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Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.comJan 30, 2024, 01:00 PM ET
CloseSean Allen is a fantasy analyst for ESPN.com. He was the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hockey Writer of the Year. You can tweet him @seanard.
As the NHL prepares to squarely step into our arena on Thursday with a draft for the All-Star Game teams, let’s take a moment to recognize the all-stars from our realm of fantasy hockey.
We’ll do a similar approach to how the league manages things, by forcing one selection from each of the 32 franchises to form our initial rosters. I tried to include a mix of the positions, but honestly I couldn’t get a goaltender nominated for one of the divisions — no matter how hard I tried to look the other way at some stats.
This is through a fantasy lens, so we aren’t necessarily looking for the best overall player, but rather the best value. Sometimes those criteria overlap, but not always. Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid can’t be fantasy all-star choices as they are returning the value we expected.
The preseason rankings referenced only go to the top 350 before they get too mushy, so a player listed as “not ranked” from the preseason just means they were lower than 350.
Metropolitan Division
No need to wait on the reveal from above about one of the divisions not getting a goaltender. Perhaps one of the defense can play the crease or they can just compete with an extra skater in our fantasy world. Honestly though, how could we select any of the goaltenders from this division for inclusion? Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin were supposed to be here, but neither is returning anything close to their draft value for the New York Islanders or New York Rangers. Pyotr Kochetkov got some consideration from the Carolina Hurricanes, but hasn’t been remotely consistent enough for most fantasy teams, especially because most of his value was packed into just the month of December. Even Charlie Lindgren has been fading fast for the Washington Capitals….
Source link : https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/39422300/fantasy-hockey-all-stars-artemi-panarin-nikita-kucherov-sam-reinhart
Author : Sean Allen
Publish date : 2024-01-30 17:57:43
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