10 Weeks, 2013

One of my very favourite posts from the golden age of this blog was this one, in which Commissioner Micah charted out our positions in Excel.

I've tried my best to recreate that, updated for the current year. 

I call this one simply "Spoons"

I call this one "A Tale of Two Teams":

 

I call this one "A Child Printing a C"

 

This one I call "Every Stock Bubble Chart Since the Tulip Bulb Crash of 1636-37" (the Rordiques are just entering the "Capitulation" portion of the "Blow-off" stage):

This one is called "Tender Love in a Field of Forget-me-nots"

"That Scene in Cliffhanger When Sly Almost Saved That Girl's Life But His Grip Was Not Strong Enough":

I call this one"The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie":

"Two Fates Intertwined" or "The Chart That Looks the Most Like a Chart in a Stock Photograph of a Board Room"

And last, I call this one "As Close as a Line Chart Can Possibly Get to Representing Matt Schissel's Thought Process"

 

 

KL Week in Review: Week 10 (also a transaction)

The standings 10 weeks in:

We're starting to enter the NHL winter hockey doldrums, where the playoff races aren't yet particularly interesting, the trade deadline is ages away, and even the on-ice product lacks a lot of energy. 

That's why we have the KL, though, right??? 

Even here, we have much the same as last week:

• The Vanrooser Canicks are still exactly 111 points out of 1st place (which is actually remarkable, since it means they have had a stellar week). 
• The gap between 8th and 9th has grown from 9 points to 10 points. 
• The top 5 is unchanged, with the Fylanders just barely out of the money again
• The Flyers are still about 30 points ahead of everybody

That said, there are a few changes of note:

• The Moilers have had a strong week, breaking a three-way tie for 6th on the strength of a 30 point week. In typical December hockey fashion, this doesn't actually change their position at all, they just get to say "I'm in sole possession of 6th" instead of "tied for 6th"
• Uh I guess the WBS Parkers and the Quebec Rordiques switched positions
• Seriously that it

Transaction


Dec-7-13 The Schizzarks drop Cory Conacher and add Nick Bonino

Conacher hasn't scored a point in 8 games and hasn't scored a goal since October 15. The dude has seen his ice time slashed and he may be playing his way out of a job. 

Bonino on the other hand has 22 points and would be a key part of any KL team's roster had he been drafted at the start. 

Great pickup -- I was wondering when someone was going to pull the trigger.

Transaction

A minor free-agent add/drop to announce:

Dec-04-2013
The Moilers drop Francois Beauchemin and add Niklas Hjalmarsson

The good: Beauchemin has been disappointing thus far (and is currently hurt), with 6 points since the start of the season. Hjalmarsson, on the other hand, looks poised to smash his previous best (17 points) with 13 points so far.

This provides the Moilers with some good depth on the back end as a bit of a gap develops between 8th and 9th. 

The bad: It serious took me like 8 tries to get these guys names right. Could the Moilers have picked a harder pair of names to spell?

November Awards

This is the second of a series of monthly awards recognizing some of the high points in the month gone by. If you missed October's, check out the link to "All Monthly Awards" on the left side of this post. 

Offensive Player of the Month The criteria for this is not simply the player with the most points, but rather the player who has most significantly impacted their GM's roster by playing above expectations, being incredibly hot, etc.  

This award isn't always going to go to the player who scores more points than anyone else in a given month, but this month it simply has to go to the G-Phil's Flyers Evgeni Malkin.  He scored 25 points in 14 games - a run that coincides with the return of James Neal.

HMs: James Neal, who has 16 points in 12 games and providing a much-needed boost to the Milan Micahlek's forward ranks. Also Johan Franzen, who has returned from injury and been an impact player for the Mackhawks with 12 points this month. I also have to mention Chris Kreider - remember when we made fun of the Winter Claassics for picking him last year, and kept him this year? Yeah, that no-talent hack had 13 points this month and its impossible to hear a Calder conversation without his name coming up.    


Defensive Player of the Month As above, the criteria is not merely the most points, but the player with the biggest impact relative to expectations.

Duncan Keith. With 16 points this month, he is not only the most productive defenceman, but one of the most productive players period. While Keith does have a 69 point season under his belt, his second-highest scoring season was 45. In a way its a shame he having what may be a personal-best season while on the 15th place WBS-Parkers - who need a 1st overall pick more than they need a 2nd or 3rd. 
 

HMs: Torey Krug. The Patrik Stefans were pretty high on this kid and for good reason. His 9 points keep him 2nd in rookie scoring - as a defenceman. Also, the Joshfrey Krupuls continue to get excellent production for Ryan McDonagh, who had10 points in 15 games. Not bad for a kid whose best year to date was 25 points.

Goaltender of the Month

Ben Bishop takes this award for the Teeyotes. With 20 more points this month, this trade continues to pay dividends and could be the difference between a playoff team and a lottery team - heck, with continued production from Bishop, a money spot is not out of the question for the Teeyotes. 

HMs: Undrafted Marek Mazanec would have provided 16 points for a team in the KL, had he been picked up. Also Semyon Varlamov put up very respectable numbers for the Los Amjawors Kings Quebec Rordiques, considering he's an alleged felon. 

GM of the Month This is a subjective award based not so much on activity, but on a general sense of how the moves (or in some cases, the lack of moves) made during the month benefits the team both now and in the future. 
 
Congratulations to the Powder Rangers. In a vacuum, Hagelin for Stamkos is the worst trade in the history of fantasy hockey. However, the Powder Rangers managed to keep Stamkos (and I know the sharks smelled the blood in the water) and are somehow maintaining 3rd place.   

HMs: The G-Phil's Flyers, who shored up a serious goaltending problem by grabbing Jaroslav Halak. Also the Fylanders, who probably got an upgrade from Timonen in Boyle, and then managed to put Monahan into his non-scoring roster while he heals up. 

KL Week in Review: Week 9

Here we are, 9 weeks in:

The top 4 remains the same as last week. The G-Phil's Flyers continue to pull away from the pack, with 41 points this week (and 164 points in the month of December). 

There is a bit of separation developing between the top 3 and the rest of the league - the 4th place Mackhawks, amazingly, are closer to 15th place then they are to 1st. The Mackhawks can't rest on their laurels though (that is for the Powder Rangers GM) - the Fylanders have moved into sole possession of 5th place and are 1 point back of a money spot.

Sticktaps to:

• The Moilers, who have moved from 13th to a 3-way tie for 8th on the strength of a league-leading 44 point week
• The Los Amjawors Kings, who have leapfrogged several teams to 9th place, from 14th

The Gary Bettman Boo to:

• The Quebec Rordiques 15 point week.  Wow.

Transaction

Two related transactions to announce:

 

The Fylanders send Kimmo Timonen + a 2nd round pick in 2014 

To the Quebec Rordiques for Dan Boyle + a 7th round pick in 2014 + FA add/drop

 

Condition:  Boyle must OUTSCORE Timonen the rest of the way otherwise the 7th turns into a 4th.

 

Then the Fylanders:

Add Colton Orr and drop Sean Monahan

Add Sean Monahan and drop Brent Burns

Add Brent Burns and drop Colton Orr (using their newly acquired FA add/drop).

Conditional trades are pains in my ass and don't get commentary.

The Case for Goalie OTL/SOL Points

The authors of this post support a minor Keeper League rule change that would give goalies one point for overtime and shootout losses, similar to the way NHL teams are given the "loser point."  Before accusing us of being out to lunch, or insisting that sometimes goalies are simply shit out of luck, we encourage you to read our discussion below.

In addition to being closer to NHL rules, this change would also have the advantage of reducing the effect of chance. Shootouts are essentially random and the difference between zero points and two points [or occasionally five points if it's a 0-0 game] for your team should never be a Mason Raymond spin-o-rama).*

One concern that comes to mind is that loser points would result in slightly increased point totals for the goalie, who is already typically the highest scorer on about half the teams in our format. However, it will not be a lot of points. In 2011-12, the goalie with the most OTL/SOLs would have gained an additional 13 points. On average we would expect a five-to-10 point bump. Moreover, as Greg pointed out in a previous post, he and Eric are sitting pretty at the top despite having few points from their goaltenders. In fact we would argue that our league significantly undervalues goaltenders at just one slot out of 14. 

On that note, we have three other goalie suggestions for consideration:

1) We should consider having two goaltender slots on the scoring roster, thus expanding the scoring roster to 15 and the in-season roster to 23, but retaining the keeper roster at 10+2. 

2) Goalie goals should be worth more than one point. We propose somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten points. The goalie goal is so rare that it should be truly exciting for the GM who owns that goalie, although it shouldn't make or break a season.

3) A statistic which reflects save percentage and adds points for every x decimal points a goalie is above some save percentage value (perhaps .915 which Kelly Hrudey remarked on HNIC last night was the league average) per y amount of shots (perhaps 100).  This would be similar to the statistic that Fy came up with for his Auction Keeper League, and one we were particularly reminded of when we saw that Ben Bishop stopped 41 of 42 shots in his 1-0 OT loss to LA on Friday night.  Ben Scrivens followed that up with a 32 for 33 night for the same outcome last night against the Avalanche.  These great goaltending performances, we submit, should be rewarded in some form.  If there is interest in learning more about this stat, we can provide some sample calculations for some various possible values.

For reference, below is a list of KL goalies and their "loser points" as of November 24, 2013.

G-Phil's Fylers

Halak - 2

Rinne - 1

Powder Rangers
Anderson - 2

Harding - 2

Mackhawks

Quick - 0

Backstrom - 2

Milan Micahleks

Rask - 2

Fylanders

Fleury - 0

Thomas - 1

Winter Claassens

Hiller - 2

Bobrovsky - 2 

Dicklas Lidstroms

Lundqvist - 0

Ramo - 1

Schizzarks

Price - 2

Markkstrom - 3

Moilers

Luongo - 4

Crawford - 3

Teeyotes

Bishop - 1

Ward - 4

Joshfrey Krupuls

Lehtonen - 2 

Miller - 0

Los Amjawors Kings

Niemi - 5

Nabokov - 3

Patrik Stefans

Pavelec - 3

Schneider - 3

Quebec Rordiques

Holtby - 1

Varlamov - 0

Vanrooser Canicks

Howard - 6

Bernier - 1

Wilkes-Benham/Scranton Parkers

Smith - 4

Dubnyk - 1

[Commissioner edit:

Since this may come up for vote, the "loser point" will have a minor effect on the standings. Everyone stays where they are except the:
Patrik Stefans move up to 8th from 9th
Dicklas Lidstroms move down to 9th from 8th
Joshfrey Krupuls move down to 11th from 10th
The Los Amjawors Kings move up from 13th to 14th
The Quebec Rordiques move down to 14th from 13th

Thanks - G]

This has been a joint post by the GMs of the Milan Micahleks and the Patrik Stefans. We invite your comments.

*Since the initial draft of this post, we have made the following observations regarding Mason Raymond: he has actually picked up his scoring pace, currently at the 60 pt mark adjusted for 82 games; he is an unremarkable 1 for 4 in the shoutout this year; his spin-o-rama is no longer a legal move in the shootout. Additionally, we note that a goalie does indeed get awarded for a shutout in the event of a 1-0 shootout loss, BUT NOT for an overtime loss (as was the case for Bishop and Scrivens, mentioned in the sv pct stat suggestions).

KL Week in Review: Week 8

The standings right now:

The G-Phil's Flyers have stormed back from a disappointing week, putting up 44 points. They have had the best week and best month to date by a significant margin. The upstart Micahleks, who have been jockeying with the Flyers for 1st place for the last two weeks, have fallen flat but remain within striking distance.

A few observations:

• The 4th place Mackhawks are closer to 15th place than they are to 1st. They are also as close to being out of the playoffs as they are to 3rd place. This is going to be a wild ride to see who makes the playoffs. 
• Tense days in the Aikenhead/Schissel household as both teams are continuing to  struggle. I had the Moilers in 2nd and the Shizzarks in 4th at the outset of the season.
• As Commissioner I am supposed to remain unbiased, but I'm really rooting for the Patrik Stefans to make the playoffs after finishing in the worst possible positions the last 3 seasons (11th-13th-11th - too high for the best draft picks, but out of the playoffs). 
• In the same vein I am really happy to see the Winter Claassics cementing themselves a position in the top 8 over the last few weeks. 
• The best team this week (the Flyers) have more than three times as many points in that period as the worst team (The Vanrooser Canicks). The ratio approximates π and in fact the use of 44/14 (or 22/7) as a stand-in for pi dates back to both Greek (Archimedes) and Chinese (Zu Chongzhi) antiquity
• Speaking of the Vanrooser Canicks, they can no longer use the absence of Kovalchuk as an excuse for sitting at the bottom of the standings - if Kovy was leading the league with 30 points, the Canicks would still be no higher than 15th place.

Transactions

A couple minor transactions to report:

Nov-15-2013
The Wilkes-Benham/Scranton Parkers add Danny Dekeyser and drop Matt Irwin

Nov-19-2013
The Teeyotes add Kris Russell and drop Marc Staal

Danny Dekeyser has 9 points in 21 games. Matt Irwin has been a benchwarmer for parts of this season, with 3 points in 14 games.  

Kris Russell as 11 points in 21 games. Marc Staal has 3 points in 20. 

These analyses don't always write themselves, but sometimes they totally do.

KL Week in Review: Week 7

As noted, I've changed the date of this update to reflect the end of competition on Saturday. Saturdays are typically the busiest days in the NHL, so it makes sense. 

Here are the standings as the morning after Saturday, November 17: 

As the Patrik Stefan's GM pointed out, he was in 5th place after Friday's contests. Funnily, the day he posted his video he was actually back down to 8th, as above. 

What this illustrates is not so much the Stefan's acumen as a GM, but how tight this league remains, especially though the middle. A mere 14 points separate 10th and 4th place, or put another way, a non-playoff team with a money spot. As the Micahleks have shown, a good week (41 points) coupled with a poor week by a competitor (the G-Phil's Flyers 28 points) can result in big leaps up (or down) the board. 

Worst week: The Shizzarks and the Vanrooser Canicks, both with 17. 
Best week: The Milan Micahleks, with 41 points.
League average: 27.75. 

Does anyone else see the Teeyotes sitting in 5th right now?

Back in the mix

Granted, I had a much anticipated set-back last night with only 1 point in 5 man games, but the Patrik Stefans have steadily climbed their way from the bottom of the pack back a playoff spot over the last 3 weeks.  There was much to celebrate as I checked the standings yesterday morning to find myself in 5th!

(Belated) 2013 Keeper League Awards Ceremony!

I know, its a bit late and the new season is upon us, but in fairness, last season was a shit-show. It is also kind of fun to look at how some of these award-winners are faring thus far into our new season. 

Thanks to the other members of the Awards Committee (Past-Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner) for your assistance in putting your thoughts together on this like, months ago.

So without further ado, here are the award winners for the 2013 season!

Calder: 

The best fantasy player drafted for the first time in the Keeper League.

This year's trophy goes to Braden Holtby and the team that drafted him, the Powder Rangers. Holtby put up 60 points as a goaltender, which was good for 2nd in the league (behind only Antti Niemi's 61). 

HM: The Mackhawks' Justin Schultz, with 27 pts - not only was that good for 12th in the league in defensive scoring, but put him within 4 points of the rookie scoring lead (as a defenceman).

Doug Wilson:  

Awarded to the most active GM.

In perhaps the least surprising result in this entire ceremony, Fy Virani wins this one by a landslide, with 15 discrete transactions entered. 

I have to share an email I got that describes, perfectly and hilariously, the stages Fy's trading partners go through (I'll leave it anonymous but if the author wants to take credit, step forward):

1. Denial ("No, I won't even consider it."); 
2. Anger ("How can he insult me with an offer like that?"); 
3. Bargaining ("He's right, swapping my 9th for his 8th does make this fair."); 
4. Depression ("OMG everyone is laughing at me. I suck at GMing"); 
5. Acceptance ("Write it off. Fy got me this time, but next year will be different!")

HM: The Columbus Blue Jaworskis (before their relocation to sunnier climes) were very busy as well, with 9 entered transactions. 

Ken Holland:  

Best draft pick.

This one is was very hard as there were a LOT of candidates and the Awards Committee struggled mightily. At the end of the day:

The Teeyotes with Evgeni Nabokov (drafted in the 10th round, 159th overall). Nabokov earned 59 points for the Teeyotes, good for the 3rd best goalie in this format.

HMs: Many, but of note, the G-Phil's Flyers got 211 points out of players drafted between 149th and 195th overall. The Mackhawks snagged Brendan Gallagher 194th overall and got 28 points out of him. Relatedly, the Powder Rangers drafted Lars Eller in 189th, earning 30 points. The Powder Rangers actually ended up dropping Eller, but it doesn't change the fact that the selection itself was inspired.

Rick DiPietro: 

Worst draft pick.

No competition - Chris Krieder, chosen 6th overall by the Winter Claassics. Krieder earned three points in his 2013 campaign. Hilariously chosen AGAIN by the Claassics at the most recent draft, it is worth pointing out that he has 10 points in 11 games so far.   

HMs: None.

George McPhee:  

Best Free Agent signing.

Jiri Tlusty may be the most added/dropped player in the league, but in 2012, the Patrik Stefans dumped Craig Smith for him, earning 18 points in the process. 

HMs:  Milan Micahleks' Jonathan Blum for Paul Martin (a difference of 13 points).

Glen Sather:  

Worst free agent signing.

There was no one even close - the Vanrooser Canicks used their first FA add/drop to dump Toffoli for Kovalev. Then they used their last FA add/drop to dump Kovalev and add Toffoli. 

HM: Hard not to mention the Powder Rangers, who picked up Damien Brunner (26 points) and dropped Lars Eller (30 points). As noted by the Powder Rangers GM, if he had have dropped Latendresse instead of Eller, he would have won last year. Oops.

Mike Milbury:  

Biggest fleecing.

On February 6, 2013, the Fylanders sent Nikita Nikitin and a 6th round draft pick to the Columbus Blue Jaworskis for Dion Phaneuf and a 9th round pick. Phaneuf, a one-time 60 point defenceman, coming off a 44 point season and scoring at a similar pace at the time, in exchange for Nikita "healthy scratch" Nikitin. The return - a 3 round bump at the draft - is statistically negligible.Welcome to the big leagues, rookie. 

GM of the Year

 

The G-Phil's Flyers. As noted above, Bobrovsky, Boyes, Conacher, Eakin, Brouwer were all late-round steals that produced all season-long. There was no panic moves after a season-ending injury to Karlsson and slow starts with Malkin and Ovechkin, thought the vultures were indeed circling. Though this team probably had the best protected roster to start the season, a combination of very good drafting and patience won the Flyers their first championship. 

HMs: The Powder Rangers exceeded expectations and continued to improve (8th-5th-2nd). Keepers coming into this season included five forwards that we probably all considered borderline keepers (of those guys, Kunitz has proven himself a fantasy powerhouse and Fleischmann and Ryder also made the top six). His Holtby gamble paid off. Wrote an impassioned concession speech.

The Moilers - Showed steady improvement - 10th to 6th to 3rd. Actually made one trade this year, Luongo for Crawford, but otherwise steadfastly sticks by her men. 

The Fylanders continue to get excellent value in trades, and are consistently a threat. The Fylanders GM takes the opposite approach to the league than the Moilers, in that their team rarely looks anything like the team that starts the season.