Well sometimes you don’t quite get the players you wanted in your draft. Or worse, you miss the draft entirely and your autopick completely loused up your team to all hell. Is all hope lost? Of course not! With the wonders of the Free Agent/Waiver wire…you can steer your team back toward respectability and quick, too.
Unless your team really got decimated by either pre-season injuries or just a bad draft…always wait a week or two into the season to see what shakes. Those “not so good” players you drafted may get off to an early surprise. You never know…you may just have a Stastny or Parise on your hands. DO NOT PANIC! These are the three most important words you can ever hear when running your fantasy team and it applies in so many ways. Many times I have seen people just entirely revamp their team often on a weekly or biweekly basis and it destroys their team in the long run. The folks you see that make hundreds of moves in a season or usually around 100 or more…don’t win leagues very often at all. It is generally the GM that makes the best moves that wins.
Always look for trends when scouring the wire. Think to yourself, why was a player dropped? Is he injured, was he just not producing, did the GM panic or did the GM just have too many players for too few positions? These are the questions you have to ask yourself when a fairly good player ends up on the wire. Some players will slip thru the waiver period…most do not. So what is the waiver wire? The waiver part of the wire (in Yahoo especially) just means a player has a W next to his name which means, in order to snatch him, you have to put in a claim. Whoever has the best waiver wire number will acquire that player. There is usually a waiting period (between 1 and 3 days….depending on league rules)…and then you’ll find out if you got your man. Don’t be discouraged if you do not win out for that player’s services. After all, there is the entire free agency pool to play with.
The free agency pool just contains almost every player in the hockey universe (some AHL and mostly NHL players). It will also contain some prospects occasionally that get called up…..keep an eye out for teams who are trotting out new players. They may see some first or second line time…which means scoring opportunities. Also look out for players coming off injuries that were dropped early in the season. As the season progresses, you will learn the patterns of your fellow GM’s and be able to adjust your strategy accordingly. Furthermore, look for player callups and the guys that play well against teams in their own division. If lucky, you may just be able to reassemble your team enough (if you had a bad draft) by midseason and that could mean a nice run to the playoffs. That is a lot better than being mired near the basement….that’s for sure.
Complacency is a very powerful enemy of the GM in any fantasy league but in hockey it may be more true than others. How you make use of your free agent/waiver wire will be a huge key in your success or failure. If you don’t take a little time to research this useful tool, you may be wondering what could have been instead of celebrating a high finish or even a title.
Next week….we will take a look at some of the not quite top 10 Centers…till then enjoy!!
