My last post covered strategies for drafting fantasy hockeybuzz teams. Your team’s success depends on your draft skills. Fantasy football is a game where you have to draft well. An 8-6 team can knock out a 14-2 regular season leader. A stud who’s been producing huge numbers for the 14-2 team suddenly gets hurt or gives up a donut when it matters most. In Week 7, the 8-6 team had the foresight to grab the sleeper waivers. This player happened to be playing a great game against the 14-2 team in the semi-final matchup. Fantasy football is not a sport where you need to worry too much about your team’s start. It is enough to be good enough for the dance. What if your friend is 4-0 and you are 1-3? When you’re hoisting your FF trophy, a 4-0 start is meaningless to them.
It’s a different game in fantasy hockey. For starters, hockeybuzz has a longer season. You can play in many leagues for 21 weeks instead of the standard 14 in most football leagues. You could play hockey for as many as 24 weeks if you take into account all the rounds of playoffs. You can only play 17 weeks in most football formats. You only need to set your lineup once per week in football. Hockeybuzz requires you to manage your roster every single day. This is especially important since not all your players are playing every day. My view is that there are more talented hockey players than football players. This is why it is easier for a fantasy hockeybuzz team losing to a weaker team during a weekly matchup than for a great fantasy football team losing to a poor opponent. Anyone who has ever been frustrated when their first-place hockey team loses a matchup against the last place team in a league will be able to understand.
In my previous post I said that it was important to keep your fantasy hockey team balanced. It’s also important to keep things new. You can’t allow fantasy hockeybuzz to become stale. It must be kept fresh. It needs to be watered and nurtured. This doesn’t mean that you have to change every player in your team. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change anything even if your draft was good. Below are some key tips for keeping your team young and how to spot those waiver wire gems.
Do not marry one player: This is one of the worst mistakes you can make. You might be missing a lesser-known player who is lighting up the waiver wire. Although they may not be as “star”-worthy as the underperforming player, they might still be worth the effort if they’re producing and can help your team. It’s possible to be worried that someone will take the star player you have decided to let go, but chances are that nobody will want him. They might wonder why it took so long for you to get rid. If you decide to change your mind, you may be able pick him up once again. Good luck to anyone else who grabs him. It might be better to grab the sleeper stud from the waiver wire first than to hold on to a veteran star who has been nothing but a disappointment. This is especially true if the star player happens be on your favorite team. I can assure you that the player will not be hurt by being dropped from your fantasy team. It also makes you a stronger fan of your local team. Fantasy hockeybuzz has the unique ability to root for players from your least favorite teams and cheer on the guys who are helping your fantasy team.
Do your homework: This means that you should do your research. Many sites are dedicated to fantasy hockeybuzz. They offer valuable insights into players that you can add or drop. For fantasy tips, I use sites such as Yahoo, ESPN and Rotoworld for information, particularly when it comes down to possible waiver wire pickups. These sites often provide information about the most popular and least-used players for each week. This helps you to determine who is hot or not. Yahoo makes it easy to see which Yahoo leagues have dropped players from your team. You can also see the three most popular players that day.
Make sure that one of your players is designated as such in order to be able to go and pick up a replacement. Do not let the roster spot become vacant by falling asleep at the switch. You have two options: either let your guy go off IR or if he really shines, drop him and keep the new guy.