Orad's Handsome Fantasy Hockey League settings

Handsome Fantasy Hockey League Settings

Below are the settings for our fantasy league, called the Handsome Hockey League. They have been optimized for your fantasy hockey pleasure. Please let me know if you have any comments at @orad or in a comment in the reddit thread.

1. Introduction

2. League settings

2.1 Player stats

2.2 Roster Management

2.3 Keeper player rules

3 Analysis

4. About me

5. Top 300 players

1. Introduction

Our guiding philosophy is that a well-built team should need to have good forwards (a balance between C, LW and RW), good defensemen, and good goalies. Teams can have a single player that’s a game-breaker, but the type of player should be able to be different. For example, the Habs have Carey Price (a goalie), the Leafs have Tavares and Matthews (great centers), the Sharks have Burns and Karlsson (great scoring defensemen), etc. This way, different (good) teams can be built with strength at one position at the expense of another.

One consequence of this philosophy is that the elite players of different positions should have approximately the same value. (That is, the top centers should have similar value to the top defensemen, etc.) This would also motivate more trades throughout the season. For example, suppose one team has 6 strong centers and no strong defensemen. They can play at most 4 centers a game, and can only keep 2 at the end of the year, so to make the best use of their assets they should probably move 1 or 2 of them at the deadline for some quality defensemen. If centers get systematically more points than defensemen, it would never make sense to trade a D for a C, and we would end up with a trading gridlock like other fantasy leagues often have.

We are using the Yahoo platform since it’s free, has a nice app, and supports keeper settings well. We are also using the “points” format instead of the “cats” format, since that’s the easiest way to make the approximate value of different positions equal.

We also have some other “common sense rules” we want to follow:

We want the average player value to be something that makes sense. We design it so 10 pts is average, so if a player has more than 10 pts in a game, it’s a good game, and if it’s much less, then he had a bad game.
We want to reduce the number of stats if possible. For example, power play points, power play assists and power play goals all sometimes do the same thing, so why use all 3 of those stats? It makes it easier to remember what all the fantasy point values are during the season.
No “participation points” (e.g., no “shifts” or “games started” for goaltenders)
No points for +/- (it’s a team stat) or PIM (you player shouldn’t be rewarded for giving the other team a power play opportunity).
If possible, avoid “negative games.” The only negative stat is the “goals against” stat, and we carefully balanced it so that on a game-by-game basis, for a reasonable number of shots.
Hat tricks are fun, but given that you already get so many points for 3 goals, we found it made things too imbalanced and so we don’t use them.

2. League settings

2.1 Player stats

Finally the moment you have all been waiting for — below are the “optimal” stats

Skater stats				Goalie stats
Goals	6	Shot on goal	1.6	Wins	5
Assists	4	Block	1.6	Saves	0.5
Power play goals	2	Hit	0.6	Goals against	-2.0
Power play assists	2	Face-off wins/losses	0	Shutout	5
Shorthand goals	2	Shifts / TOI	0	Loss / overtime loss	0
Shorthand assists	2	Plus-minus +/-	0	Games started	0
Game-winning goal	3	Penalty in minutes	0
Hat trick	0	“Defensemen points”	0

Using these stats, the best elite players are worth 15 pts, the worst players that would reasonably be drafted are worth 6, and an average player would be 10 pts. All player positions (C, W, D, G) positions roughly have similar value. More on this in the Analysis section below. To see the actual player values and ranking for the 2018-2019 season, see the top 300 players below.

2.2 Roster Management

A roster will consist of 22 players. The number of players of each position that can play each day is:

Position	Number of slots
C	4
LW	2
RW	2
D	4
Utility	1
G	2

This means that the bench is 7 players deep. There will also be 2 additional slots reserved for IR+. (IR+ allows for “IR”, “Out” and “Day-to-day” players to be stored. Suspended players or “NA” players who have been sent down to the AHL for example cannot.)

2.3 Keeper player rules

Every team must select 7 keepers. 2 of the 7 must be D, and the other 5 can be F/D/G, with a maximum of 1 G.

3 Analysis

The stat values and roster sizes that we have selected seem to achieve the goals set out in the philosophy. We can look at the distribution of players in the 2018-2019 season based on position using these stats:

The distribution in the top 50 and top 100 seems to be fairly even. In the bottom-right figure, we have what we call the “effective rank,” where we divide the rank by the number of active spots for that given position. Since every team needs more active centermen compared to the other positions (4 vs 2 for LW or RW, for example) they are more in demand and more “bad ones” will be activated on a given day. This is an additional control to make the different positions comparable, and when taken into account we obtain the effective rank. We see that all of the positions are roughly equal when using this metric, and so all of the players on the waiver wire of different positions will end up being equally bad (meaning no mad dash for the one good center on Monday morning.)

Goaltenders seem to be the most valuable position, followed by centers. This is why we ended up not using face-offs as a stat — they would only act to make centers even more valuable. I haven’t figured out exactly how to balance goalies further without adding more active rosters spots (which is hard to do with only 30 starting goalies in the league), but given that goalies don’t play every game I think this is fine for now. I’m open to suggestions!

One thing I have figured out how to consider is how to minimize “negative games,” which can happen if a goaltender has a particularly bad game. It’s not possible go analyze this by just looking at a player’s seasonal average, so to explore this we need game-by-game data. I wasn’t able to find it for individual players, but I did find it for teams. If we treat each team as having only 1 goaltender, and calculate their fantasy points for each game, we obtain the following graph:

Here, every point represents a single game, and every column is a team. Points below the red line correspond to “negative games,” where a you lose points by playing a goaltender. With our settings, this analysis tells us that < 4.5% of goalie games are negative. Also, only 4% of games are above 25 pts, putting the average squarely around 10, which is exactly what we want!

I’d like to contrast these figures with the “Yahoo default league settings”. Doing so makes it very clear that the stats for this year are an improvement under the guiding philosophy outlined above. You will see that there is much less parity — in particular, goaltenders are way over-valued, and defensemen are vastly underrepresented. You would never consider trading even a middling G for a handful of the best D in the league. There would also be no point in drafting any D until the middle rounds, and all general managers would rush to pick the best centers or goaltenders first, then the best wingers, all at the same time.

4. About me

I am a physicist that loves hockey and applying physical principles to things that aren’t physics. I’m also the guy who settled how many points Jagr would have had if he never left for the KHL. (The answer is about 354 more points.)

5. Top 300 players

Below are the top 300 players (skaters and goaltenders, min 20 GP):

Rank	Player	Position	Fantasy points/GP	Fantasy points/Season
1	Alex Ovechkin	LW	15.9	1285.6
2	Nathan MacKinnon	C	15.2	1248.4
3	Patrick Kane	RW	14.9	1203.2
4	Nikita Kucherov	RW	14.6	1196
5	Brent Burns	D	14.5	1192
6	Alexander Edler	D	14.5	811
7	Andrei Vasilevskiy	G	14.4	761.5
8	Patrice Bergeron	C	14.3	930.8
9	Kris Letang	D	14.3	928.2
10	Connor McDavid	C	14.2	1110.4
11	Gabriel Landeskog	LW	14.2	1037.8
12	David Pastrnak	RW	14.2	938.2
13	Auston Matthews	C	14.1	959.4
14	Jack Eichel	C	13.9	1070.8
15	Tyler Seguin	C	13.9	1136.8
16	Taylor Hall	LW	13.8	455
17	Mark Giordano	D	13.7	1066.4
18	Alexander Radulov	RW	13.6	949.4
19	John Tavares	C	13.5	1107
20	Ben Bishop	G	13.3	614
21	Steven Stamkos	C	13.2	1081.6
22	Sidney Crosby	C	13	1030
23	Laurent Brossoit	G	13	273.5
24	Dylan Larkin	C	13	987.2
25	John Carlson	D	12.9	1031.4
26	Leon Draisaitl	C	12.9	1054.8
27	Brad Marchand	LW	12.9	1016.2
28	Shea Weber	D	12.8	744
29	Roman Josi	D	12.8	1050.2
30	Mathew Dumba	D	12.8	409.8
31	Matt Murray	G	12.8	639.5
32	Vladimir Tarasenko	RW	12.8	969.8
33	Robin Lehner	G	12.7	584
34	Frederik Andersen	G	12.7	759
35	Jordan Binnington	G	12.5	401
36	Erik Karlsson	D	12.5	663.8
37	Louis Domingue	G	12.4	323.5
38	Darcy Kuemper	G	12.4	683
39	Mikko Rantanen	RW	12.4	914.2
40	Mika Zibanejad	C	12.3	1011
41	Blake Wheeler	RW	12.3	1009.2
42	Morgan Rielly	D	12.3	1006.4
43	Jaroslav Halak	G	12.2	489
44	Aleksander Barkov	C	12.2	1001.4
45	Jonathan Huberdeau	C	12.2	996.8
46	Thomas Chabot	D	12.2	850.6
47	Brayden Point	C	12	951.2
48	Connor Hellebuyck	G	12	758
49	Zach Parise	LW	12	888.8
50	Thomas Greiss	G	12	515
51	Cam Atkinson	RW	12	956.2
52	Evander Kane	LW	11.9	895.6
53	Mark Stone	RW	11.9	915.6
54	Dustin Byfuglien	D	11.9	499.2
55	Filip Forsberg	C	11.8	757.2
56	Johnny Gaudreau	LW	11.8	969.2
57	Mitch Marner	C	11.8	967.2
58	Carter Hart	G	11.8	365.5
59	Sebastian Aho	C	11.8	966.8
60	Victor Hedman	D	11.8	824.6
61	Sergei Bobrovsky	G	11.7	725.5
62	Evgeni Malkin	C	11.7	794.6
63	John Gibson	G	11.7	676.5
64	Carey Price	G	11.6	768.5
65	Marc-Andre Fleury	G	11.6	707.5
66	Curtis McElhinney	G	11.6	381.5
67	Alexandar Georgiev	G	11.5	381
68	Jonathan Toews	C	11.5	946.2
69	Sean Couturier	C	11.5	921.8
70	Seth Jones	D	11.5	864
71	Rasmus Ristolainen	D	11.5	896.2
72	Mark Scheifele	C	11.5	940.8
73	Jake Guentzel	C	11.5	940.2
74	Viktor Arvidsson	LW	11.4	663.8
75	Joe Pavelski	C	11.4	858.2
76	Alex Pietrangelo	D	11.4	812
77	Timo Meier	RW	11.4	891.4
78	Anton Khudobin	G	11.4	468.5
79	Braden Holtby	G	11.4	672.5
80	Pekka Rinne	G	11.3	635.5
81	Jacob Trouba	D	11.3	929.4
82	Tyson Barrie	D	11.3	883.6
83	Jacob Markstrom	G	11.3	678
84	Philipp Grubauer	G	11.3	418
85	Juuse Saros	G	11.3	350
86	Mike Hoffman	C	11.2	922
87	Petr Mrazek	G	11.2	449.5
88	Brendan Gallagher	RW	11.2	920.8
89	MacKenzie Blackwood	G	11.2	257
90	Tomas Hertl	C	11.1	856.4
91	Darnell Nurse	D	11.1	909.8
92	Sean Monahan	C	11.1	864.2
93	Casey DeSmith	G	11	397.5
94	Dougie Hamilton	D	11	904.4
95	Tuukka Rask	G	11	505
96	Erik Gustafsson	D	10.9	865
97	Ryan O'Reilly	C	10.9	894
98	Brent Seabrook	D	10.8	845.4
99	Jon Marchessault	C	10.8	883.6
100	Jeff Petry	D	10.7	881.2
101	Vincent Trocheck	C	10.7	591
102	Jeff Skinner	C	10.7	880.4
103	David Rittich	G	10.7	481.5
104	Torey Krug	D	10.7	683.4
105	Bo Horvat	C	10.7	875.4
106	Pheonix Copley	G	10.7	288
107	Justin Faulk	D	10.7	873.8
108	Jack Campbell	G	10.6	330
109	Phil Kessel	RW	10.6	871.2
110	Matthew Tkachuk	LW	10.6	849.6
111	Oscar Klefbom	D	10.6	647.6
112	Elias Lindholm	C	10.6	859.4
113	John Klingberg	D	10.6	679
114	Brady Tkachuk	LW	10.6	751.8
115	Alex DeBrincat	RW	10.6	868
116	Kyle Palmieri	RW	10.6	783.2
117	Cam Ward	G	10.6	349
118	Semyon Varlamov	G	10.6	518
119	Jamie Benn	LW	10.6	823.6
120	Claude Giroux	C	10.6	865.2
121	Jimmy Howard	G	10.5	579.5
122	T.J. Oshie	C	10.5	726.6
123	Logan Couture	C	10.5	852.4
124	Ryan Pulock	D	10.5	862.8
125	Craig Anderson	G	10.5	525.5
126	Mats Zuccarello	LW	10.5	503.6
127	Henrik Lundqvist	G	10.5	544.5
128	Elias Pettersson	C	10.5	742.6
129	Anders Nilsson	G	10.5	376.5
130	Ryan Getzlaf	C	10.4	698.8
131	Linus Ullmark	G	10.4	385.5
132	Tom Wilson	RW	10.4	656
133	Josh Anderson	RW	10.4	853.4
134	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	C	10.4	853.2
135	Devan Dubnyk	G	10.4	696
136	Colton Parayko	D	10.4	830.8
137	Keith Yandle	D	10.3	848.6
138	Ryan Miller	G	10.3	206.5
139	Artemi Panarin	LW	10.3	812
140	Chris Kreider	C	10.2	809
141	Patrik Laine	RW	10.2	837
142	Matt Duchene	C	10.2	745
143	Corey Crawford	G	10.2	398
144	Drew Doughty	D	10.2	836.2
145	Brock Boeser	RW	10.2	701.8
146	Carter Hutton	G	10.1	505.5
147	Mikko Koskinen	G	10.1	555.5
148	Anthony Mantha	RW	10.1	674
149	Evgeny Kuznetsov	C	10	761.4
150	Dustin Brown	RW	10	721
151	Patric Hornqvist	RW	10	687.2
152	Blake Coleman	C	10	776.8
153	Ondrej Kase	RW	10	298.6
154	Brian Elliott	G	9.9	258
155	Jared Spurgeon	D	9.9	811.8
156	Max Pacioretty	LW	9.9	652
157	Max Domi	LW	9.8	806.6
158	P.K. Subban	D	9.8	619.4
159	Garret Sparks	G	9.8	196
160	Rickard Rakell	RW	9.8	675.6
161	Ryan McDonagh	D	9.8	802.6
162	Martin Jones	G	9.8	604.5
163	Evgenii Dadonov	RW	9.7	797.8
164	Kyle Connor	LW	9.7	797.6
165	Jake Muzzin	D	9.7	777.8
166	Anders Lee	C	9.7	797.2
167	Frank Vatrano	LW	9.7	787.2
168	Andrew Shaw	C	9.7	611.8
169	Jake Allen	G	9.7	446
170	Mike Green	D	9.7	415.2
171	Esa Lindell	D	9.6	790
172	Travis Hamonic	D	9.6	664.2
173	Jakub Voracek	RW	9.6	750.2
174	Nicklas Backstrom	C	9.6	767.8
175	Josh Morrissey	D	9.6	565
176	Ryan Ellis	D	9.6	785
177	Malcolm Subban	G	9.6	201
178	Andreas Athanasiou	C	9.6	727.4
179	Pierre-Luc Dubois	LW	9.5	782.4
180	Justin Williams	RW	9.5	777.2
181	Alex Tuch	RW	9.5	701.2
182	Radko Gudas	D	9.4	724.6
183	Carl Soderberg	C	9.4	768.2
184	Cody Ceci	D	9.4	693.2
185	Charlie McAvoy	D	9.3	504.6
186	Brayden Schenn	C	9.3	672
187	Brandon Montour	D	9.3	765
188	Anze Kopitar	C	9.3	752
189	Brandon Pirri	C	9.3	287.6
190	Jakob Chychrun	D	9.3	491.6
191	Shayne Gostisbehere	D	9.2	719.6
192	Mike Smith	G	9.2	387
193	Boone Jenner	C	9.2	707.8
194	Nate Schmidt	D	9.2	558.4
195	James van Riemsdyk	LW	9.1	603.6
196	Roberto Luongo	G	9.1	392.5
197	Nico Hischier	C	9.1	628.8
198	Tomas Tatar	C	9.1	728.2
199	Matt Niskanen	D	9.1	728
200	Oliver Ekman-Larsson	D	9.1	736.8
201	Erik Cernak	D	9.1	527
202	Andy Greene	D	9.1	744.6
203	Mikael Granlund	C	9.1	717
204	Jonathan Bernier	G	9.1	317.5
205	Shea Theodore	D	9.1	716.4
206	Johnny Boychuk	D	9.1	670.6
207	Mathew Barzal	C	9.1	742.4
208	Sam Reinhart	C	9	741.8
209	Sami Vatanen	D	9	452
210	Teuvo Teravainen	LW	9	741.2
211	Eric Staal	C	9	726.6
212	Reilly Smith	RW	9	663.2
213	Jason Zucker	LW	8.9	723.6
214	William Karlsson	C	8.9	732
215	Aaron Ekblad	D	8.9	729.4
216	Ivan Provorov	D	8.9	728.8
217	Jordan Staal	C	8.9	443.8
218	Alec Martinez	D	8.9	531.6
219	Erik Johnson	D	8.8	707.8
220	Mattias Ekholm	D	8.8	707.4
221	Ryan Suter	D	8.8	724.4
222	Alex Biega	D	8.8	362.2
223	Derek Stepan	C	8.8	635
224	Keith Kinkaid	G	8.8	361.5
225	Micheal Ferland	LW	8.8	625.8
226	Duncan Keith	D	8.8	721.8
227	Gustav Nyquist	RW	8.8	711
228	Rasmus Dahlin	D	8.8	719.4
229	Brock Nelson	C	8.8	719.2
230	Zach Werenski	D	8.8	718
231	David Perron	LW	8.7	497.4
232	Neal Pionk	D	8.7	637
233	Mike Matheson	D	8.7	654.2
234	Michal Kempny	D	8.7	619
235	Connor Murphy	D	8.7	452.8
236	Ian Cole	D	8.7	615.4
237	Ryan Dzingel	C	8.7	675.8
238	Craig Smith	C	8.6	656.2
239	Jakob Silfverberg	LW	8.6	629.6
240	Colin Miller	D	8.6	558.8
241	Mikael Backlund	C	8.6	661.2
242	Hampus Lindholm	D	8.6	652.6
243	Jaccob Slavin	D	8.6	702.6
244	Alex Goligoski	D	8.6	650.6
245	Justin Schultz	D	8.6	248.2
246	Anthony DeAngelo	D	8.6	522
247	Brady Skjei	D	8.6	667.4
248	Paul Stastny	C	8.6	427.8
249	Robert Hagg	D	8.6	701.4
250	Alex Galchenyuk	C	8.6	615.6
251	Zach Aston-Reese	C	8.5	367.4
252	Kevin Hayes	RW	8.5	606.4
253	Jake Debrusk	LW	8.5	580.6
254	Brandon Tanev	LW	8.5	682
255	Nick Foligno	LW	8.5	620.6
256	Nazem Kadri	C	8.5	620.4
257	Bryan Rust	RW	8.5	611
258	Kevin Shattenkirk	D	8.5	618.6
259	Deryk Engelland	D	8.5	626
260	Tyler Myers	D	8.4	674.8
261	Cory Schneider	G	8.4	219
262	Travis Konecny	C	8.4	689.2
263	Nino Niederreiter	RW	8.4	687.8
264	Ben Chiarot	D	8.4	653.2
265	Adam Larsson	D	8.4	684.8
266	Nikolaj Ehlers	LW	8.3	517
267	Kris Russell	D	8.3	598.6
268	Jonathan Quick	G	8.3	382
269	Zach Hyman	C	8.3	589.6
270	Jonathan Drouin	LW	8.3	672
271	Austin Watson	LW	8.3	306.8
272	James Reimer	G	8.2	297
273	Paul Byron	C	8.2	461.8
274	Danny DeKeyser	D	8.2	428.8
275	Cam Talbot	G	8.2	288.5
276	Ryan Johansen	C	8.2	658.6
277	Nick Bjugstad	C	8.2	526
278	Dylan Strome	C	8.2	640.8
279	David Krejci	C	8.2	663.2
280	Brandon Saad	LW	8.2	654.2
281	Noah Juulsen	D	8.2	171.2
282	Jaden Schwartz	C	8.2	562.4
283	Bobby Ryan	LW	8.1	633.2
284	Scott Mayfield	D	8.1	641.2
285	Joel Armia	RW	8.1	462.2
286	Mark Borowiecki	D	8.1	429.6
287	Brett Pesce	D	8.1	590.6
288	Matt Roy	D	8.1	202.2
289	Dan Girardi	D	8.1	500.6
290	Damon Severson	D	8.1	661.4
291	Travis Sanheim	D	8.1	660.6
292	Tyler Bertuzzi	LW	8	587.2
293	Mikhail Sergachev	D	8	601
294	Brian Dumoulin	D	8	607
295	Vinnie Hinostroza	C	8	573.6
296	Olli Maatta	D	8	477.6
297	Zach Bogosian	D	7.9	516.6
298	Dylan DeMelo	D	7.9	611
299	Casey Cizikas	C	7.9	578
300	Phillip Danault	LW	7.9	639.2