Ivan Hlinka Memorial wrap-up, introducing our DobberProspect Fantasy Hockey League and dynasty rookie draft strategy…

The Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament (U-18) has wrapped up. The host country, Czech Republic, have won Gold for the first time, United States finished second and Russia won the bronze medal match over Sweden. The Czech Republic defeated the Americans 4-3 and the Russians knocked off the Swedes 6-3.

Leading scorer was American Sasha Chmelevski (CHEM-A-LEV-SKI) with 10 points (5-5) in five games played. Below is the top-10 list of scorers at the end of the tournament.

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This time of year gets pretty quiet with hockey news, so I decided to introduce you to the DobberProspect Fantasy Hockey League (DPFHL), I’m sure if you follow a bunch of the DobberProspect writers/scouts on twitter you have seen us discussing our drafts. Well, this weekend is our Inaugural Prospect Draft for the DPFHL. A few weeks ago we had our Inaugural Player Draft, 23 Rounds, every player drafted had to have played at least 41 games (Skaters) or 21 games (Goalies). It’s a dynasty, salary cap league, the salary caps are the player’s actual Annual Average Value (AAV) and our salary cap is the actual NHL salary cap.

Our league is made up of 24 writers/scouts from the DobberProspect staff. Our first round of the Player Draft looked like this:

McDavid, Karlsson, Benn, Ovechkin, Tavares, Seguin, Holtby, Crosby, P.Kane, Tarasenko, Malkin, Price (My Pick), Pavelski, Eichel, Kuznetsov, Gaudreau, Kopitar, MacKinnon, Giroux, Burns, Hall, Byfuglien, Galchenyuk, Bergeron

(Stamkos was picked, but a team backed out after the first round was picked, so Stamkos will be a FA at the beginning of next year. He was drafted between Price and Pavelski)

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Over the past few weeks I have been editing my draft cheat sheet for this weekend’s prospect draft. The stipulation for drafting prospects is they have to be player’s with less than 41 games (Skaters) and less than 21 games (Goalies) in their NHL career. Any player drafted from the 2016 draft is eligible for this draft. I am picking 13^th overall and have not decided on what strategy I want to go with, drafting best player available (BPA) or drafting with what I need. I think with a prospect draft you are drafting for mostly future assets so drafting BPA is the best idea overall, but your first round or first few rounds you may decide on drafting need if the player you draft ends up being on your team immediately.

The draft sheet is getting quite long, our prospect draft will consist of 17 rounds, with 24 teams that means we will be drafting 408 prospects deep. I have up to about 250 prospects on my cheat sheet, I still have a lot of names to add to my rankings. An important step is knowing how many players will be drafted and having at least that many names on your cheat sheet. My draft strategy going into this draft will probably end up being the first couple of rounds finding guys who are ready to play in the NHL (low salary) and then drafting BPA the rest of the way, planning your positions in two to three years isn’t going to help very much in two to three years because trades happen in your league, busts are unpredictable and players get moved in the NHL. BPA is the best way to go when drafting prospects who are years away from helping your fantasy teams.

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Follow along on my twitter feed to get a round by round draft of our DPFHL. It is a slow draft, so it will take some time to get the rounds complete, but that is why we are doing it in the middle of August. I will be using the hashtag #DPFHLProspectDraft and will break it down into 2 or 3 tweets per round, depending on tweet length.

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Hopefully seeing how our draft is falling, you can get an idea of what prospects are being drafted where and how high. I have a few names in mind for my 13^th overall pick, but won’t be giving them out until closer to my pick, likely happening Sunday or Monday afternoon. Stay tuned on my twitter (@zwambag).

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Here is the breakdown of my team so far…

I am currently over the salary cap, but have until September 15 to decide between who to drop from the players that have signed a new contract this offseason (yellow). But still have to fill my 23 roster spots. Debate is ongoing, in my head, between Shaw ($3.9M) and/or Helm ($3.85M). No penalty dropping those guys before the deadline, if I drop another player the regular NHL buyout rules apply.

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#VeseyWatch Update! Still has not signed anywhere, continue on with your day. Or go to twitter and see all sorts of rumours about where Jimmy will sign.

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Feel free to leave comments, questions or concerns below, have fun playing the game of Fantasy Hockey.

Paul Zwambag
@zwambag