can you please explain to me how fantasy hockey works? I would love to have my own little team next season but I just don’t understand how it works 😭
ok so this is my first season doing fantasy hockey!! i am by nooooo means an expert.
we are using ESPN fantasy. i already had an account from March Madness Bracket challenges in the past, so i didn't have to make a new one. we only have four people in the league i'm in: cappy, hanz, me, and one of hanz's hometown friends (who, btw, hasn't lost a week yet... but i'm kicking his BUTT now that i know how to use fantasy). in other years, i'm probably going to want to have more people in the league– or maybe we all could do a league together next season! it would be soooo cutie to have a little puck-luck league.
drafting involves setting a date and time where everyone is available to make picks (which is why it would be really difficult for a puck-luck league to exist, sigh), then you choose your picks in a pre-determined order: person a, b, c, d, d again, c, b, a, a again... etc. each person in my league chose 9 forwards, 5 defense, 1 utility, 5 bench players, and 2 goalies. hanz somehow chose 3 goalies, so i think she only has 8 forwards. there is also a spot for an IR player: mine is currently taken up by Mr. Mattias Samuelsson... the man with glass bones. i cannot drop him because i love him.
you can add/drop players at any time (unless they're actively playing a game). cappy is a fucking menace when it comes to add/drop, whereas i've only dropped one player in order to clear my IR spot for Titibear. if you want to know about add/drop in fantasy... go ask cappy. i don't do it enough to know about it.
there IS a list of "undroppables," which are predetermined by ESPN. there are 4 players from each position under undroppables, and three goalies. The list is as follows (the players on MY team are highlighted in green): (C) McDavid, Draisaitl, Matthews, MacKinnon. (LW) Panarin, B. Tkachuk, J. Robertson, Ovechkin. (RW) Rantanen, Pastrnak, M. Tkachuk, Kucherov. (D) Josi, Makar, Fox, Q. Hughes. (G) Shesterkin, Hellebuyck, Valisevskiy. SO, even if i wanted to, which i DON'T, i would not be able to drop draisaitl, mackinnon, ovechkin, or hellebuyck.
each day you have to move players from your bench to your active roster IF THEY ARE PLAYING. you want your players with games today to be in one of your forward or defense spots– example: Cole Caufield is not playing today. He was one of my forwards last night. Sidney Crosby IS playing today. He was not playing last night, so he was on my bench. I moved Sidney to Cole's forward spot, now Cole is on my bench. Tomorrow morning, I will move my players around again.
Every week, you face someone from your league and get points throughout the week. Whoever's team has the most points wins. If there are an odd number of people in your league, one person has a bye week. The bye week rotates. Cappy is currently on her bye week for ANOTHER league, but since our league only has four people, we play each other constantly. I faced Cappy last week and I beat her, since my team scored 162.8 points, while hers only scored 90.7. there were a lot of games last week, so that's why there were so many points... my current status is 73.6 vs. my opponent's 54.1, and there are three days remaining for us to score points (friday's games, saturday's games, and sunday's games). then, i will face a new opponent for the next week.
i hope my NOT brief explanation of fantasy hockey helped you! it was super fun to type this out. i may be wrong about some things, but this is the way iiiiiii understand ESPN Fantasy Hockey, and i'm just a girl who has literally never participated in fantasy sports before <3