Monday, September 29, 2008

Open Ice Fantasy Hockey: Draft Results

Last Thursday, the 2nd Annual Open Ice Fantasy Hockey League held its livedraft. Of the nine teams participating, only two had to autodraft: ST and a friend of ours, Marcel. For whatever reason, autodraft gave ST a much better team than Marcel.

A brief summary:

screaming dobermans (walkinvisible): She has an...interesting team. Unfortunately, she got bitten by an awful design of Yahoo's livedraft client that has happened once for every livedraft I've seen. She dragged her players into the queue, but had another player "selected" still. When she hit the "draft" button, above the queue, it drafted her selected player (Jordan Staal) rather than the one on top of her queue (someone much better than Jordan Staal). However, she also has The Stempniak which ultimately means the rest of her team doesn't matter. That guy is a one-man wrecking ball of awesome. WI is also taking flyers on Dubinksky, Jochen "ch" Hecht, and our own Giordano (which according to Yahoo has an average draft order of "-", which seems to indicate she is the first person ever to draft him in Yahoo Fantasy Hockey -- great work!)

FB Craig Conroys (duncan): He got The Crosby, and some dynamic duos in Lecavalier & St. Louis and Bertuzzi & Cammalleri. He seems to have more faith in Ryan Miller (he looks funny) and Martin Biron than I do, as he's going to be flying with just those two in net. There's not really any gambles on this team aside from who is in net, other than arguably Bertuzzi and Shawn Horcoff (he looks funny). A lot of funny looking people on this team -- was Ricci not available?

Bancouber Pucks (Marcel): The autodraft punished Marcel for having perhaps the dumbest team name I've ever seen in fantasy hockey. This team is stacked with talents such as Sheldon Souray, Sergei Gonchar, Markus Naslund, Bryan McCabe, and Nikolai Zherdev. And in net he's got the trio of Jose Theodore, Dan Ellis, and Vesa Toskala -- I guess he's not gonna go for "wins".

Steel Thunder (Steal Thunder): Steal Thunder's team is named Steel Thunder. As someone in the draft asked (Duncan?), is his team name misspelled or is his blogging name misspelled? Will we ever know? ST also suffered the fate of having an autodraft, but the hockey gods have shined on him. Perhaps the only "questionable" pick was Osgood, but he may surprise yet again this year. This team has the likes of Spezza, Stastny (a personal favourite of mine), Iginla, Lidstrom, Briere, and H. Sedin. In net, he's got Marc-Andre Fleury, Chris Osgood, and Tomas Vokoun (8 goals against, haha!).

Flaming C (The enigma that is Paul-Marc): Paul-Marc drafted a very solid team, perhaps strongest in net with Evgeni Nabokov, Henrik Lundqvist, and Ilya Bryzgalov. Other notable players include Mike Richards, Rick Nash, Brian Rolston, Jason Pominville, Brent Burns, Niklas Kronwall, and a very astute pick with Patrice Bergeron (a terrific sleeper). He also took a flyer on Matt Carle (the non-injured one) and Mikko Koivu. I think Paul-Marc wins the award of stealing most of Leanne's favourite usual fantasy studs.

RetiredWarreners (Kent -- or if you want to be shot, metrognome): Kent picked up Selanne, told us he'd be playing...and then rubbed it in when Selanne signed his 2-year contract and scored 2 goals. Nicely played, Kent. Notable players include Datsyuk, Toews, Tanguay (I love him too, Kent), Frolov, Hossa, Satan (the devil, not the player), and Niklas Backstrom. Oh, and Havlat, Huselius, Corvo, and Price. His backup goaltender is Leclaire. As you might have guessed from the long list of players, this will be a pretty competitive team. He took a flyer on apparent man-crush Antoine Vermette.

The Naughty Nilsons (Leanne): Leanne has an unhealthy obsession with Marcus Nilson. There must've been some kind of mistake, but she did not draft Nilson. She was even the first overall pick, so she has no excuse. Her team includes Captain Consistency and Integrity (Mike Ribeiro), Ovechkin, Parise, Kane, Phaneuf, Pronger, and J-S Giguere. Her other goaltenders are Cam Ward and Timothy Thomas, Jr. A decent team, anchored by Ovechkin and Phaneuf. But they're no Nilsons.

Wasilla Meth-heads (Adrian, my brother): This team is stacked with foreign policy experience -- they can see Russia from their rinks. A pretty stable team, not any notable risky picks and it should treat him well. Notable players include Getzlaf, Savard, Heatley, Perry, Campbell, Jovocop, Brad Richards, and an excellent 'tending trio of Roberto Luongo, Miikka Kiprusoff, and Martin Gerber. The riskiest players here are the geriatric Rob Blake and Edmonton's favourite player, Joffrey Lupul.

The Pantless Pirates (me): I had the luxury of drafting last, which I've never done before. The double-pick is nice but it's also a long, lonely wait between picks. Notable players for my team include Joe Thornton, Eric Staal, Thomas Vanek, Marian Gaborik, Andrei Markov, Wade Redden, and Anze Kopitar. In net I have Martin Brodeur, Christobal Huet, and Manny Legace. The goal was a well-balanced team, and I hope it is.

Thanks to all who were able to attend the draft, and thank you Marcel for letting autodraft screw you with several picks. It's almost showtime! Good luck to most of you, but not all.

6 comments:

  1. As someone in the draft asked (Duncan?), is his team name misspelled or is his blogging name misspelled?

    that was CLEARLY me, as i am FAR more likely to point out a typo than duncan is... because i'm brash where duncan is polite, and (obviously) i'm smarter.

    i would presume ST set up his autodraft properly with his own pre-rankings, while marcel (who was supposed to go live) most likely left it to yahoo to screw up entirely. either way, i'm not sure why jordan staal was still around in the 6th round...
    :P

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  2. Vermette is awesome. He's no Nilson, but...

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  3. WI may be smarter, but I clearly have better motor skills, for it wasn't I who got stuck with J. Staal in R6.

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  4. Why Duncan, that was a very polite way to put it...

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  5. Wow, this blogging thing is still around, eh?

    Seriously, I'm coming back...

    In regards to my name, it actually dates back to my old fraternity nickname, which was stealing thunder, which I shortened to steal thunder, but depending on which fantasy pool I'm in, I change it up...

    In hockey pools I'm usually Steel Thunder, in baseball pools I'm usually Stealing Third, etc...

    So no, it was not a typo... ; D

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  6. Oh, and yes, I set my autodraft... although I'm not sure how I let Osgood stay high enough in my rankings that I actually got him...

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