Commissioner Corner Message Board

Once again Bonchprof and I duke it out Mano-et-mano, sort of... Tacitly there is nothing ...

Once again Bonchprof and I duke it out Mano-et-mano, sort of...

Tacitly there is nothing wrong with streaming except that it does not truly reflect the ebb and flow of the roster of just one team, something that are pools are trying to emulate. Our rosters are collections of players assembled to form a "team" and in order to keep it "competitive", "active" and "interesting", in general, our respective leagues have a significantly smaller number of teams (typically twelve) and vastly reduced active rosters (typically 15 - 20) then the real leagues that we draw our players from. By design this helps level the playing field and give all GM's at the start of the season an equal chance to win regardless of skill level, draft position and active play.

Essentially it allows you to play with your Grandma and lets her wallop your behind without using a wooden spoon. Fair, you betcha because the idea is to have fun - and if your Grandma, who thinks sports are silly but adores you, can share an interest and interact with you from anywhere in the world at anytime then thats awesome. Because hockey pools are supposed to be social interactions, they just happen to be competitive ones. If you are some sort of chump with obsessive compulsions that sits all day in his bedroom fretting over, stats & scores and looking for some obscure competitive edge over the next pimply faced virtual warrior then my friend it is a sad life you lead.

I think that having the ability to rotate in and out of your line-up's / active roster players from the waiver wire and free agent pool is a good thing - but there should be a reasonable limit that reflects the "typical" movements of an NHL team because after all you are only the GM for ONE TEAM not twenty.

Based on a 12 - 16 player team, 45 rosters moves in a season seems like a reasonable number to me, that is essentially one player every two games and a couple of extra's for injuries. Although it is a number in excess of real league play - for our purposes 45 is a number that is high enough to allow us to have a little wriggle room for mistakes but low enough so that some judicious thought must prevail.

I myself am guilty of "streaming" in my 16 team, 22 player, H2H league I drafted dead last and have had a roster plagued with injuries, I have had to make a lot of roster moves just to stay in the game (After months of careful roster selection I am number two by a country mile and have a very narrow chance to catch the top spot overall).

In one of my points leagues, where the top two spots have shuffled back and forth between myself and another team all season long, ( where I also drafted extremely late but very well), as it is a very savvy league with at least 6 teams of twelve actively mining the free agent pool for hidden gems, I have streamed over seventy players - but some of that was pure deception designed to entangle and confound the "enemy". And damit after last years ridicule and pathetic showing in the standings their was no way in heck I was going to not finish in the top 5. There's inter-office pride and stake, not to mention the insufferable bragging of my co-workers.

To summarize zipping players daily into and out of your line-up from the free agent pool on a daily is probably not at all very reflective of "actual" play. GM's in real life have to consider travel restrictions, cap limits, team compatibility, positional need / role and a host of other considerations - all we need to do is see which hot hand is playing what starting sieve on tomorrow slate of games.

Sure it's fun to win, but unconscionable streaming isn't really winning, it's just a lot of time working on a cathode tan.

I'm one of the streamers you are talking about. I have the 19th, 23rd and 33rd teams ...

I'm one of the streamers you are talking about. I have the 19th, 23rd and 33rd teams on the board.

I have a girlfriend. I am not overweight. I don't live with my mom. I make a good living. Many accusations to the contrary have been levied, but that is tangential.

I stream because I enjoy competing. I compete to win, but moreover, I compete to test myself. If i choose to do something, I choose to extract every bit of efficiency out of myself in that endeavor. It's just the way I choose to approach things. If others have a different, more casual approach, I do not judge them negatively. I respect the rights of others to play the way they want to play. That's why I've never had a bad word to say about leagues with a transaction limit. Unfortunately many people join public leagues, which have no such limit, and do not respect my right to play my way, within the rules.

I never found streaming unfair because everyone has the same opportunity to manage their rosters effectively. Further, most have advanced warning that streaming is a strategy they may see, and it is one of the more effective ways to play.

That's all there is to say.

Streaming players, if done daily, effectively doubles or triples the number of games playe...

Streaming players, if done daily, effectively doubles or triples the number of games played by your 2nd and 3rd tier players, which is why I find it unfair. In a H2H matchup, the core, top level players will, for the most part, play the same number of games and get similar numbers of points and thus cancel each other out, which leaves 2nd and 3rd tier guys playing a big role in the outcome. I guarantee that if your 2nd and 3rd tier guys play seven days a week, you are going to overwhelm your opponent's equivalents who are playing only half as much. This is especially evident in the cumulative scoring categories where sheer number of opportunities can tilt these categories pretty consistently in your favor. Example: Team A streams and gets 12 extra man games over Team B from his lower level players with an average between those players of .25 goals, .33 assists, 2 SOGs, 2 PIMs, and 0.5 PPPs. Totaled that gives Team A a +3 goals, +4 assists, +24 in SOGs, +24 in PIMs, and +6 on PPPs - a sizable advantage strictly based on numbers and ability to read a calendar, not on quality of players or hockey knowledge.
In the NHL, teams are rewarded with an extra man to punish the other team for taking a penalty because 5 on 4 is an advantage due to the numbers alone. It's the same way in fantasy if one team fields, in effect, a 20 or 30 man lineup to uneven the playing field like a power play. By streaming players, you admit that your lineup is inferior and that the only way to win is by increasing your number of players and opportunities to get points.
Also, streaming doesn't usually hurt a team because 2nd and 3rd tier guys are often interchangeable because their stats aren't that far apart. Plus, they are usually undesirable to the GMs in a league who do have a strong lineup, so the odds of the guy you dropped getting snatched up are pretty slim. Therefore, dropping such a guy has very little risk but a big reward if you replace his slot daily with an equivalent low level player, especially if one of those low level players is on a short hot streak.
I do agree though that the rules don't prevent streaming, so if you don't like it, go join a private league that restricts it like I am going to do in the future. In that regard, if anyone is interested in forming or currently has such a league, please post your info.

i'm in a weekly league where we run 3 lw,3 c , 3 rw , 4 d-men and two goalies with 5 b...

i'm in a weekly league where we run 3 lw,3 c , 3 rw , 4 d-men and two goalies with 5 bench...oh yah, this is a 10 player keeper too. i was rotating one hot forward from waivers into my line-up all year(44 moves-no max). it seemed to help in those weeks when compitition was tight, as all our owners are well educated in nhl players and there ability. well now it gets interesting, one owner asks that rosters should be frozen(no add/drop of players) after the trade deadline.....one post, two posts,three posts and suddenly i'm on the outside lookin in and having to change my strategy, no more add/drops. needless to say i went on a bit of a rant and said this should have been agreed upon at the beginning of the year not at trade deadline day! well as i sit back tonite (sunday) looking at the match ups, guess who sqeaked into the finals, well that would be me....thanks in large part to mike richard's boarding call in the final minutes of the flyers game, to break the match-up tie we were looked into pretty much all week. so what i have learned here in my rookie year of fantasy hockey is just because you were thrown a curve-ball, sit back and knock that f _ _ kin thing out of the ballpark!!.....there are some pretty smart dudes on this message board that i have come to respect and hope we all can wade though the bullcrap these other idiots put out there. READ YAH ALL NEXT YEAR BOYS AND GIRLS!!!

i agree, nothing wrong with using free agents to boast points. 1) you actually have to dr...

i agree, nothing wrong with using free agents to boast points. 1) you actually have to drop a roster player to get a FA 2) you can't pick up that player again until he clears waivers, so you risk losing him. 3) i pick up players that are having a good week/month in H2H pools regardless of playoffs or not