Who's Your Goalie

 

DFS allows us to play against the world in fantasy sports without having to compete with each other for draft spots. With everyone having access to every player it all comes down to differentiation of lineup. Having the best player is not an automatic win since there is a good chance that a high percentage of people also have that player. Whomever you surround them with is going to be the real difference-maker in your quest to take the pot. I will talk about my choice of stacks and how I use them in my next post, today I want to talk about goalies. I want to talk goalies because this is where I start with my selection process. I try to ensure that I never punt on the position to make sure that I get a good goalie, with a high percentage chance to win.

              You may have heard the adage in hockey that “you can’t win if your goalie does not win!” The addition of the winning goalie and the points associated with the win can be the difference that pushes you into the win column. The winning goalie gets 6 points in the DraftKings points system, and this can be very enticing to any player. So, it makes sense to search out the team with the best percentage chance to win. Personally, I use a combination of metrics to decide who has the best chance to win. Obviously, this is not an exact statement, or I would be a rich man in Vegas.

While I am not a rich man in Vegas, I do use their odds to help with a goalie. A safe selection for a goalie is to go for the team with a Vegas advantage of -150 and better.  It also pays to pair those odds with a goalie playing at home to give him a comfort advantage. While every arena may seem the same, they all have little subtleties to them that can affect a goalie. An example being the boards may sound different in various arenas, the home goalie is better equipped to know the sounds. With better knowledge of the puck's location, it can give the home goalie a better chance to react to a situation.

              So, I guess that means as long as you pick the winning goalie your all set right…. Wrong! We have more metrics to look into to help us secure the pot. On any given day we could have anywhere from 1 to 10 games on the slate, meaning up to 5 goalies have to win. If you pick the winner you want to also pick the highest scoring goalie, and there are several items to look at. The goalies earn points for each saves made, as well as bonus points after 35 saves. For those that use the sports-wise guy hot sheets will be able to see our metrics for high shot games. Picking the goalie with more saves will allow you to overcome the other winners. It can go as far as to propel a losing goalie past a winning goalie every 9 saves made your goalie cancels out the win bonus. This of course would only happen if they do not lose by a large amount as every goal given up loses points. I could go on and on with the stats, but we will need the stat sheets for that. Once the season starts make sure you get your copy and follow us on twitter for more updates.

@fire_goon

@SportsWiseGuy1

Fire Goon signing out!