Sometimes the autodraft can really be your best friend and sometimes it can be your worst enemy. Like anything in life it really is how you use it. If you want to see what it can do to your team when you do not use it right. We will give you a few documented cases even something that happened to yes, yours truly. Hey no one is infallible….not even a supposed expert you know.
In the BTR ESPN League, we visit the sad case of one Dan MacNeal. His team (Tank Tank) may have really gone into the tank when he missed the first hour plus of the draft. You could end up with Ondrej Pavelec and Brian Elliott as your goalies. Yes we talked about this last night but in reality even a blind man could autodraft better. However, ESPN rankings were considerably off whack this year and well the chips fell where they may.
What can you do about this? Simple….set up an autodraft even if you are going to be at the draft. Set players in your queue in the case the unforeseen computer mishap occurs. Think power outages do not occur or internet disruptions? Think again! Do not be stupid or naive about this. You can’t lose a season in a draft but surely it can do some serious harm if not careful.
Some experts do say it will cause you to lose your league and if you screwed up too bad….it can. However those are extreme cases. Those are not the norm. Even me who was at the draft missed a few picks because of a computer hiccup and I accidentally put the wrong player in the queue and what do you know…that player wound up being drafted for me. That player was Sundin…or Mr. Banana Peel. Ode to the embarrassment of such a pick by yours truly. Thankfully there is that wondrous waiver wire to correct such problems.
One of my friends last year had no starting goalies but had three nice blue chip fantasy players to use. He packaged a few trades together and ended up with Jonas Hiller and Pekka Rinne along with Steve Mason. If I even need to tell you what happened after. The rest is history. Not only did he win his league but he won it going away. The playoffs were a bloodbath in this league and I was just amazed that it could happen and yet…it did.
So just remember to autodraft and set up at least 100 of each position. Why? Because it will save you a lot of work down the road and also save your fantasy hockey sanity. Next week we’ll talk about the start of the season. Aloha means goodbye and get your hockey fix ready….10 days to go!
Sincerely,
Chris Wassel
Director Of The Program
