ESPN Fantasy Hockey League
Here along the Lake – When you choose to participate in an ESPN FHL you become a team manager with multiple tools at your disposal, beginning with your draft and up to each day of player movement.
Buffalo Winter manages one fantasy team each NHL season going all in no matter what, be it first place or ninth place even with no chance of a playoff seeding, mustering all the hockey acumen to have fun and be competitive.
Managing an ESPN FHL team requires a bit of commitment, usually five or so minutes a day should be bare minimum if you are endeavoring to be successful, now life takes precedent over fantasy and we all have lives to live, and 22 weeks is a long season.
Chicago Pro H2H Points 10 Team League
After the first week Buffalo Winter manages to earn the second highest score overall earning first in the West Division with Big City Snipes who happens to be this week’s matchup.
Goaltenders (use them or not)
Immediately upon conclusion of the draft, Buffalo Winter dropped both goalies that were required selections in the draft and picked up two more point producing skaters.
The theory is that goaltenders earn numerous points with a shutout or low scoring win, but a high scoring win or loss will cost severe subtraction of points, goalies are a high risk, high reward player, and every goaltender loses and gets pulled from a game eventually.
Watch List
This tool enables a manager to create a list of skaters and goaltenders to monitor easily and to switch out non-point producing players with ones that are generating points while making up to seven transactions each week that enables flexibility in getting the best players available.
Tonight and this afternoon’s Matchups
Buffalo Winter 
Currently, I manage only one team too but remember that I took on several teams in a single season in the past. That was too much and made playing daily seem more like a chore than fun.
Buffalo Winter, how many teams are participating in your league? Mine has 10.
I didn’t know about the Watch List that can be used as a tool. Interesting. I’ll have to watch out for it. Sounds like a good strategy to use.
If all the slots on a game’s roster are filled, can I still drop a Goaltender and pick up a point producing skater? If I can, where is the additional skater slotted in? (Not Bench or IR I assume).
In your league, how much weight does PIM (Penalty Minutes) carry in total points?
Thank you.
BTW, congratulations for doing very well (tied in first place with Mrs Bandy) in the first week of the H.N.I.C. Challenge contest.
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LOL, I can see why multiple teams to manage daily would be a chore indeed.
I am in a 10 team league also.
PIMs are not part of this league’s settings to earn or have points deducted.
Now, about dropping goalies, in my league you had to draft two goaltenders and since my strategy is not to utilize them I can drop them and pick up another player either skater of goalie.
Once dropped and a new player is added, the new player is activated and automatically placed on the bench, you can decide if you want to insert him for today’s game or not.
It is an abundance of wealth when you have more than enough players to fill the daily roster, makes deciding who to put in and who to leave out a team managers delicate responsibility, and that gets tricky, do you go by average statistics of the player or your gut feeling in who to play, me, I always go with my own intuition.
Thank you, I had not checked out the HNIC, well first place right off the bat, I will have to endeavor not to miss a week or two as has been my practice over the past few seasons, lol.
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Thanks very much for answers to my questions.
Currently, I have 3 goalies (Juuse Saros, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Anthony Stolarz). Perhaps this is the reason for my less than thrilling performance overall to date.
Interestingly, when I played ESPN FHL in the past (admittedly awhile ago), PIMs did count for points.
It was around that time that I was also playing the Sportsnet fantasy hockey pool which also required daily attention.
Good to hear. Playing the HNIC Challenge every week makes a difference. Keep up the great job. Gosh, Saturday’s game results had some surprises. No matter what logic is applied to picks, there is no accounting for unexpected team wins.
P.S. I posted a couple of new articles–one much longer but I said could be interesting to anyone interested in hockey history, plus it contains references to the Buffalo Sabres. 😉
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We watched the Leafs game last night but I was also following along (online) the score of the Sabres vs. Penguins game and I have some comments to offer but right now we are packing up to return to the city. (And I will make replies on the Island to yours and any others when we are back home.)
I was definitely rooting for Buffalo and wish there were fewer Sabres penalties (something maybe to work on) and I wonder how the game would have ended had Mr. Levi been in goal.
Here’s something that’ll give you (and other readers) a chuckle.
In the middle of the Leafs game I dropped Morgan Rielly (D) and picked up Bobby McCann (F).
Then guess what?
Almost immediately afterwards, Rielly gets his first goal of the season, a nice one, lol.
Well, at least his goal counts towards my Total because he officially doesn’t come off my team until today.
Hmm…maybe he’s on a roll. Maybe I should get him back. Oh, the life of a FHL Team Manager! 🙂
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I knew my boys were going to lose because of the set-up for Misters Crosby and Malkin who achieved personal NHL historic milestones in Pittsburgh’s home opener, so I suppose earning a point on the road is a positive, but I am disappointed in UPL’s play in net and probably Mr. Levi will start tonight in Columbus.
The life of a FHL Team Manager is indeed filled with…unexpected production from players we may have given up on, lol.
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