+- Simulation Hockey League (https://simulationhockey.com)
+-- Forum: League Media (https://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=610)
+--- Forum: SHL Media (https://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=46)
+---- Forum: Graded Articles (https://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=545)
+---- Thread: The S33 SHL Fantasy Wrapup. (/showthread.php?tid=73511)
- Avakael - 03-12-2017
6700ish words, finished.
Doing this Friedman's 30 thoughts style. Except with, like, 42 points, because I thought of 42 different things to talk about. Deal with it, losers.
~
1.
Theo Kane. Theo Kane? Theo Kane > Everyone, pretty much. This entire goddamn fantasy season worked out to be all about watching to see how well Theo Kane was going to do. It was actually kind of astonishing. Among all the other colossal records that Theo Kane broke this season, you can probably add this one- the highest fantasy score ever put out by a forward. Theo Kane finished the season on an absolutely unbelievable 404.6 fantasy points- nearly 300 of them alone from his Goals/Assists/Points. If he hadn't slowed down, we could have seen it go even higher; at the start of March, Theo Kane was on pace for a mind boggling 471.17 fantasy points.
Nobody seemed to have expected this- even though he was drafted in every group, he was almost never a first round draftee; in some groups, he fell as far as the fifth round. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of people jump on him for the 1st overall pick next season, even if he's not necessarily likely to repeat this performance.
2.
Just to reiterate: the entire fantasy season was legitimately about watching how well Theo Kane did. Don't believe me? Of the nineteen fantasy group winners (one for each group, duh), just nine of them managed to do it without Theo Kane. I counted at the start of March, too, and back then it looked like that number would work out to only be five. Most groups had a less than 500 score difference between first and last placing teams, and generally had a less than 200 score difference between first and last placing teams; so a non first round pick coming out with 100+ more fantasy score than most people expected was a huge deal in most leagues.
3.
This logically means that nine teams did have Theo Kane, but somehow didn't pull out the win. I'd just like to take this moment to shame those participants. It's not like your teams objectively sucked (some of these are among the very best teams globally that didn't manage to win their group), but some of you annoy me and I feel great having the excuse to say that you suck. Shame list: Marley, SwegKingu, Tomen, CaptainCrazy, Grapehead, Sorator, The_Mazais, BasedMinkus, and... Lunaro. Well, that's unfortunate.
4.
There were also eight managers who picked deep enough teams that they managed to get it done without needing Theo Kane on the roster. I'd like to give credit to GoodLeftUndone, Dantejg, mpc, ckroyal92, JKortesi81, Justice, overworm, Kylrad, and StamkosIsMyDad. The best of this group was Dantejg, who managed to finish 4th overall across the entire league with this group-
Dantejg - Score
Nathan Russell - 136.9 - Plus Replacement - Bubba Nuck - 112.7
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Jack Durden - 268.2
Alonzo Garbanzo - 401.8
Vladimir Lidstrom - 279.9
Mikke Laukkanen - 275.2
Total - 1802
5.
Who's probably fuming over Theo Kane's numbers? ArGarBarGar. Alonzo Garbanzo has been on Theo's tail all season, serving as the paperweight keeping the Minnesota roster from being (completely) blown away by gale force winds on the ice, finishing with an impressive 401.8 fantasy points. Without Theo, the first 4 thoughts in this article would probably be about Alonzo instead. In fact, right near the end, Alonzo Garbanzo actually had a higher fantasy score than Theo Kane, and Theo only pipped him to retake the top spot in the very last sim. Bugger!
There were some teams who managed to with with Garbanzo instead of Theo Kane, too- much fewer, because Garbanzo was consistently a top 3 pick across most groups, and so was expected to do well, but the list includes Dantejg, ckroyal92, and Justice. Those two teams (other than Dantejg's, which we already just listed, were as follows,
ckroyal92 - Score
Kaapo Kekkonen - 245.5
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Ivan Koroviev - 225.3
Alonzo Garbanzo - 401.8
Jack Burton - 306.1
Michael McFadden - 284.5
Total - 1790.5
Justice - Score
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Nikolaus Scholz - 221.3
Slappy McDoodle - 193.1
Alonzo Garbanzo - 401.8
Big Manious - 365.3
Christoffer Bjornsson - 233.2
Total - 1742
6.
There were finally five champions who managed to win their groups without either Theo Kane or Alonzo Garbanzo. Their names are GoodLeftUndone, mpc, overworm, Kylrad and JKortesi81. Some of these players had weak groups; some of these players simply didn't make any bad picks, or managed to replace their bad pick with a good one. Either way, well done.
GoodLeftUndone - Score
Lord Pretty Flacko - 308.6
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Kristian Eriksson - 275.7
Jack Burton - 306.1
Vladimir Lidstrom - 279.9
Michael McFadden - 284.5
Total - 1782.1
mpc - Score
Lord Pretty Flacko - 308.6
Jorma Ruutu - 303.7
Jack Durden - 268.2
Big Manious - 365.3
Klaus Wagner - 88, Plus Replacement Ben Dover - 137.2
Michael McFadden - 284.5
Total - 1755.5
overworm - Score
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Patrikov Bure - 249.4
Bubba Nuck - 297.2
Jasper Clayton - 264.1
Big Manious - 365.3
Hunter Wong - 271.45
Total - 1774.75
Kylrad - Score
Kristian Eriksson - 275.7
Jorma Ruutu - 303.7
Adam Falk - 191.6
Big Manious - 365.3
Cynthia Taylor - 269.8
Jason Aittokallio - 238.6
Total - 1722
JKortesi81 - Score
Lord Pretty Flacko - 308.6
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Kian Hamilton - 276.7
Kelly Rivet - 60.7, Plus Replacement Ben Dover - 180.9
Wyatt Wollker - 313.5
Hunter Wong - 271.45
Total - 1739.15
7.
There is, of course, just one of you lucky fuckers who managed to pick up both Theo Kane and Alonzo Garbanzo. His name is Slappy, and he's the overall winner of the S33 fantasy season (and will pick up an extra 1 million in SHL cash for his efforts).
Slappydoodle - Score
Jorma Ruutu - 303.7
Theo Kane - 404.6
David Benson - 223
Alonzo Garbanzo - 401.8
Big Manious - 365.3
Mark Harter - 230.45
Total - 1928.85
Slappy managed to also pick Big Manious- the third best player in fantasy this season. More on him later. But aside from Ruutu (who frankly played about as well as what was expected of him), the two remaining picks are actually the most interesting (and honestly- bad); Mark Harter turned out to have the very worst score of all the starting goalies in the SHL this season, and any number of forwards would have been better than David Benson, who I presume was only picked for his status as a fantasy forward that actually plays defence (only 3 others picked him anyway).
8.
Surprisingly, the rest of Slappy's group actually kind of sucked. While there was only a 540 fantasy point difference between the best and the worst groups, group 12 turned out to be the very worst performing group (combined) of the 17 groups who had eight players (groups 14 and 16 only had seven due to not having replacements available). It's not because they picked badly, either- JHS, Eichelele, Wasty, Anders157 and spooked all had teams that, at the start of the season, I would have picked as potential winners. Slappy had all the luck, and knocked all others in his group out of the park- by far, group 12 had the largest gap between 1st and 2nd place. Spooked, who finished 50th overall and had the 2nd weakest 2nd placed team across all fantasy groups, was the runner up.
9.
The second best team in the league was the one by ThatDamnWalrus in group 13. While he (nor any other team) ever looked like challenging Slappy, the Flying Walrii still put up an impressive 1875.25 fantasy points.
ThatDamnWalrus - Score
Lord Pretty Flacko - 308.6
Theo Kane - 404.6
Bubba Nuck - 297.2
Vladimir Lidstrom - 279.9
Barney Stinson - 313.5
Hunter Wong - 271.45
Total - 1875.25
Unlike Slappy, it's hard to make any argument to replace any of these players at all; I haven't checked, but there might not even be any available players in his group better than these. It wouldn't be surprising either, because group 13 was the 3rd best group overall across the league. I'd say it's maybe an idea for another tool to make in the future, but frankly, that's the kind of tool that would make fantasy too easy to participate in.
10.
The third best team in the league was the team managed by NUCK, over in group eight. NUCK thoroughly pounded the rest of his group, and fittingly, did so with himself on his team. Wasn't a problem, though, because Bubba Nuck came up with 297.2 fantasy points and contributed just fine to the big Nuckathon Score-a-palooza, even if he was somehow only the 4th highest scoring player on the squad.
NUCK - Score
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Theo Kane - 404.6
Bubba Nuck - 297.2
Michael Boychuk - 281.7
Jack Burton - 306.1
Jason Aittokallio - 238.6
Total - 1855.5
11.
I already alluded to it, but anyone who checked out the "Groups" tab on the universal scoring spreadsheet would have noticed that we've also been ranking the groups themselves against each other. The best group this season was group 2, featuring ThePandava, Marley, bukss_a, tweedledunn, Eggy216, TML99, aumicc93+, and Dantejg. I'm not gonna list all of their teams, but if you want to go into them yourself, feel free.
12.
Group 2 also featured the very best team in the league that didn't quite manage to win their group- the team run by Marley. Marley's team finished 14th overall globally with 1756.35 in the bag, but still missed out on winning to the 4th overall team run by Dantejg by 45.65 fantasy points. Replacing Slappy McDoodle with another option could have bridged the gap, but I presume Marley simply didn't think of it or wasn't paying attention.
Marley - Score
Kian Hamilton - 276.7
Theo Kane - 404.6
Slappy McDoodle - 193.1
Wyatt Wollker - 313.5
Lord Vader - 297
Hunter Wong - 271.45
Total - 1756.35
13.
We already mentioned that Kylrad's squad was one of the few teams who managed to win their group without Theo Kane; we mentioned that he was one of four teams who managed to do it without Garbanzo, either; but we didn't mention that his was the weakest team to win his group, period. With a final score of 1,644.70, Kylrad was just the 45th best team across the entire league.
His team was better than just three 2nd placed teams, and just ten of 19 3rd placed teams. He also beat The_Mazais by just 2.65 fantasy score, the closest margin in any group in the league. For reference, here's the team managed by The_Mazais (we already put Kylrad's team above);
The_Mazais - Score
Theo Kane - 404.6
Esa Anrikkanen - 196.2
Randy Randleman - 327.3
Michael Boychuk - 281.7
Chris Johnson - 183.5
Matt Lewis-Flood - 248.75
Total - 1642.05
Better luck next time, The_Mazais!
14.
Fun fact for this fantasy season: Even though there was 150 of you, no two participants wound up with exactly the same score. I'm not certain how you guys pulled that off, but well done anyway.
15.
We're actually generally swapping pretty well. There were 49 swaps made this season; 37 of them wound up positive. Of the 12 that gave net negative results, most of them were just bad luck- only a couple of swaps were truly boneheaded moves. Both of those had a good reason at the time, though, and more on that in a second.
16.
This season, a lot of Calgary players got drafted- perhaps a lot more than normal. Not just the names that traditionally work out anyway, like Bubba Nuck, Hunter Wong, etc- but also forwards like Pierre-Luc Laflamme and Esa Anrikkanen who don't hit much and were probably heavily overrated for fantasy due to Calgary's cup last season. These are also bad picks because Calgary's depth means they don't get the same kind of run time that other forwards do on thinner teams. Both of those players finished with less than 200 fantasy score, and would have deeply disappointed the managers who picked them. Both players were dropped three times.
There was a complication to the run on the Dragons, though- it was mostly triggered by Calgary's abysmal start to the season (2-8-0 and losing all of the first 6 games). Included in the Calgary players being ditched were players who actually turned out to be pretty good down the track. Randy Randleman in particular finished with a top tier 327.3 fantasy points, the best of any player on Calgary; the worst swap in the league was by TheRealBK, who dropped Bubba Nuck for the abysmal Evandrus Jesster and lost 117.4 fantasy points for doing it. Another unfortunate swap turned out to be sarmo ditching Hunter Wong for Casey Holmes- even though Holmes actually finished with a better fantasy score than Wong, Wong had a terrible start to the season and Holmes had an above average start.
17.
One person who figured out what was actually going on with Calgary really early was Nereus; he correctly guessed that maybe he should have the guy on his team that was delivering hits, and dropped Esa Anrikkanen for Randy Randleman after less than 10 games. The swap was by far the best one that any fantasy participant made this season, granting Nereus an extra 94.3 fantasy points. Unfortunately, this still only pushed Nereus from 7th in his group to 5th at the end of it all. Bugger, eih?
18.
Also making a decent swap this time around was Tanner. Why bother mentioning Tanner, you ask? His swap was only the 6th best in the league! Quite right. I felt like mentioning him because I wound up processing his fantasy group last season, and the abysmal swap he made at the time. Last season, Tanner decided that he really wanted Nolan Angello in his group- a Buffalo rookie forward, of all things. Who did Tanner ditch to get him? Theo Kane... last season, it would've cost him 93 fantasy points and victory in group 16. This season, it would have cost him more than 200 fantasy points. Congratulations for not fucking up this time, Tanner!
19.
Swap early. Seriously, swap early. The longer you wait to swap, the less effective your swap will be. It's okay to wait 10-15 games in and keep an eye on lines setups to get an idea of who you need to dump and who to pick up instead, but at the end of the day, you don't really know how your swap is going to go either way, or if you're swapping in and out players who are just hot/cold. If people had been given the chance to switch to Theo Kane for the last 10-15 games of the season, no small number of them would have been disappointed because he didn't really get many fantasy points in those games.
20.
A player who turned out to be a particularly bad decision for people was Lukas Johnson of Toronto. Picked in all but one of the groups, he was then dumped in at least 6- and most of the people who swapped him did really well for doing so, too. I had to go digging to find out what's going on here- Lukas has 70 checking and 85 strength, so his terrible hits and shots blocked count (just 28 hits and 56 shots blocked and for the season) didn't make much sense to me. Last season, Lukas Johnson knocked it out the park, finishing with 282.1 fantasy score- no doubt why he was so highly rated. I went digging, and in the end, I figured it out.
Between S32 and S33, Toronto's GM team changed their lines at the backend and ran with a completely different setup. Lukas, who had been playing with Niklas Wikstrom for 38% time at 0-2-3 (Phys-DF-OF) and 16% time with Blake Battle at 1-2-2, had major changes between that season and this season. On top of having his total playing time cut from 54% to 40%, he was switched to play with Cynthia Taylor (a much better player than Lukas who overshadowed him rather than the other way around), and lost the physical part of his strategy to a permanent 0-2-3 solution. The end result: a much worse outcome for anyone who wanted him in fantasy.
21.
While he was picked by next to nobody in Season 32, a few people realised that last year's Turd Ferguson winner, Danny Foster, picked up 295.4 fantasy points in his rookie season last year, mostly from hits. That's a pretty crazy number. Seven fantasy players gave Foster the nod for this season, and he burned all of them with an atrocious start to this season. He then doubled down on being a jerk and turned it around in the second half- he still finished with 254.5 fantasy points, and both of the fantasy managers who found a replacement for him came off negatively for doing it. Fuck you, GCool!
22.
Another player who did really well last season and turned into a disaster this season was Kelly Rivet. His monster rookie season last year (298 points) seemed to mostly be because he was the only remotely decent defenseman on a simply non competitive Portland team last season. This time around, his shot blocking wasn't the only thing pretending to keep Portland in games anymore, so his numbers drastically fell. Kelly Rivet still put up 224.1 points thanks to getting roughly 70 more hits than last season, but a slow start meant that 5 of the 15 fantasy players who picked him ditched him for someone else. All of those who dropped him (including, cruelly, his own GM Wally) did better as a result. As Portland continues to get more competitive and deeper as a team, expect that shots blocked counter to drop further; any significant improvement in Kelly Rivet's fantasy scores will only come from more points, more hits, or from karma biting Wally in the ass.
In a secondary cruel twist of fate, Snuffalupagus himself (the player behind Kelly Rivet) had the second worst switch of the season- ditching Randy Randleman for Jonathan Lundberg right at the start of the season, and losing 101.5 fantasy points for doing it.
23.
What I also found particularly interesting this season is that there was absolutely no consensus on who to swap to. The most swapped to skater turned out to be Ben Dover of Hamilton; but Ben was a defenseman and still only swapped to five times. There were then several skaters who were swapped to by 3 different players; Pedro Sarantez, Jack Burton, Michael Boychuk, Ray Pejonis. In a few groups where they had not been picked, lucky players were able to get their hands on names such as Barney Stinson and Vladimir Lidstrom, but slam dunks like this were far and few between. We've naturally never had any data available on this, so I've no idea if this is normal- but I guess we'll find out over the seasons to come.
24.
One last interesting observation while I talk about swaps- while a good swap can potentially push your team up higher, it's very unlikely that this swap will get you a group win. All three of the globally top teams (i.e. the teams that broke away from the pack) are teams that didn't make a swap- they didn't need to play catch-up in the first place.
25.
It's worth bringing up Jorma Ruutu, Jack Durden, Bubba Nuck, and David Benson. If this is an odd little group of 4 players to bring up, well, here's the deal. In SHL fantasy, we've always assigned players as forwards or defenders by their primary position as specified in their player creation and roster thread. Players, however, sometimes have secondary positions, and for many seasons GMs have been able to move players between their primary and secondary positions at will, based on need. These three players have had a unique place in SHL fantasy, because they are forwards by creation/roster definition, but have been playing as defenders in the sim- thus, they are three "forwards" who are also going to score you a lot of points from shot blocks.
Next season, there will no longer be secondary positions, and while GMs will still be able to cycle players from either D wing or between LW/RW and centre, they will no longer be able to play forwards as defenders or vice versa. As a result, these guys are going to lose their loophole.
The future relevance of these four in fantasy is going to depend on whether or not they choose to make their official position as forwards, or defenders. If they choose defence, and they'll still be decent fantasy picks, but no longer get access to that loophole; if they choose to be forwards again, they'll no longer make shot blocks like defenders do. Make sure you double check which way they go before you pick them next season. Nuck and Ruutu should still be okay picks if they choose to be forwards due to the number of hits they generate, but Durden and Benson do NOT hit, and if either decide to be a forward again, they would no longer be worth picking for fantasy at all.
EDIT: An extra to this piece. It's been brought to my attention that we actually had someone going the other way- Patrick Brumm is officially a defender SHL-side, but has actually been playing as a forward. He was picked in all but one group, doesn't hit, and obviously doesn't block any shots either- turning him into a disaster for everyone who took him. I was going to take the opportunity to start yelling at Seattle's GMs for fucking everyone over, but it turns out he played as a forward last season, too. So it's the 18 of you who took Brumm that are morons, not Seattle. What were you thinking?
26.
The best performing goalie of the season turned out to be Michael McFadden. He certainly wasn't that popular for those making early goalie picks, but people in the later finishing groups (i.e. the groups that were still picking when the season started) made a run on him due to a strong start by both Seattle (top of the table at the start of the season) and McFadden himself (best scoring goalie at the start of the season). He only managed to add another two shutouts to the two he got in his first four games, but it was still good for 284.5 fantasy points.
27.
A lot of people had high hopes for Brett Broadway this season- especially after his S32 MVP award, and a fantasy score of 332.9- much higher than what any goalie achieved this season. For both of the previous two seasons, he was not only the highest scoring goaltender in fantasy, but one of the highest scoring players, period. The boost that put him away from average was 6 shutouts last season, and 4 shutouts in S31. This season, he's still putting up the same kinds of wins and saves, but only 2 shutouts, and as a result, his fantasy score was just good instead of excellent. Bit of a bummer to anyone who took him this time around and were hoping for another MVP performance, but that's the way she goes.
28.
There's 8 players in a fantasy group, so 8 goalies get picked (with goalie swaps only happening occasionally). It stands to reason that there'd be some goalies strongly favoured over others, but in the end, the only goalie that was actually picked in every single group was Mikke Laukkanen of the New England Wolfpack. Here's the list.
Mikke Laukkanen - 19
Brett Broadway - 18
Timo Haas - 18
Hunter Wong - 17
Michael McFadden - 15
Matt Lewis-Flood - 15
Robert Andersson - 14
Jason Aittokallio - 11
Christoffer Bjornsson - 6
Casey Holmes - 5
Kyle Wahlgren - 4
Mark Harter - 4
Lukas Berger - 3
Ben Waters - 1
Even so, we can still see a clear group of the 8 most popular goalies- with a big drop off in the number of times Bjornsson was picked compared to Aittokallio. The collective of fantasy drafters mostly got it right on who'd be top 8 and who'd be bottom 6, too; the exceptions were that Matt Lewis-Flood and Jason Aittokallio were only the 10th and 11th best goalies at 248.75 and 238.6 fantasy score each, while Casey Holmes and Ben Waters worked out to be the 3rd and 7th best goalies at 277.5 and 265.35 fantasy score each.
29.
Another interesting question- what do you look for when you pick a goalie? Plenty of people advocate trying to get a goalie who's going to make lots of saves; after all, that's where the bulk of a goalies points are achieved. But I personally favour trying to get a goalie who's going to get a lot of wins, because I suspect that the actual difference in points achievable is wider than the gap between the upper and lower extremities of saves. Plus, goalies who win more are more likely to get shutouts. I went and had a look at some numbers to see if things slant either way in particular (thanks Bojo for already having the information I needed laid out in the format I wanted on his machiney thingy).
Name - Wins (*3) - Shutouts (*10) - Saves (*0.15) - Fantasy Score
Michael McFadden - 75 - 40 - 169.5 - 284.5
Timo Haas - 75 - 40 - 168.15 - 283.15
Casey Holmes - 63 - 30 - 184.5 - 277.5
Mikke Laukkanen - 75 - 40 - 160.2 - 275.2
Hunter Wong - 78 - 40 - 153.45 - 271.45
Robert Andersson - 57 - 20 - 193.5 - 270.5
Ben Waters - 57 - 30 - 178.35 - 265.35
Brett Broadway - 75 - 20 - 165.45 - 260.45
Lukas Berger - 75 - 10 - 171.45 - 256.45
Matt Lewis-Flood - 75 - 20 - 153.75 - 248.75
Jason Aittokallio - 54 - 10 - 174.6 - 238.6
Christoffer Bjornsson - 45 - 10 - 178.2 - 233.2
Kyle Wahlgren - 45 - 10 - 177.3 - 232.3
Mark Harter - 57 - 20 - 153.45 - 230.45
This season, the gap was fairly close- there was a 33 fantasy point difference between the wins score achieved by the best and worst goalies in the wins category, while there was a 40.05 fantasy point difference between the saves score achieved by the best and worst goalies in the saves category. In the end, however, I feel like I've been right all along (at least for this season)- the big difference maker in a league where there's only a 54.05 gap in overall fantasy score between the best and worst goalie, was the shutouts- and the goalies who got the equal most shutouts (4) were the goalies on 4 of the 5 best regular season teams. There were still a couple exceptions, of course, and a few goalies managed to do pretty well in both saves and wins or in all three; but by and large, the goalies on the better teams scored higher. Someone could do a pretty good article going back to previous four or five seasons and seeing if this holds consistent there, too.
30.
The player who was picked 1st overall in the largest number of groups hasn't changed much over the last few seasons- Vlad McZehrl, of course. He actually had a fairly slow start this year, and looked like he might be a bit of a disappointment; and having Szlerchek and Hamilton on the team did leave me suspicious of what his results might actually turn out to be. But wisely, Manhattan's GMs decided not to play McZehrl with either of those guys, and allowed him to continue to put up dominant numbers while overshadowing Harry Hans and Ace Redding. McZehrl still finished with 314.1 fantasy points, a quite respectable figure and still easily one of the best forwards available to fantasy players.
31.
Big Manious deserves some love and attention, and maybe a couple of cheap hookers for the night if anyone feels like funding that. A mighty 365.3 fantasy points was achieved by the veteran Winnipeg defender, and in any other season his contributions might be a centrepiece of this article instead of an afterthought. Plenty of teams still rode his contributions to group victories, though, so his contributions were most certainly noted and valued by the fantasy players who went with him.
32.
We talked a lot about Theo Kane, but what about his line mates? He doesn't exist in a vaccuum, of course. Pedro Sarantez and Ivan Koroview are non hitting forwards, but plenty of people still jumped on them hoping to get results. If they were one of the 13 who picked Sarantez, they were rewarded, and walked away with 289.6 fantasy points with a player who scored almost as many goals and assists as Theo Kane himself; but if they were one of the 11 who picked Koroview instead (and many did jump on him in groups that were still picking as the season started), they were probably disappointed with the 225.3 points they got instead.
33.
Some players, of course, went completely under the radar. Let's put them in view. Defender Lord Vader on the Texas Renegades had a career season, with 297 fantasy points; he was the 12th best player in the league, but only 4 people drafted or swapped to him. Another killer pick could have been Connor O'Rielly of the Winnipeg Jets; 290.5 fantasy points, but just 3 people had him on their roster this season. I'd also like to point out Maximilian Wachter; he had around half a dozen taking the chance on him in S32, but nobody really got want they wanted. This time, just one person picked him up, and got 247.9 fantasy points as their reward.
The biggest absolute miss was Viktor Svensson of the Edmonton Blizzard. It's definitely true that he was overshadowed by bigger names on that team, such as Kane, Stinson, Koroview, Sarantez, Broadway, and even Windsor; but he was the 19th best player in the entire SHL for fantasy, and not a single person drafted him or switched to him, period. He's in regression with just 916 TPE, so he might never have another season this good again.
EDIT: Apparently Pris picked Svensson and the players tab is only listing people who were drafted among the initial 48, even though it's counting adds/drops. That means the next biggest name we all missed completely was Ludwig Koch Schroder of Hamilton, who was the 28th best player with 259.9 fantasy points. My bad and I'll need to fix the sheet accordingly.
34.
GM Kez from Manhattan had a pretty interesting article at the start of the season, using test sims to try and predict who the top scoring (goals/assists/points) players would be for season 33. I'm reasonably certain that a lot of people paid attention to the article, and more than a few took fantasy picks based off it (in fact, only one group didn't see all 5 players that Kez spotlighted get picked- group 2, where Maria Maximova somehow was forgotten). I also know that some people thought the article was a bit of a laugh, and I think the laughter is undeserved. Of the 5 players Kez said would do well, Alonzo Garbanzo had a 400 point season, Big Manious had a 365 point season, Wyatt Wollker had a 313 point season, and Jasper Clayton (a player who barely hits) still came out with a 264.1 point season. The only exception who did badly was Maria Maximova, but at 226.7 points, she probably wasn't the reason why anyone missed out on 10 TPE.
35.
An awful lot of players managed to get themselves picked once- probably a lot more than I would have expected, and a lot more than players who were picked in every group. These players were almost universally bad picks, with just a handful of exceptions who turned out to be okay. Ben Waters (Hamilton's goalie) put up a respectable 265.35 fantasy points for cheeseisstupid in group 8 (who turned out to be a notable investor in rookies and unique players), but he certainly wasn't worth the 1st overall pick of the group when cheese could have had Waters with the last pick in any other group.
A couple others in the one pick only didn't turn out to be complete disasters. Kornel Kasparek put up 249.3 fantasy points for belgarat in group 8 (you guys are weird), and Pal Vikingstod turned out to be just about the only remotely okay pick Crossfit Jesus made at all, finishing with 267.5 fantasy points. I'd also like to acknowledge the one lunatic willing to take a chance on my own player, Alexis Metzler; as a non hitting defender on team that functions deeper than it looks, my 176.5 fantasy points didn't really help the man who picked me. But as that person was actually in the fantasy group I myself was playing in (18), it did mean he didn't compete with me for TPE. Cheers, kit.
Bizarrely, only two players in the "only picked once" group were dropped. One was Andrey Barbashev of Toronto, and the other was Mainio Makinen of New England. As players, both actually had a decent season (at least in terms of players who were only picked once); but neither had any business on anyone's fantasy roster. By being dropped, they also became the only players who were dropped by every single person who started them. RIP.
36.
The absolute, hands down, no questions asked worst team in fantasy globally this season was the team run by Crossfit Jesus. It was the only team that didn't make it to a full 1000 fantasy points, and it scored barely half the points that Slappy's team put up. The best that could be said is that Crossfit Jesus probably knew exactly what he was getting into when he put this list together, and that the rest of group 16 made the most of his window lickery (and one other guy being removed for inactivity and not replaced) and put up 6 quality teams with the extra good picks available.
Crossfit Jesus - Score
Robb Wind - 141.8
Samee Iqbal ® - 121.1
Alex Light ® - 81.4
Pal Vikingstod - 267.5
Ty Justice - 133.8
Jason Aittokallio - 238.6
Total - 984.2
37.
Several rookies were given the nod by various fantasy players this season; the hands down best one (and frankly, the only rookie that turned out to be remotely worth the pick) was Kyle Wahlgren of Portland. He was still one of the weakest starting goaltenders that people could have picked, but as we already realised, the field of fantasy players is not particularly united on which group of 8 goaltenders are the best possible options to take.
38.
The very worst player that was picked in all 19 groups was Kaapo Kekkonen of the Los Angeles Panthers. We cross live to this very important hot take from Kaapo Kekkonen's agent, WannabeFinn;
Quote:Originally posted by WannabeFinn@Mar 7 2017, 02:26 PMIt's worth considering that the 245.5 points he got was still good for the 38th best player in the league or so, but I'm not the one who determines what personal success or failure is for someone in California. Don't forget to ask to come to Buffalo when you recreate!
33 in 44 clearly it's time to retire
39.
Naturally, there had to be a player who was the absolute worst performer picked by anyone at all, period. This season it turned out to be rookie Joe Kurczewski of the Calgary Dragons- finishing the season with an appalling 75.7 fantasy score. A trip to the Bojo Machine indicates that galatix could have found someone shittier if they really wanted one, but as galatix had the third worst fantasy team globally and did nothing to improve it, I'm going to assume he or she didn't give a rats.
40.
Last season, a lot of people were genuinely surprised by rookie goalie, Timo Haas- especially by how well he played. But that kind of overshadowed another surprise; the fact that Timo Haas was played as the starter for the Los Angeles Panthers at all. This turned out to be a huge frustration for players who picked the previous year's Panthers goalie, such as TimeToBringThePain, who had an otherwise excellent team (that would have nearly won his group) fucked in the ass over it.
But I wasn't surprised, or at least not in that way- because last season, I was in the privileged position of being the fantasy manager for the group containing Panthers GM Wasty in it, and Wasty took an all Los Angeles team... including Timo Haas. Wasty spent most of the season well out in front of the rest of the group, which I found really annoying seeing as he was clearly only picking home town players and not making a serious try at a competitive fantasy team. Fortunately, he was knocked back to fifth towards the end and JayWhy won the group instead.
This season, Timo Haas was knicked before Wasty could get his filthy paws on him. Timo was still the second best fantasy goalie in the entire league, and even though Wasty wound up settling for a still very good fantasy goalie (Laukkanen), his otherwise all Los Angeles team was a disaster, with Wasty's team finishing 5th last globally. Suck it, ya casual!
41.
There was a bit of drama surrounding the fantasy drafts at the start of the season; for several groups, they spilled into the start of the regular season. This has various unintended consequences, such as making people wait to learn whether or not they need to make a swap- but it also gave late running groups an advantage, because people were able to see current results to inform their final draft picks.
We can start the drafts earlier (and it was only by accident they began so late), but things will be complicated by the fact that head office is putting their foot down on how long the offseason is actually going to be. We know we need about two weeks to get through the entire fantasy draft. We also know we can't really start the drafts until after people are allowed to start retiring their players. Hopefully, the head office doesn't screw around with stuff like the retirement/recreation overlap date, so we stand a chance at getting it done before regular season starts this time.
42.
Finally, while this was the second season that we've been using automated fantasy sheets, this is the first season that we put them all in one place and started attaching things like global rankings and stuff. The sheet was updated with the latest information within roughly an hour of almost every sim. I'm hoping you guys found it a useful resource; that particular sheet will be duplicated, with one copy being archived and the other being wiped clean and used again next season. If you have any suggestions on how to improve it, or ideas for features I can add to it (other than a straight ranking of all SHL players by score, which would make fantasy too easy), tell me and I'll see if I can't set it up. The main thing I have in mind that I'd like to add next is better tracking of the initial draft (i.e. having a place for managers to directly fill out the draft into the sheet pick by pick); if I can then set up the tracker sheets to autofill using the information from that draft sheet, that'd be pretty cool.
See you next season (mebbe, if I feel like writing one of these again)- Avakael, signing off.
- NUCK - 03-13-2017
That was amazing, I would love to see this every season.
- Wally - 03-13-2017
Holy damn... Loved the summary boss...
- ztevans - 03-13-2017
=D>
- Cynthia - 03-13-2017
When your 3rd best defenseman is Toki Wartooth, yeah I had to play Johnson next to me
Jesus how long did this take man? good shit
- MWHazard - 03-13-2017
Really, really good read.
- Avakael - 03-13-2017
Fixed some bad proofreading and a factual error at 33, thanks Pris.
- raymond3000 - 03-13-2017
Most interesting article I've read in a long, long time.
- TheLastOlympian07 - 03-13-2017
i wasnt mentioned for sucking nor was my player. thats probably a win in my book
- Wasty - 03-13-2017
#40 :lol: :lol:
amazing read though very cool <a href='index.php?showuser=2271' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-17'>Avakael</a>
- Ohtaay - 03-13-2017
This was awesome.
<a href='index.php?showuser=1546' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-3'>Slappydoodle</a> the fantasy whisperer.
- InciteHysteria - 03-13-2017
Quote:Originally posted by Wasty@Mar 12 2017, 11:02 PM
#40 :lol: :lol:
amazing read though very cool <a href='index.php?showuser=2271' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-17'>Avakael</a>
#2 fantasy goalie in my first two SHL seasons. But <a href='index.php?showuser=2271' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-17'>Avakael</a> there was an easy solution to people having Lundy last season. Drop him and pick me up.
![[Image: source.gif]](https://media.giphy.com/media/26xBENWdka2DSvvag/source.gif)
Sorry I couldn't be on your team. :(
- Avakael - 03-13-2017
Quote:Originally posted by InciteHysteria@Mar 13 2017, 03:44 PMIn TimeToBringThePain's case, that's exactly what he did- but then he fucked up and didn't provide stats for the swap for 2 weeks so he still missed half the season.
#2 fantasy goalie in my first two SHL seasons. But <a href='index.php?showuser=2271' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-17'>Avakael</a> there was an easy solution to people having Lundy last season. Drop him and pick me up.
Sorry I couldn't be on your team. :(
- AlwaysGettingHaxed - 03-13-2017
Just a quick response to the Big Z situation, still put up 44 points, over 100 hits, despite going through his fifth season of regression (good enough for 34th amongst skaters in fantasy), and given that he has never had high shot block totals (still trying to figure that one out), I would say he didn't really slow McZehrl down.
- Avakael - 03-13-2017
Quote:Originally posted by AlwaysGettingHaxed@Mar 13 2017, 04:09 PMNot what I meant- I'm not calling Big Z bad, and you weren't on the same line as him anyway. My understanding of the sim is that any improvement to McZ by putting him on the line with you and Hamilton would be outweighed by the fact that he wouldn't be the dominating presence on the line anymore- because Big Z and Hamilton, as players, are almost just as good as McZ is.
Just a quick response to the Big Z situation, still put up 44 points, over 100 hits, despite going through his fifth season of regression (good enough for 34th amongst skaters in fantasy), and given that he has never had high shot block totals (still trying to figure that one out), I would say he didn't really slow McZehrl down.