It's been a couple of months now since the fantasy hockey season ended. Plenty of time to gloat in your championships or lick your wounds. Now that the dust has settled, it's a good opportunity to look back on this past season and draw out some lessons from the past season. If you've been playing fantasy hockey for many years, few of these should come as shocking revelations; however, even the 20 year experts need to be reminded that fantasy seasons rarely pan out the way you script them at the draft table.
Lesson 1 -- Location Matters
As in marketing, location clearly matters to hockey players. This has become obvious on two fronts. So it makes sense to keep an eye out for a few guys finding a new home in hopes of better fantasy sports fortunes:
1. Strong fantasy performers who change locations often suffer a setback, even when moving to a "better situation". Consider a few examples from last year:
• Ilya Kovalchuk's move to New Jersey saw him drop to a lousy 60 points last season.
• Sergei Gonchar went from fantasy stud in Pittsburgh to an embarrassment in Ottawa.
2. Struggling players can often find new life in a new home.
You see this with average fantasy options that suddenly burst onto the scene with a new club:
• Lubomir Visnovsky saw his stock decline when he landed in Edmonton, but after recovering from injury in 2009, he exploded in his first full season with the Ducks.
• Alex Tanguay had slowly slid into irrelevance over the past couple seasons with Montreal and Tampa. A move back to Calgary sparked him to a 69-point performance.
Lesson 2 -- The Top Rookies aren't always the Best Rookies
Don’t put too much faith in drafting rookies. There are too many factors, many of which are financial, that can throw off your plans. Also, more so than with established players, you need to comb the waiver wire for rookies starting 2 to 4 weeks into the season. It's at that point that teams decide who's staying and who they plan to let ripen another year in the AHL. Prior to that point, it's too much of a risk to waste valuable draft picks on promises that rarely come true.
Lesson 3 -- Playoff momentum rarely carries into the next season
You see this trend every season, though in our hearts we like to pretend it doesn't exist. Each year at draft time, we give special weight towards the playoff heroes of the previous spring, only to see them fall flat. 2010-11 was no exception, so learn well this rule. Look back at the playoff leaders of 2010, particularly those who surprised with their numbers:
• Michael Cammalleri led all players with 13 goals last spring, bounding him up the draft charts. He followed that up with a lousy 19 goal regular season performance.
• Danny Briere finished 2nd in goals and points in the 2010 playoffs. 68 points was a bit of a let down for fantasy owners this year.
Simon Gagne sizzled with 9 playoff goals and followed that up with his 2nd straight 17-goal regular season total.
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