Chasing Eric Staal, or Why I Drafted the Young 'Uns

In my first blog post, I bragged up the strategy I used for my ’08 hockey pool. Essentially, I targeted those players who were approaching the end of their careers and were thought by most prognosticators to have nothing left in the tank. I put my faith in the old guard, believing they had a lot left to prove and that today’s training regimens would allow them to prove it. It turned out to be a fairly misguided strategy. Not that all the old farts played that poorly, but not enough of them played that well, and they suffered a lot of injuries. In the end, I finished near the bottom of the pile, not so much because I utilized a bad strategy, but rather because it wasn’t a good strategy. (Lesson learned: don’t brag up your drafting skills less than a month into a season, because you never know when Joe Sakic’s senility will kick in and he’ll stick his hand into a snowblower blade.)


I decided to take the opposite approach this year, inspired by the early career of Eric Staal. He entered the NHL with high expectations after being drafted 2nd overall behind Marc-Andre Fleury. He didn’t live up to the hype, though few rookies do, and he finished with a lowly 31 points. After a season in the AHL during the NHL lockout, Staal exploded for 100 points, finishing 7th in league scoring. Jonathon Cheechoo also exploded that year for 93 points, the beneficiary of San Jose acquiring Joe Thornton early in the year. Both would have been incredible steals for poolies that year. One big difference though: people who drafted Cheechoo got lucky; people who drafted Staal were being astute.

Then again, other top draft picks from Staal’s draft year include Nathan Horton and Nikolai Zherdev. Horton had 47 points in his sophomore year while Zherdev had 54. Respectable numbers, but not the type that will elevate someone into first place in a hockey pool.

Picking players involves a consideration of risk and reward. The risk of the all-too-common “Sophomore Jinx” is well known. And reaping the rewards of a young superstar coming into his own early in his career after a shaky rookie season, like Staal managed to do, might be too rare an occurrence to bother trying to chase, like the moron who spends $500 a month on lottery tickets instead of saving for retirement.

But, goddamnit, I certainly chased Staal this year. Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Peter Mueller, Dave Bolland, Michael Frolik… all had decent rookie campaigns with occasional flashes of brilliance and all were strong prospects. Like my old farts from the year before, though, they may not have all played too bad for me, but none of them have been that great, either. I’m going to finish near the bottom of the pack again this year, let down by a very different though equally misguided strategy as the year before. (It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t able to draft Steven Stamkos, or I would have resisted the idea that drafting sophomores isn’t a good strategy.) Not that this strategy is the sole reason I'm stinking up the place -- most of my veterans have been just as disappointing as the sophomores -- but it certainly wasn't a winning strategy.

Much like my Edmonton Oilers, even though there’s 15-17 games left, I’m already looking towards next season and I’ll be using this summer to retool. I haven’t given up on the concept that there’s a winning formula to picking players for pools, one that can be applied from year-to-year and will give me an edge. I just have yet to solve it.

Why I Draft the Old 'uns -- Hockey Pool Strategery

The Tampa Bay Lightning would post a motto in their dressing room before each game during their Stanley Cup run: "Safe is Death." Coach Tortorella's team philosophy was that they needed to take risks in order to succeed. I think the same philosophy holds true when it comes to snake-draft style hockey pools. If you want to finish in first, you can't just load up on safe picks. You should finish well by playing it safe, but the goal is to win and you probably won't if someone else's risks pan out.

Why don't safe picks win hockey pools? Because those picks don't separate you from the pack. You don't want your final pick, like everyone else's, to finish with 50 points. Like with all your selections, you should be targeting players who have 80+ potential. It's tough to sift through the junk and uncover those few gems who are left, but they're there, and you need them to rise above the rest.

Two caveats:

1) I don't like drafting players with loads of untapped potential but who have been held back by chronic injuries. There's nothing that kills your chance of winning and deflates all your enthusiasm for the season more than losing a player for big chunks of the year, especially if deep-down you knew that was going to happen. Yeah, Havlat has the talent to get 100 points, but it's much more likely that he'll blow his shoulder early and get a measly 30. (Note: I didn't follow my own advice and took Tim Connolly with my last pick this year. Two days later I find out he has a cracked vertebrae.)

2) Don't roll the dice when it comes to early selections. If a guy consistently finishes in the top-20, don't pass him over for a guy you hope will surprisingly come out of nowhere and finish in the top-10. The risk is high and there's really no reward. Wait until the 3rd- or 4th-round at the very earliest before you make people scratch their heads with your picks.

So with all that said, why did I end up drafting a bunch of past-their-prime players the last few years? Because most people don't have faith in their potential to rebound from an off-year. I blame the pool guides. Each one identifies the "shooting stars" and the "fading stars." Problem is, they assume basically every star-in-the-making will have a big leap in points while every member of the old guard who suffered a set-back will continue to fade into obscurity. But, really, there's little reason to assume that Eric Staal will score that many more points than Rod Brind'Amour or Ray Whitney this season (Whitney was outpacing Staal last season before a freak infection took him down a notch), yet the old 'uns will go about 80 picks later in the draft. Ditto Zach Parise and Patrick Elias. Ditto Nicklas Backstrom and Michael Nylander. It's true that all players' production fade over time, but it's also true that it happens at a different pace for each player. I see no reason why Joe Sakic won't finish with at least 75 points this year (especially considering how well he came back from hernia surgery in last year's post-season) but most poolies see Paul Stastny as the new hotness and Sakic as old and busted.

I also recognize the potential for big increases in points among the up-and-comers (and I love taking rookies, to a fault). I want to have the breakthroughs just as much as the rebounds. This is the "new NHL," after all, in which the salary cap forces teams to rely heavily on entry-level contract players while overpaid veterans are unceremoniously dumped into the minors. Unfortunately, every other poolie is just as excited about taking the young breakthrough stars. Inexperience isn't considered to be as risky as age. Jordan Staal's shocking shitting of the bed in his sophomore season, though, is a prime example that top young talent isn't necessarily the smarter bet. But there's still so much demand for the hyped youngsters that they're all plucked by the time it comes back to my turn. I look down at my list and the highest player available is invariably a veteran who has seen better days but should still have enough left in the tank to surprise a lot of people. So that's who I take.