaments\' since the middle of the pack teams obviously have the best chance generally speaking.

we want to make sure the worst team indeeds improves by getting that first pick, but they have to do it without tanking and since we have guys with pride in our league it has not been a problem, but your right when you say that it is boring for the bottom half of he teams and i like the \"mover and shaker\" idea.

It really bothers me when people say, \"our guys have pride\" when discussing whether a GM makes the decision to try and make his team better for the future. Doesn\'t pride include knowing when you are beat and being man enough to evaluate yourself and make some changes? When a boxer keeps signing up for fights well beyond when he should be even getting in the ring, do you think, \"Man, that guy has a lot of pride\"? No, you think, \"that guy is an idiot for getting in the ring again.\" Same goes for hockey pools. In our pool the top 3 get paid and the draft the next year is reverse order, non snaking so I think the 4th place team is the biggest loser out there because he doesn\'t win any money and he has the 4th worst pick in each round. Maybe he should get some pride and tank the season so he finishes worse...

These are some great ideas. I\'ll float that head to head idea, very cool.

As for the pride thing - I think he was trying to mean that those particular GM\'s are blinded by their pride, which leads to stupidity. As in - they would rather finish sixth than try and ensure future success with a better pick. Myself - if I have NO shot at first place, then I would like to be last. My goal is to be first as often as I can. I would rather be first three times and last seven times...than be second 10 times. B)

\"Second place is just the first-place loser\"
:evil:

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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

We get penalties for tanking in my league. If it\'s obvious that someone is tanking, they either lose their waiver spot and move to the end of the line for every round, or they aren\'t allowed to enter the draft, depending on how badly they attempt to tank.

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ZFHL
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Ovechkin-Couture-Kovalchuk
Benn-Ott-Eriksson
Halischuk-Berglund-S.Thornton
Bowman-Legwand-Mitchell
Faulk-Orlov
Martin-Y.Weber
Wilson-Smid
Niemi

Butler,Horak,Nodl,Omark,Bartulis, Carson,Demers,Staios,Garon,Schneider

PROSPECTS
Nyquist,Bennett,Guptill,Haula,Knight, Kristo,Ranford,Rieder,Sundher,Barberio
Dumoulin,Deslauriers,Janosik,Klefbom
Ness,Sproul,Vatanen,Poulin