KL Week in Review: Week 11

With Friday and Saturday off for Christmas, this week was abbreviated. Still, the Teeyotes managed to earn 32 points, vaulting them into first place for the first time this season. Congrats, T.

Leading the way were Malkin and Hiller with seven points each, Zetterberg with five and Byfuglien with four. Is Malkin finally healthy and ready to return to 2008-09 form? When will Byfuglien remember he is talentless goon?

Enjoy watching your future fantasy all-stars at the World Juniors and have a great winter break everybody.

Transactions

December 22 was a day that will forever alter the course of KL history. Three teams in contention agreed to a blockbuster trade involving three teams, nine players and two draft picks. Another team added a free agent and almost derailed the trade. Details below.

12/22/2010   FA    Mackhawks    drop: D Jamie McBain (CAR)    add: D Dan Girardi (NYR)

Analysis: McBain has 9 points in 32 games this season - definitely a disappointment after last season where he surprised with 10 points in 14 games. Girardi has 19 in 35 - remarkable because in three complete seasons with the Rangers, he has never scored more than 28 points.  And that was his first year - he's only gotten worse since. 

Reasonable minds will differ, but I'm not seeing eye to eye with the Mack here. I think McBain will have a strong second half, and Girardi's first 35 games, like the Rangers' success, will prove a fluke. McBain is only 22 as well. But in this pool, a couple of points can make a huge difference in the standings, so there is a lot of incentive for GMs to make roster tweaks even if the potential gains are small.

Notably, this free agent pickup request arrived exactly nine minutes before a blockbuster three way trade request (below) arrived, the last step of which involved picking up Dan Girardi. Things almost derailed before Girardi was substituted for Brett Clark.

12/22/2010   TRADE   

Dicklas Lidstroms to Calgary Wittmen:
F Ryan Kesler (VAN)
G Antti Niemi (SJS)
5th round pick 2011

Calgary Wittmen to Dicklas Lidstroms:
F Jason Spezza (OTT)
G Miikka Kiprusoff (CGY)
4th round pick 2011

Dicklas Lidstroms to Powder Rangers:
G Kiprusoff
F JP Dumont [dropped for free agent F Teddy Purcell (TBL)]
D Michal Rozsival (NYR) [dropped for free agent D Brett Clark (TBL)]

Powder Rangers to Dicklas Lidstroms:
G Michal Neuvirth (WSH)
F Patrice Bergeron (BOS)
D Ed Jovanoski (PHX)

Analysis: Where to begin? This is by far the biggest trade the KL has ever seen. I hesitate to do a critical analysis because obviously each GM thinks they made a smart trade. The Wittmen I think do really well here to pick up Kesler (75+ points). They had to give up Kipper but when Kipper is your second goalie that's not a problem. Team Dicklas made a significant upgrade in goaltending to get Neuvirth. With Spezza they have a home team player to cheer for - likewise for the Wittmen with Kesler. And the Powder Puffs finally get a consistent (if despised) goalie who will get a few shutouts. Everybody wins. Is that possible? If you believe in miracles. Christmas miracles.

Ten Weeks

It's been ten weeks. I wanted to see who was climbing the ranks, who was falling, who was consistent, and who was all over the place. Fifteen lines on a graph is difficult to comprehend, so I clustered them into several graphs. Each compares two or three teams and their rank at the end of each week.

The first one I call "Like Looking in a Mirror":

The next one I call "All Over the Map"; or "A Child Printing 'W's":

This is my personal favourite. I call it "Wall Street 1929"; or "Men's Synchronized Dive Team":

This one is simply called "Contenders":

"Hockey Stick and Distant Mountain Range"

Here we have "The Long Road to the Top"; or "Reason for Hope":

Finally, I call this one "When Two ECGs Meet in the Night"; or "Bromance in the Pool"

Week in Review: Week 10

Things have finally settled down. Order has been restored. Up is up and down is down again. This is probably how things will remain the rest of the year.

In all seriousness, the Micahleks somehow have three of the league's top twelve scorers: Brad Richards (6th), Ryan Getzlaf (10th) and Matt Duchene (11th). But the best week belonged to the Dicklas Lidstroms, who made a push to reach 7th place, their highest ranking of the season to date (at least on a Sunday). The Dicklas wonders were led by Henrik Lundqvist and the surprising Rangers, as well as red-hot Ryan Kesler.

They only two players with more fantasy points than Lundqvist are the Shizzarks' Carey Price with 56 and the Preydators' Sidney Crosby, riding a 20-game point streak to 54 points. Much like Crosby's real life team, his fantasy team is not giving him a lot of support. He has more than double the points of the next best skaters, Mike Cammalleri and Dan Cleary.

A number of trade rumors are going around the league. I won't mention any names but apparently one team has been aggressively, and sometimes humourously, shopping around a defenceman who had 11 points in his first seven games (then six in his last 21). A number of other trades have been discussed but I think people hesitate to do anything that could eventually invite merciless ripping from their peers. And there has been plenty of ripping over the two trades conducted to date. Including the observation that, had the Schizzarks kept the Moilers' Kevin Shattenkirk instead of picking up Matt Taormina, they would be leading the league right now.

Transactions

12/16/2010   FA    G-Phil's Flyers    drop: D Cam Barker (MIN)    add: D Kevin Shattenkirk (COL)

Analysis: In going after Shattenkirk, Greg has a made a move I wondered why nobody else had made yet. Normally, adding a free agent under 20 is strictly prohibited. However, rule 10(d) states, "if a player is dropped, notwithstanding subsection a), the dropped player becomes an eligible free agent, regardless of age." Shattenkirk was shrewdly drafted by the Moilers, but dropped October 29 - five days before he played his first NHL game.  (In the Moilers' defence, there was no way to see it coming. Moreover, Mo dropped him to facilitate a trade that, bizarrely, has worked out in her favour.)

Since then, Shattenkirk has been absolutely tearing it up for the Avs: 17 points in 20 games. That ranks the 2007 first-round pick third among NHL defencemen in points per game (just ahead of teammate John-Michael Liles). Barker, meanwhile, has underwhelmed with just four points in 26 games this year.

Shatty will have to add at least six points to Barker's four before he'll crack Greg's scoring roster. Barring injuries, there is no doubt that will happen, and I'd venture that come next September, Greg will be giving the Shatster serious consideration for the protected roster.

Is this the move that puts G-Phil's Flyers over the top?

KL Week in Review: Week 9

KL Week in Review: Week 8

The mighty Blues have fallen after holding the top spot since week 2, and we have a new leader - the Fylanders. The pool is just ridiculously close. Other than Roos, nobody is more than four points behind the person in front of them.

Congrats to J-Kru, whose Ryan Miller is finally starting to look like a 2nd round draft pick - 14 points this week on two shutouts. The Irish cooled off after their blazing start to the week, tying the Moilers for 2nd with 39 points. GPhil's Flyers also put in a solid performance with 38. All of the above teams had at least one shutout this week.

Food for thought

What a first round draft pick might look like

I wanted to know what calibre of players will be available in next year's draft. I made this list assuming everyone keeps their top 6-7 forwards, 2-3 defencemen, and one goalie, and then listing the top players that wouldn't make the list (putting myself in the shoes of the GM to recognize injuries and future growth). It's not a science but it should give us a rough idea of what kind of players will be available.

Forwards: Saku Koivu, David Booth, Bendan Morrow, Matt Moulson, Sam Gagner, Olli Jokinen, Brian Gionta, Chris Kunitz, Patrice Bergeron, Logan Couture, Justin Williams, Ales Hemsky, Tomas Holmstrom, Tim Connolly, Blake Comeau, David Jones, Ryan Smyth, Andrew Ladd, Andrew Brunette, Stephen Weiss, Ray Whitney, Michael Ryder, Alex Kovalev, Tuomo Ruutu, Scott Hartnell, Matt Stajan, Alex Steen, Valtteri Filppula, Pascal Dupuis, Devin Setoguchi, Ryan Malone, Matthew Lombardi, Steve Sullivan, Jason Pominville, Troy Brouwer, Dustin Penner.

Defencemen: Erik Johnson, Paul Martin, James Wisniewski, Ed Jovanoski, Braydon Coburn, Dennis Siedenberg, Zach Bogosian, Matt Carle, Shea Weber, Joni Pitkanen, Dennis Wideman, Tom Gilbert, Ian White, Jay Bouwmeester, Kurtis Foster, Ryan Suter, Victor Hedman, Jordan Leopold, Dion Phaneuf, Brent Seabrook, Marek Zidlicky, Andy Greene, Kimmo Timonen.

Goalies: Mikka Kiprusoff, Chris Mason, Marty Turco, Jonathan Bernier, Niklas Backstrom, Steve Mason, Kari Lehtonen, Cam Ward, Tomas Vokoun, Dan Ellis, Antii Niemi, Jonas Hiller.

Analysis: It's going to be tough to go from last place to first by picking up Ryan Malone. There might be a good undrafted 2010 rookie available, like Jeff Skinner. Or a 2011 rookie - but it's less likely he will make an impact on your roster right away. Maybe keeping ten players is too much? I would be open to considering something in the seven to nine range - just putting it out there.

Standing Room.

The problem with standings in this league is that they only tell part of the story - only the total number of points accumulated at a given moment in time. Its the way most people measure their progress against other GMs, but its a shitty measure of overall team performance, as teams have not played the same number of games. Present point totals only account for a single slice in time, but a better evaluation of performance requires us to look to past patterns and future estimates. Our pool gives us some handy tools to do just that.

Man-Games Remaining
In terms of the future, the Carmada and my Flyers have 823 and 822 estimated games remaining, compared with the Fylander's 803. 20 points is actually the lowest spread I have seen. Naturally the spread varies from day to day - I have seen it as high as 35 man-games.

It appears that our pool assumes that goalies will play every single game and treats days off the same as games missed due to injury - as a "Man-Game Missed". In that respect, teams with clear-cut, workhorse starting goaltenders have a man-game advantage, the true value of which can only be determined at the end of the year.

In any event, it is an important measure in determining what room you have to play "catch-up" on your opponents and is indicative of how artificially low or high your current standing is.

Man-Games Played
Man-Games Played are a different measure than Man-Games Remaining since they are backward-looking. Currently, Micah has the fewest games played, while the Preydators have the most. Fy has the second most Man-Games-Played, which, coupled with the fewest Man-Games-Remaining, suggests that his current 3rd place point total is inflated by a temporary scheduling advantage.

Man-Games Played is interesting, but it is most helpful as the basis for the best tool we have at our disposal to evaluate our teams...

Point-Per-Game
In light of the man-games remaining problem, the ranking you get when you sort by point per game is, in my view, a far superior indicator of overall team performance to date. Its still pretty early in the season and while a couple shutouts or Pierre Mcguire MONSTER PERFORMANCES™ can cause some significant changes, we are more than a quarter of the way into the season and starting to settle into some scoring patterns. Teams with a lot of slow starts might move up, or injuries might push a team down, but we aren't likely to see a 0.75 PPG team drop to below the Roos' 0.63 (or Roos to climb to 0.80 PPG, for that matter - hey Roos, looking to dump anyone on your roster yet? Email me).

In that respect, PPG is a far better metric than current point totals since it erases benefit of the total number of games played in terms of past performance, and insofar as past performance is predictive of future performance, it helps us in estimating our year-end totals.

In terms of actual point production, the Manitoba Roos is still the worst team in the league - but there are some surprises. Illustrating the benefit of a 20 man-game lead over the Carmada, the 3rd place Fylanders are actually the 3rd-worst point-producing team, sitting 13th place in terms of point-per-game production. Conversely, the 7th place Carmada has the best point production overall.

Another example is the 0.75 PPG production of my 12th place team, tied with the 13th place Dicklas Lidstroms. Dickie and I are both tied with the 2nd place Calgary Wittmen. In my view, the PPG standings suggest that the Dicklas Lidstroms and my Flyers are artificially low in the standings while the Wittmen are artificially high.

In any event, none of these are perfect measurements but are all better than the raw point totals. When you look at your position in the standings (and despair or rejoice, depending), click the "Man Games" tab to get a better sense of how you actually stack up against the competition.