Yahoo! Fantasy Hockey IntroductionDRAFT BREAKDOWN:- First of all, The Yahoo! Fantasy Hockey Homepage is found here
- http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/
- Think of it like the NHL draft; a player can only get drafted by one team.
- For this example there will be 10 teams in the league
- Yahoo! randomly selects the positions that everyone will draft in (i.e. Who gets first pick, second pick, third, etc.)
- Whoever gets first pick in the first round (1st overall) will draft last (10th) in the 2nd round and get the first pick of the 3rd round (and thus 2 picks in a row).
Calm down its not all its cracked up to be sometimes lol. - Draft order looks like this: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/***10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1/...and so on (***represents the end of a drafting round).
- So 1st and 10th pick get back-to-back picks but have to wait to get their pick.
- When it is your turn to draft you have 2 minutes to act.
- If you dont act within 1minute and 50 seconds a buzz will sound to alert you that you have 10 seconds to draft
- If you fail choose a player in time, your pick will be auto drafted (the next best player for that open position on your team)
- Draft strategy (as in which position do I want to pick) C/RW/LW/D/G is up to you always.
- The Draft window is run by Java so make sure your software is up to date (Update to all OS found Below)
- http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
- Mock or fake drafts can be performed at your discretion any time before the real draft so you can test your system settings and get comfortable with how the draft works.
-Yahoo! Standard set up looks like this (Can be adjusted)- 2x Centers
- 2x Right Wing
- 2x Left Wing
- 4x Defenseman (No left and right, Just D)
- 2x Goalies (Can add 3+ Depending on settings)
- 1x Utility/Flex Position (Any extra PLAYER position. Cannot be used for Goalie)
- 4x Bench (Players and Goalies that are not counted towards the current day's point totals)
- 1x IR Spot (Injured Reserve can only be used for players tagged with "IR" )
See Below for Example
With that, you will draft 17 players (in this example).
- The IR spot (shown in ORANGE is for players that get injured and placed on the Injured Reserve List.
- If they get placed on the Injured Reserve List by the NHL, Yahoo will place them on the IR as well
THE BENCH- The bench is just the remaining players on your roster that arent "playing" that night.
- Each night players will have scheduled NHL games (i.e.- Habs vs Wings).
- So, that night your Andrei Markov will have a game at 7:30pm and Nicklas Lidstrom as well at 7:30.
- BEFORE 7:30 that night you need to have Markov and Lidstrom placed (drag and drop system) in the Defenseman position and NOT on the bench. Unless of course, you want them to sit on the bench that night.
- If a player is on the "Bench" they cannot earn you points that night.
- So if you chose Markov as one of your 4 defenseman playing that night over Lidstrom (Lidstrom is on the bench), then whatever points Markov accrues, you earn but whatever points Lidstrom accrues you do not earn. (more on the points thing later)
- Some nights you will have to make a decision of who to "play" and who to "sit"
--> You have 2 "playing" center spots in this example.
- If you have Kopitar/Getzlaf/Malkin all playing in NHL games on the same night, you will have to chose which two will play and which one will sit on the bench.
- Some nights it is a tough decision. For that, Yahoo! offers great stats to help you decide.
- You can click on the players name and it will bring up their career stats AS WELL AS the stats they have against the team they will face next for both this season and career!!. This should help you decide.
--> So you chose to play Kopitar and Malkin, ok.
- Now you have a Utility spot to put Getzlaf in, IF YOU CHOOSE.
- If you do not want Getzlaf to play because you have Semin as a 3rd RW and think for some reason that he will put up more points that night, then by all means, put Semin in as the Utility position and Getzlaf on the bench. Some nights it will be a tough decision.
- Again, you can put any player you want in that Utility position except a goalie.
GOALIES- Our example league has a minimum of 4 starts a week.
- This means that IN TOTAL, your goalie tandem has to start in a minimum total of 4 games to qualify your goalie categories.
- You dont get any bonus for going over the 4 starts other than having the potential to gain better/worse goalies stats because they played a great/poor game.
- Typical goalie stats are Wins/Goals Against Average/Save Percentage/ Shut Outs.
- It is typically only 4 out of 13 stats to be scored on (more on scoring later) but TRUST ME- the goalies categories can win you a week.
- How can the goalie categories win my week?
- If your goalie is Martin Brodeur and he gets a shutout there is 1 SO with the best GAA and S% possible with a win. So even if your opponents goalie gets a win but no shutout, right there you have him beat on 3 of the 4 goalie categories (you beat him on GAA, S% and SOs.)
- If you are unsure how many starts your goalies have accumulated in a week you can check by clicking the “Minimum Games” link located below your goaltending category on the MY TEAM page (shown below).
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9730/goaliestarts.png
SCORING AND POINTS- This example is for a Head-to-Head league (which is currently what all of JSP leagues are set to).
- For this example you will score points forGoals/Assists/Plus-minus/Power Play Points/ Shots on Goal/Face Offs Won
- Throughout the week (Monday to Sunday) Yahoo! will automatically total your teams totals in these categories.
- If by the end of the week you have more goals in total that your opponent, then you get ONE point.
- If you tie on goals neither of you gets a point- it is a wash (zero points)
- This goes the same for every category.
- Leagues that count penalty minutes will receive points for THE MOSTpenalty minutes NOT the least.
- The picture below Is a truncated version of the Weekly Matchup.
- The Numbers in the GREEN box are totaled to give you the numbers shown in the SCORING SUMMARY box.
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9353/pointscoring.png
- As you can see in the image below, Face Off won is a category that points will be scored on. With that, it is typically a good idea to fill your Utility position with a Center. This is because centers can get goals and assists just like anyone else but you can get more faceoffs.