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Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.comOct 22, 2024, 04:30 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.
What type of role do you want your fantasy player to have on their NHL team? The answer is, admittedly, a bit on the obvious side. You want first line and first power-play unit for as many of your fantasy team members as possible. But if we knew the value of each role weighed against the others, we could make more informed decisions about players that aren’t always top-line, top-unit.
What is the actual fantasy difference between a top-line forward that is on the second power-play unit and a second-line forward on the top PP unit? Is it better to have a second-pairing defense that gets no power-play time or a third-pairing defender that is a first-unit specialist on the power play? Let’s use fantasy stats to have a closer look.
In an attempt to answer these questions, let’s approach this from the perspective of each individual game and assign roles based on the ice time that players earn. We’ll treat each game as having the ability to dictate which player is assigned which role.
Jump ahead: Goalies | Power Play | Droppables
For example, Erik Haula will appear as the third-line center for the New Jersey Devils on most traditional depth charts. But, if you rank his even-strength ice time in each individual game against his fellow teammates, he’s actually played games as every possible role from first line to fourth line this season. Against the Utah Hockey Club on Oct. 14, the Devils had so much power-play time that Haula was third on the team in even-strength ice time. No, that doesn’t traditionally make him a “first liner” in this context, but for the purposes of classification, we can treat him as such. Conversely, on Oct. 17 against the Ottawa Senators, Haula ranked 10th on the Devils in even-strength minutes, arguably making him a fourth-line…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/41944773/nhl-fantasy-hockey-adds-drops-goalies-power-play-time
Author : Sean Allen
Publish date : 2024-10-22 21:30:46
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