first time in an all-dobber league. very tough. there are no sleepers. and since purchasing the dobber guide is a prerequisite to entry, everyone is at least aware of his projections for goals, assists, and pms, and wins, for each player.

i decided to try a strategy that would allow me to draft with a different emphasis than the other owners. at " dobber's free hockey challenges ", i reviewed the drafts already held. the best d-men are being drafted above their point projections in relation to forwards still available. that's fine, and i understand the logic. however, i think many take that strategy too far. there is a cut-off point, when you arrive at the second and third tier of d-men, when i think taking a 65 or 70 point forward makes more sense than grabbing yet another 40-45 point d-man. so i planned to draft d-men late. very late.

i would instead put drafting as strong a group of forwards as possible as top priority, then draft the left-overs at d.

rather than draft for balance between fw, d, and goalie, i decided to simply try and accumulate numbers. i looked up the winning totals in each category from last season, in each of the four entry divisions and gave my self targets to reach in each of them. coming out of the draft, i wanted to be as strong as possible in each category. i wanted at least; 325 goals, 565 assists, 1000 pms, +75, 300 ppp, and 3300 shots. 70 wins, a 2.40 gaaa, and 3500 sog.

at the end of the draft, for my bench, i decided to take which-ever left-over goalies seemed to have any chance at fantasy relevance. i figured that after 300 players selected, there would be pretty little remaining, and any goalie that actually did emerge from training camp, or the first couple months of the season, as fantasy relevant, might have high trade value.

using dobber's projections for goals, assists, and pms, i did fine in accumulating those cats, as my team projects to 380 goals, 650 assists, and 1050 pms. using my own projections for ppp and sog, i think i also did ok, as the team could produce 360 ppp, and 3460 sog. not sure about +/-. but can we ever be?

i was very surprised how quickly goalies got snapped up in the adams draft. thirteen went in the first two rounds. the guy i wanted, halak, was drafted just ahead of me. i settled on kipper. seven more goalies went in the next two rounds, including leighton, and by the time i was to make the third choice in round five, for my #2 goalie, i was choosing between niemi and price. i gambled. i'm now hoping niemi wins the shark's job. fast. so my goalie targets may be out of reach. at this point. we'll see.

the expectorators

C Malkin, M Richards, Pavelski, Connelly
LW McDonald, Laich, Huselius, T Ruutu
RW Kane, Hudler, Brown, Vrbata
D Pitkanen, Robidas, Letang, Babchuk, Tyutin, Carkner
bn Hanzal

G, Kipper, Niemi
bn Habby, Boucher, Markstrom, Gerber

flame away

drafting with fifteen dobber posters is humbling. i've never seen my que-list emptied so regularly and so fast.

looking forward to a very competitive year. good luck everyone.

spitball

at least i'm certain to finish ahead of this guy...anyone ever hear of a poster called lanky???

1. (7) Brock Beukeboom (TB - D)
2. (26) Chris Carrozzi (Atl - G)
3. (39) Maxime Fortunus (Dal - D)
4. (58) Luke Gazdic (Dal - LW)
5. (71) Justin Azevedo (LA - C)
6. (90) Jon DiSalvatore (Min - RW)
7. (103) Peter Mannino (Atl - G)
8. (122) Jon Matsumoto (Car - C)
9. (135) Nick Palmieri (NJ - RW)
10. (154) Jonas Ahnelov (Pho - D)
11. (167) Ben Lovejoy (Pit - D)
12. (186) Johan Harju (TB - LW)
13. (199) Mark Letestu (Pit - C)
14. (218) Anthony Peluso (StL - RW)
15. (231) Stephen Silas (Col - D)
16. (250) David Van der Gulik (Col - LW)
17. (263) Riley Holzapfel (Atl - C)
18. (282) Mike Siklenka (Atl - RW)
19. (295) John Negrin (Cgy - D)
20. (314) Mike Angelidis (TB - LW)
21. (327) MacGregor Sharp (Anh - C)
22. (346) Raymond Sawada (Dal - RW)
23. (359) Kaspars Daugavins (Ott - LW)
24. (378) Johan Fransson (LA - D)
25. (391) Harri Sateri (SJ - G)

I like Lanky's team - very thoughtful draft for him. He needs to watch out for Harju though - he might gets some games in this season.

__________________
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

yeah, he was thrilled to get fransson in rd 24.

perhaps i should have grabbed sateri instead of gerber....

ya that was the most intense hockey draft I've been in. Goalies flew off the board and my draft queue was constantly disappearing right before my pick. I think my main problem was the multiple mock drafts I did were almost all 14 team drafts and weren't against dobber readers .
needless to say my team's going to need a lot of luck...
streit no chaser
1. (10) Daniel Sedin (Van - LW)
2. (23) Craig Anderson (Col - G)
3. (42) Jarome Iginla (Cgy - RW)
4. (55) Zdeno Chara (Bos - D)
5. (74) Kari Lehtonen (Dal - G)
6. (87) Andrei Markov (Mon - D)
7. (106) Mikko Koivu (Min - C)
8. (119) David Krejci (Bos - C)
9. (138) Pavel Kubina (TB - D)
10. (151) Shane Doan (Pho - RW)
11. (170) Olli Jokinen (Cgy - C)
12. (183) Ryane Clowe (SJ - LW)
13. (202) Tim Thomas (Bos - G)
14. (215) Ed Jovanovski (Pho - D)
15. (234) Vinny Prospal (NYR - LW)
16. (247) Alex Kovalev (Ott - RW)
17. (266) Jason Blake (Anh - LW)
18. (279) Brandon Dubinsky (NYR - C)
19. (298) J.P. Dumont (Nsh - RW)
20. (311) Derek Morris (Pho - D)
21. (330) Filip Kuba (Ott - D)
22. (343) Brian Rolston (NJ - LW)
23. (362) Cody Hodgson (Van - C)
24. (375) Michael Ryder (Bos - RW)
25. (394) Steve Montador (Buf - D)