Cool. Got it. We'll be ready by draft night. I just wanted to be sure. He ("The Boy") knows what's up on the players, I'm just along for the ride. Is there any standard way of approaching (G first, etc.), or do you basically roll with best available? I've only done NFL in the past, myself. Looking forward to doing this though, and he is the hockey fan, so we'll get there. He was showing me last night on their rankings, like "Oh, this guy is way better than that guy, he should be above him...", that type of stuff.
Good morning Phat,
to piggyback some replies that others gave in:
The player list you'll see on the ESPN site are their version of ranking. They are in place as a resource for perceived 'best options' for your next pick, however, it also serves to 'auto select' a player for you should you not make a selection within your 90 second time allowed.
One thing you'll need to watch should you run out of time and therefore revert to 'auto select' is that you will have to manually change back from 'auto' over to 'manually select'. It's not a big deal to do, just a click of a button -- however -- if you are picking first or last in the order and as such have two picks back to back, you'll end up 'auto selecting' twice and right away without a chance to fix it. It's kind of a glitch in the system that someone on here stumbled into by accident via running out of time on 1 selection and therefore having 2 picks taken for them.
So just be weary of this. One thing you can do to avoid this is to set up (do a mock draft and see what I'm saying here) a few players as your "next pics" should you run out of time. So if you 'think' you have a player you want but wish to do some quick reference checking during your 90 second time clock.... place that player you want in your "next to pick" or "next auto pick" box thing, and should you accidentally run out of time... the system will grab your chosen player next. You can actually go through ahead of the draft and manually change the entire ranking (or part of it) from what ESPN offers to your own version. Then when you're selecting picks, the list you see on ESPN becomes 'your' version of rankings versus theirs.
If the above didn't make any sense, let me know and I"ll try again.
In terms of how to select and when (Best player avail, etc) it's all basically part of the strategy and to where you end up in the draft rankings. If you get a high draft pick, your first pick should be the best player avail for sure. But if you end up in the mid to lower pick of the first round, you want to decide if you would sooner have the 6,7,8th best forward available versus one of the better goalie options available. You might get the best goalie, but by the time it's your turn to pick again, your first forward isn't going to be quite as good. So the challenge is deciding between the lesser of two evils.
There's a couple here who really like to lock down their goaltending because they account for 3 of the 9 categories. So usually after round 1 of the draft or certainly by round 2, some of the more notable goalies are gone.
Realize as well that its not 'forwards' you're picking exclusive. It's also by position. So 'best player available' as a forward also reverts to specific position. Crosby is a centre men, Ovechkin is a winger. So both are high on the list, but they fill different positions and leave a potential hole in the other. Both also score differently in the categories. Ovechkin takes a ton of shots and a ton of hits to go with his goals. Crosby by comparison takes a lot more assists, and both score well for power play points (another category I believe).
So there's lots to consider, but ultimately nothing to worry too much about. You can go into the draft with a loose strategy, but it often all falls a part because others do things in real time you don't anticipate that throws a wrench your way and you end up steering off course to wha you may think you are going to do based on the actions of others.
Finally, realize we do trades during the year as well. It's a big part of our season and is wheat really makes things fun and interactive. So come draft night if you have a good stock of LW and RW but your centre looks weak, realize all that means is you have better wingers than others and perhaps can use them in a trade after the draft to obtain a centre that you may want. You'll not end up with all the players and all the balance you want in your roster on draft night, so just do the best you can on that night based on how things unfold, then go after players you wanted or positions you need to better balance after the fact via trades.
None of us are experts, none of us are serious. We just have a fun time and stay quite interactive. We all try and make trades that are fair and even and don't ever make moves at the end because we won't win so 'just say yes' to help another win because we don't care.
It's all about having a good time.
Thanks for joining in man, see you at the draft table.
