Monday, September 28, 2009

One Fantasy Team To Rule Them All. 4 Players, How They Got There.

We eventually got the fantasy draft underway last night after a couple of ridiculous restrictions on ESPN caused us to have to create the league again. The scoring settings are here and the rules for Head to Head are here. You can also start your own league here. It's free...get the draft time right the first time...

Anyway, on with the team...the round each player was picked is shown in parentheses. I had 5th pick out of 10.

Forwards:

Olli Jokinen (2)
Alexander Semin (4)
David Booth (5)
Michael Cammalleri (7)
Simon Gagne (8)
Shane Doan (10)
Martin Havlat (13)
Milan Michalek (14)
Patrice Bergeron (19)

Defense:

Mike Green (1)
Scott Niedermayer (6)
Brian Campbell (15)
Christian Ehrhoff (16)
Andrew Ference (22)

Utility:

Alex Tanquay (17)

Bench:

Steve Ott (11)
Anton Babchuk (12)
Chuck Kobasew (20)
Wade Redden (21)

Goalies:

Niklas Backstrom (3)
Chris Mason (9)

Bench Goalie:

Mike Smith (18)

Judgment immediately ensued when I picked Mike Green in the first round. I may have been able to grab him in the second, but I planned on focusing on forwards most of the draft and defensemen later in the game, so getting that out of the way first left me available to pick up 30+ goal scorers while others were picking up defensemen.

As for goalies, Backstrom should have a solid/consistent year over in Minnesota and Mason should improve over last year. Smith was just a random pickup and I'll probably end up dropping him before the season starts.

I feel like Tanquay was a steal in the 17th round as my utility guy. He'll have a terrible +/- on Tampa, but he'll have 30 goal season this year with a team that's looking for someone else to score other then Martin St. Louis.

Now moving on from fantasy into reality... The Bruins pre-season ended Saturday with a loss to Columbus and the roster has now been cut down to 22. I'm going to do my best to breakdown the pre-season efforts for each of the 22 players left on the roster.

The practice roster posted by Boston.com today is what I think the final roster will be for the start of the season. It is as follows:

First Line: Milan Lucic - Marc Savard - Marco Sturm
Second Line: Blake Wheeler - David Krejci - Michael Ryder
Third Line: Mark Recchi - Patrice Bergeron - Chuck Kobasew
Fourth Line: Shawn Thornton - Begin/Sobatka - Byron Bitz

D Pairings:

Zdeno Chara - Derek Morris
Andrew Ference - Dennis Wideman
Mark Stuart - Hunwick Boychuk

Goalies:

Tim Thomas
Tukka Rask

Player Analysis:

Shawn Thornton ( GP 5, G 1, A 2, Plus 1): Thornton came back into training camp all smiles as usual. Joking around at practice, but serious in game. In the past, he's been questionable for making the roster, but at this point, he's a leader on the 4th line. He's best known for his scraps while sticking up for his teammates, but as we saw in the first game against Columbus, he's got some hands too. Ultimately, you can expect a lot of the same from Thornton. He'll be in the corners fighting for the puck or people. As his contract is up this year, I'm sure we can expect a resigning long before the season is over.

Below is some more information regarding Shawn Thornton and some video of his pre-season fights this year.

Articles:

Thornton Has Been A Nice Fit

Fights:

Shawn Thornton vs Matt Carkner


Shawn Thornton vs Jared Boll


Patrice Bergeron (GP 5, G 0, A 3, Minus 3): Despite the minus 3 for the pre-season, Bergeron has looked good. Bergy isn't known for his goal scoring abilities, but as a play maker, and he's looked sharp dishing the puck. He's also been doing well in the face off circle. During practice, he has been taking up the 'captain' role during Chara's absence this training camp, leading drills and stretches. If Bergeron can get away from the Backhanded Shootout Shot, Bergeron could be a huge assets in overtime as it is (unfortunately) shootouts are becoming a larger part of the game.

Mark Recchi (GP 4, G 0, A 2, Minus 1): Recchi, has been pretty quiet this pre-season. But that is to be expected due to his style of play. Recchi is a crash the net, create a screen, get the tip in, kinda guy. In other words, he's in harms way most of the time. It wouldn't be a good idea to be putting Recchi in that kind of situation before the season even starts. Recchi, combined with Wheeler are expected to fill the "30 goal gap" left by Kessel. Recchi is expected to score +20 goals this year which is not hard to imagine as he had 23 goals total last year, 10 goals with the Bruins in only 18 games.

Chuck Kobasew (GP 5, G 2, A 0, Even +/-): Nice to see that Kobasew survived the Kessel drama. He would have been one of the first to go to make space for Kessel on the roster. He has 2 goals in the 5 pre-seaon games he played in and his two-way game looked great. I can see him getting in 25 goals this year if he stays healthy. He'll be on the same line as Bergy and Recchi and with Recchi's down-low style, it should open up Kobasew to make some big plays.

That's all for now, as this post is getting a little long. I'll have more tomorrow!

Go B's!

No comments:

Post a Comment