The little fantasy hockey player that could

Ho-hum, another couple of weeks, another huge lead increase

350 points means that I'm very close to benching my entire team for a week to see what happpens! That's going to be a damn nail biter. I should advertise it to the rest of the league. In fact I will.

There we go.

NOW that we have those pleasantries out of the way, let's get to the reasoning for this post. It's a feel-good story for the ages, one of triumph and tribulations, of reaching for the stars and doing whatever it takes to make it happen. I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN.

Yes, that's because our bravest warrior, little Nave31, has finally achieved a great goal of climbing out of the basement of this glorious famed fantasy hockey league!

Let's pause to reminisce about this: He has been in last place literally since day one of the season. Hell, at one point, this little rapscallion was 150 points out of seventh place!

But now, he's made the huuuuuge comeback and taken over that spot!!! Granted, he has no shot of moving up to sixth - but hey, that's what I thought about him getting out of last in the first place. It just goes to show, if you try hard enough, dreams do come true. Beefcake!

I had to let him know that I was rooting for him:

Hopefully he prints out that bit of praise and staples it to his locker at the Burger King he works at for motivation. It's not often that guys like me take time out of our day to recognize the little people like him.

As an aside, the guy now in eighth wins the crown for "dumbest fuck ass fantasy sports name I've ever seen, I mean seriously shit head how the fuck did you even come up with something so god damn stupid". So, hey, congrats buddy.

Til next time, idiots

Random update time!

Look at this beatdown right here...

So, eighth place is nearly 500 points back, so he's toast forever. Seventh is just about 400 back, he's done. I mean they're all done but the degree at which these guys are smoked is unreal, considering we're only six or seven weeks into the season [I forget how many because who cares]. 217 points up on 2nd place is a yawner.

I worried that these guys had rolled over and just quit updating, especially after I successfully rebuked their awful attempts at making me feel bad about the absolute shitkicking I'm laying down on them. BUT THEN over the past 24 hours, a bunch of teams made some moves - and in some cases, very SMART moves that I would've made had I not already had a team so stacked I'm like a fine plate of hot cakes.

Check it:
Douchebag in 6th place picked up Ryan Johansen over Brenden Gallagher. Shrewd move, as Gallagher is so much fun to watch but is useless in this league [running at under 3.0 avg points vs Johansen who is double that]. Johansen gets face-offs and is RW eligible. Cha-ching.

Idiot in 5th with the unreadable name picked up Paul Stastny and Brandon Dubinsky over Max Pacioretty and Andrew Ladd. Neither of those two dropees are in the top 25 *available FAs* in average points-per-game, so the fact that they were even on a roster this late into the season is awful. Dubinsky is in the top 25 *overall* players and can be used as an LW, so that's definitely a top pick-up.

Even with these moves, Wingdings guy here managed to drop Frans Nielsen for Shane Doan, which is ridiculous as Nielson is a top 25 player and though Doan is decent, he will drop once his goal production dries up. Nielsen averages more than two extra points per game over Doan.

Also a bunch of other morons made lateral moves like dropping Toby Enstrom for Cam Fowler. Oh, and the fucking twat in eighth place had Michael Del Zotto [he of the recent healthy scratches] being used *AS A UTILITY PLAYER* up until this week, when he dropped him. My goodness.

SO anyway, I think my plan of "benching the entire team for a week" will come into effect, maybe sooner than I had anticipated!

Should be fun.

Getting chirpy

I'm a bit bored with the league right now because I'm so easily winning it.

So I decided to start chirping a bit more on the forum.

It started simply enough, with "I'm better than you", "you're all losers", "your parents hate you because you can't win at fantasy sports" kind of things, nothing too personal. But, no responses. So I figured I'd ask straight up what the situation was...

Some quick digging [ie: looking at these guys' user profiles] would show that they're all males [or chicks with male names] and every one of them has been in multiple hockey leagues on yahoo before [including one guy who's been in 91!!! leagues].

Let's see if this starts more of a ruckus. It'd be nice if these guys put in some effort, y'know?

By the way I'm now in first place by 150 points.

I think once I hit a lead of 300+ points, I'm going to bench MY ENTIRE TEAM for a week to see if these idiots can actually catch up.

That is if the commish of the league doesn't beat me to it due to my being such an asshole to them.

Fun!

Week four

I have now doubled my lead within the last week.

So I'm well over a triple-digit lead after dabbling in it for the last couple of weeks, and that's just fun.

My team finally is starting to produce some points [still 5th in goals, but up to 4th in assists, 7th in shots]... it's still the face-offs which are winning me the league.

Yup. So pretty much my face-offs are giving me a 100+pt lead by themselves... and yet, amazingly, no one has made moves to help. I kind of understand - no one wants to drop guys like Marty St Louis or James van Riemsdyk for Mark Arcobello, based on name value alone - but it's still stupid. Names mean nothing if the results aren't there!

My point proven: of the top 25 skaters in points in the league, 22 are full-time centres, and one is a part-time C. The only ones who AREN'T are Alexander Ovechkin [1st in SOG, 1st in G], Evander Kane [3rd in SOG, 6th in hits] and Alexander Steen [who has played C this year but isn't a primary C - and also is 1st in G].

I've now started posting derogatory messages on the board in order to try and liven things up, but I think these guys are actually smart[!] enough to not respond to my obvious trolling, because they have absolutely no legs to stand on. That's right, I'm beating up on a bunch of damn amputees.

Week three

I assume this speaks hilariously for itself.

I mean it's week three and I'm already ahead by 60 points. I hope to be in triple digit lead by next week and that's when this will start to get a bit boring.

The ride here has been fun though.

The best part is that my entire lead is made up by face-off wins. Seriously. I have 70 more points in face-offs than my next closest competitor. As long as I remain half-way competitive in the other categories, I will handily win this league.

AGAIN I AM RIGHT IN MY ANALYSIS

Trading update

So this idiot named his team "BeLeafers", I guess because he wanted everyone to know just how much of a moron he is without actually having to talk to him or look at his team.

Anyway he was, along with the league commish [who's team name is some incomprehensible wingding font nonsense], pretty much the only worry I had when it came to winning the league. He drafted some solid players but apparently just has no idea what the hell he's doing when it comes to actually running the team.

He drafted Brent Burns, a first line power forward who gets a point-per-game BUT has D eligibility - and is mentally challenged enough to actually use him as a FORWARD. That's a damn insult to fantasy sports. And I'm not trying to badmouth the mentally challenged here, really, but I feel as though I might be doing just that by lumping this toolbox in with them. I'm sorry, guys.

So I've been attempting to pry Burns out of the grubby paws of this twat since the league began. I've gone so far as to offer BOTH Patrice Bergeron and Ryan Callahan for Burns. Yes, that's how stacked my team is!

His response was to propose a new deal - John Tavares and Matt Duchene for Burns and Corey Perry. He also included a little message: "lol bergeron a 4th liner n callahan broken arm out 3m i'm not stupid". I'm sure he was hoping that his word usage would convince me of his intelligence. This trade would, after tonight, see me dealing 104 points away and being given 64 points in return. I'm assuming he's offering the dumbest trade he can think of because he's "offended" by my proposal [which would see me trade 60pts away for 34pts], but his inclusion of Perry makes me think that maybe he actually believes that this is a fair trade.

I responded by re-proposing the initial trade - which is a net loss for me any way you slice it - and adding a note that "You quite obviously are stupid."

[btw I'm now up by 70 points, and this guy who can't figure out that playing a top line RW in a D slot is not even something you should have to think about is in 2nd place - THIS is what I'm dealing with]

Funnay

Haha:

1st place again after running an 80 point night through last night

Including finally a goalie win! Holla!!!! Carey Price you my boy

Best part tho:

still 6th in goals
5th in assists
7th in shots
8th in wins
8th in goals allowed

BUT STILL FIRST HAHAHA

i have 111 points for face-offs... 111.20 to be exact! that's 556 face-off wins... it's two weeks into the season! that's 271 more than the next guy, and 54.2 points more than the next guy... what an embarrassment

these guys are so fuckin dumb

i mean i give credit - the one guy seems to have picked all of the dudes with high shooting [he has a 40 shot lead on 2nd place], but he didn't exploit it nearly enough to make it worth having it as his draft strategy...

basically the end result is that my method is still the obvious best method and the other gms had all the time in the world to figure this out [and in fact a simple look at the player screen would've illuminated the obviousness of it] but they're braindead so ya know they really shat the bed

hahaha

Week two

I ascended my rightful place atop this shit heap of GMs early in the week

But a heavy Saturday from this one ass hat's band of misfit toys took him into first place.

Fortunately Ryan Getzlaf is cool and got me some points on Sunday to help get me back into things.

It's looking like a two whores race right now, but the cock knocker in third place is hanging around just enough to worry me.

There are of course still some positives about this which don't have me worrying really at all

1] I'm better than these turds
2] They are stupid
3] My team STILL doesn't have much production, despite being in 2nd place [5th in goals, 6th in assists], so if my forwards ever actually remember that they should be scoring at point per game paces, then we'll be pretty good
4] I have the worst goalies in the league. They're seriously fucking awful. Cam Ward is like Marc-Andre Fleury in his shittiness, and Devan Dubnyk... what the fuck do you even say about that idiot?

"OH BUT JER, HE'S A 6'5" GOALIE  AND HE CAN STOP MANY PUCKS," you say.

Well I say that I didn't know that they stacked PILES OF SHIT that high.

Sorry, tangent over...

Anyway, my bonehead move of the week was benching Carey Price, who had 15 points last week. But in stats that actually COUNT - I'm dead last in Wins [in fact I've received FOUR POINTS from my goalies for wins - eight points behind the three morons tied for 3rd, 12 points behind the fuckstick in 2nd, and 16 points behind the two ass spelunkers who are in first]. I'm also dead last in Goals Allowed, and I'm sixth in Saves. THIS IS BAD.

But if I get ANY goatlending in the next few weeks, and some production from my overpaid hack scrubs like Shea Weber and Claude Giroux, and maybe some fucking blocked shots, then all will be good.

ONWARD HO

First

It took a whole week.

But as of Tuesday, free fuckin lube is in first place.

Total fucking shock. Time for the trash talk to amp the fuck up.

Finally I've ascended to my rightful place atop the trash heap that is the supposed "fantasy GMs" of this league.

Eat shit, losers

Week one

I'll just assume that this week will be titled "growing pains" as the team is nowhere near where I had hoped they'd be after six days of INTENSE ACTION.

[oh yeah - my team name is "free fuckin lube" because I'm about to fuck these guys uppppp]

Yeah look at this bush league horseshit. Fourth? That's like dead fuckin last to me.

But there's some hilarity here still... shit, we're in fourth despite being pathetic in goals [5th], and assists [7th] - the two highest-reward offensive categories - as well as dead last in wins [highest-rewarded stat], goals against [the only minus category], and fifth in saves.

That pretty much means that I'm in the upper half of the league based entirely on face-off wins and hits. The system works!

So when my team finally figures out that they need to get some fucking points, and not get by on their dumbass looks, I'm going to be sitting pretty.

These idiots don't even know what's comin.

Other note: I picked up Lars Eller as a spare forward. I don't have him in the line-up for week two but he's a solid add.

Oh and the idiot who has Burns won't trade him to me. He needs to go eat decroded piece of crap

Day one

So day one didn't go exactly as expected.

I mean, my expectations were high. I fully figured that I'd have an insurmountable lead after one day.

Anyway, I'm fourth after day one. Carey Price and Devan Dubnyk really shat the beds last night. It was awful. Goal after goal. Brutal.

I did only have three d-men skating and yet still finished fourth even with those two turds from the goalies, so I'm not too displeased.

I proposed a trade, to give up Jordan Staal for Brent Burns. Yeah I don't think the guy will accept it because Burns is awesome, and shit I don't even really need Burns, but I want him. Probably not a great idea to start making moves with my heart rather than my head but fuck you I'm going to do it anyway.

Callahan is on the IR, right, I forgot about that, so now he's useless to me. Well, Landeskog will just get plucked up again and used in the interim, or I just won't use anyone. Who cares, I'm awesome

Fuck it! I'm already the damn crowned king in this bitch

The competition

Time to look at some of the other idiots in this shitty league.

Some of these guys can't even be bothered to come up with team names. I guess they figured why the fuck bother, right? They're going to be embarrassed, so let's pretend we're not giving a shit.

The guy who drafted first over-all, "BeLeafer", ended up taking two FO heavy centres, Joe Pavelski [a 3rd liner] and Cody Hodgson [shrewd pick that I'm assuming this moron had no idea he was even making]. He's also the retard who drafted Ryan Suter before Weber, Phaneuf, or a bunch of other more worthy defenders. He also willingly drafted a fucking Tampa Bay goaltender, so clearly he's out of his mind. But then, he's the guy who took Burns. Maybe trading for him won't be so difficult.

"HeyReffKissMya-a-ah" is a name that someone actually thought would be good to use in fantasy. He's got some good players, but will finish third.

The only other GM in the league I will have to worry about is the commish. He didn't exploit the FO thing nearly as much as I did, but his team is pretty stacked with well-ranking players. Stamkos, Toews, Niemi, Holtby, Kunitz, Stepan, Ladd... quite solid picks there. Also he nabbed some high-ranking d-men with his last picks [Wideman, Timonen] and Nabokov with his final pick. He took a lot of guys with high shot totals mixed with high hit totals. He'll finish second in the league.

These other twats aren't even worth talking about. Brutal teams. It's safe to say I won't be concerned about these half-wits, unless one of them figures out that face-offs and blocked shots are the ways to victory in the league.

Anyway I made my first move of the year and picked up Ryan Callahan for Gabriel Landeskog. It hasn't gone through yet but I'm sure it will. Callahan is a monster.

Hockey is fun.

Draft day

I joined this league about 35 minutes before the draft was scheduled, so had no time to prepare.

The league was a Yahoo public league, however the GM had 2-3 friends in the league from the beginning. The rest of the league managers were either publics who chose to join, or randomly assigned publics who wanted a points-based league. That said, of the eight GMs, seven showed up on draft night - at least for a portion - so the guys running the show weren't all focused on auto-drafting. They're just not good at fantasy.

I picked fifth in the draft, nice and in the middle, which is a solid position to have in an eight team league.

So here's my squadron:

RD POS PLAYER
01 C   John Tavares
02 C/R Claude Giroux
03 G   Carey Price
04 C/L Matt Duchene
05 C   Anze Kopitar
06 C   Ryan Getzlaf
07 D   Shea Weber
08 C/L Logan Couture
09 D   Dion Phaneuf
10 C   Patrice Bergeron
11 C/R David Backes
12 G   Devan Dubnyk
13 G   Cam Ward
14 L   Gabriel Landeskog
15 C   Mikko Koivu
16 D   John Carlson
17 D   Brent Seabrook
18 C/L Jordan Staal

The only F drafted who doesn't take faceoffs is Landeskog - and honestly, he's the only guy I second guessed. Each of the other ten forwards are in the top 25 total. I also have 1st, 2nd and 5th best d-men, points-wise. No other team has more than TWO forwards who were in the top 25 last year, or more than two d-men ranked in the top ten.

Most of the top ranked C in this points system are also the best C in the league, so it was obvious I wasn't going to get ALL of them. But it astonishes me that I was able to get SO MANY of them! I also managed to snag the top-rated d-man [Weber] in round seven. He was the fifth d-man taken, after Subban, Karlsson, Letang, and for some reason Ryan Suter.

The one weakness on the club is in net. All three guys are workhorses, but all are inconsistent [Price, Ward] or on teams with awful defenses [Dubnyk, Ward]. They should all get enough work that it will mask their shortcomings, and since GAA/SV% aren't calculated in the league, it shouldn't be much of an issue.

There were precisely two guys in the draft that I wanted and didn't get: Brent Burns [a D-eligible first line RW], and Evander Kane [ranked in the 50s by Yahoo, but higher in this scoring system]. I will try and trade for both of them.

I'm supremely confident that I'm going to absolutely slaughter this league, and I will be trash-talking throughout the season on the board, coming off like a complete jackass. I plan to rub it in at every opportunity.

Let the games commence.

Scoring categories

 So the chief reason why this league is going to be easy to dominate is because the GMs are all idiots who didn't bother checking last year's point-totals before the draft.

The other reason is because the guy who came up with the scoring system is stupid to begin with.

The league has 18 man rosters, consisting of:
2 each of LW, C, RW
4 D
3 Util
2 G
3 Bench
2 IR

Skater points are:
Goals (G)                 3
Assists (A)               2
Powerplay Goals (PPG)     0.5
Powerplay Assists (PPA)   0.25
Shorthanded Goals (SHG)   0.5
Shorthanded Assists (SHA) 0.25
Game-Winning Goals (GWG)  0.5
Shots on Goal (SOG)       0.4
Faceoffs Won (FW)         0.2
Hits (HIT)                0.25
Blocks (BLK)              0.5

Goalie points are:
Wins (W)                  4
Goals Against (GA)       -0.2
Saves (SV)                0.2
Shutouts (SHO)            3

It's kind of hard to discern just how ridiculous these points are based on this list, so here's some examples using stats from the 2013 season:

- of the top 40 skaters ranked on total points, 34 are centres [or played C for all/most of the year]
- Tyler Bozak is ranked as the 22nd best forward in the league
- other notable WTFs are Antoine Vermette [31st], Bryan Little [41st], and Jarrett Stoll [43rd]
- wingers are basically cannon-fodder; there are only 12 wingers in the top 50, and two of them had 100+ face-off wins
- there are only four wingers in the top 50 who had less than 50 hits and less than 100 face-off wins: Phil Kessel [35th], Martin St Louis [39th], Taylor Hall [46th] and Rick Nash [47th].
- to put a fine point on it: if you're a non-elite winger who doesn't hit, you're screwed in this league
- the top defenseman in the league, Shea Weber, is ranked 56th amongst skaters; there are only five other d-men ranked in the top 100 skaters: Dion Phaneuf [69th], PK Subban [73rd], Dustin Byfuglien [88th], John Carlson [93rd] and Kris Letang [100th]
- the top goalie in the league is Antti Niemi, and Evgeni Nabokov and Ondrej Pavelec are the 5th and 6th best goalies

Goalie-wise, I actually don't find the rankings TOO absurd. Goalies who make a lot of saves are rewarded well. Workhorse goalies are the key to the league. Hence why noted awful goalies Pavelec and Nabokov, who stop tons of shots but still allow four goals a game, are considered useful. "Elite" goalies are also still not way down in the ratings. The only goalie with at least 20 wins who isn't in the top ten is Marc-Andre Fleury, and he's crappy anyway, so who cares.

So now that I've outlined the basic dumb-assery with the scoring system, let's draft!

Welcome

Welcome to General Mismanagement.

I was bored one night and on a larf joined a points-based roto league on Yahoo fantasy hockey.

I checked out the scoring categories. They were stupid and set up by a person who was likely looking for a way to easily win his league by exploiting certain stats. I figured that I would exploit them too and we'd dog fight for first over-all.

Well... that's not exactly how it's looking like it will happen.

A friend said I should blog about this idiocy as it occurs, so I will. He also came up with the name. Stick tap to Justin on both counts.

So, here we go.