Injuries and Fantasy Hockey

Part IV: Free Agency, Re-drafts and Some Words of Advice

December 3, 2000

In this final installment of "Injuries and Fantasy Hockey" we will talk briefly about how to use your league's free agent or re-draft system to fill the gaps created by injuries. Then we'll some roster management tips from the Puckjunkie staff. Believe me they're complaining about this - all around the office today all I heard was "We spend years developing these strategies and here we are giving them away!" or "Next thing you know we'll be letting people in on our trading secrets!". I didn't have the heart to tell them that we'll be doing that  in a article (called "Confessions of a Serial Trader) being released on one of our partner websites, Fantasyref.com starting this week. 

Free Agency
In most Fantasy Hockey Leagues, each team has the ability to acquire free agents (players currently not on any other team) . This can be done through a simple draft each week (worst team gets first choice), live auction style (owners bid against each against each other each week), or silent auction style (each owner enters their bid - top bid gets the player). Free agents are the perfect short term solution to a minor injury problem. You are never going to be able to replace a Peter Forsberg though a weekly free agent pick up, but there is always a player out there to fill for an injury to a 5th or 6th d-man, a mid-pack forward or a back-up goalie. Use the system - don't make unnecessary (and possibly costly) trades when you can do this. If your league uses an auction style you probably have a budget (we call then Free Agent Bucks or FABs) to spend. Never blow it early because you never know when you're going to get an injury. And if and injury happens after your trading deadline and you have no FABs left - you're out of luck for filling that roster spot. As well, learn to predict injuries. We told you earlier about the players who always get hurt. If you decide to take one of them, it may be a good idea, once the season starts, to see who would benefit most if your player got hurt. This may be a minor leaguer or a current 4th liner. Regardless, it may be worthwhile to pick this guy up as your own little insurance policy because you know that as soon as your player does get hurt, everyone will be bidding on this guy. Examples of this would be Dan Hinote in Colorado (who's benefiting from the injury to Peter Forsberg), Martin Havlat in Ottawa (who gained early in the year thanks to Daniel Alfredsson's injury) and Montreal's Craig Darby (who certainly has seen increased icetime thanks to the annual Saku Koivu trip to IR). 

If you are unfortunate enough to have an injured player or two on the squad, before you drop him you need to answer the following questions:

• How long will he be out?
• Is he still better than other players on my team?
• Do I need more help in another position or category?
• How many games have your players played vs. the games played by the guys your picking up?

As a side note, games played is something a lot of people forget in a re-draft. Usually the redraft date is some arbitrary date that fits with people's schedules. Most time is coincides with the All-Star game but rarely will it ever coincide with every team having played the same number of games. Look at the standings before your redraft and check the GP for your injured guys (and the other guys you're thinking about dropping) as well as the how many games the players you're thinking about picking up have left. This could give you a chance to squeeze 84 or 85 games out of one roster spot. 

Roster Management Tips
We picked the brains of Puckjunkie.com staff and came up with a few roster management tips for dealing with injuries. Some of this stuff is obvious but some of it isn't.

• Got an injury-prone goalie (Hasek, Dafoe, etc.)? Make sure to keep his backup on your reserve. That would have been hard to do in Buffalo and Boston in the first quarter of the year. These teams went through goalies like water...in fact they passed Peter Skudra back and forth. However most times picking up a solid backup like Biron is a good way to cover yourself.

• Don't panic - if you get hit with an injury take a deep breath and assess. If it turns out the guy you lost really only helps you in a category (or categories) that you're strong in, it may be easier (and less costly) to just wait out the injury filling the spot with your existing roster.

• Pay close attention to concussions - the NHL is being very careful with these cases. Even a minor concussion will cause a player to miss at least a couple of games. Multiple concussions should send up a red flag. This isn't like any other injury. You don't ever fully recover.

Jonathan Kinney is President of Puckjunkie.com. Think that's a glorious position? Think again. All it means is that he has to spring for Big Gulps and Donuts at the meetings. Every couple of months we've got him on assignment doing these multi-part reports. Something you want him to look at? Let him know.