New Rulebook Discussion

[Nos - Sharks]

Since the rulebook thread is locked I thought I'd start a discussion thread.

Two things, could you possibly highlight the changes in the rules? I don't feel like reading through the whole thing again. Even listing changes would be fine. Also, what is this stat category change? Goalie losses? No GWG? This kills team building for the past two years and also disrupts league history.

We don't need another goalie category, especially one that goes hand in hand with goalie wins. If you're losing wins you're also going to be losing losses. It's a 2-0 disadvantage with no diversity. The weighted skater/goalie categories are fine. I also thought we needed majority vote to change any rules?

Just thought I'd voice my concern.

[Chris - Capitals]

Yea i dont like seeing the GWG category leave......as for the L column now i dont like that for the same reasons Nos has voiced
Id rather see a Saves category if were going to change something like that

[Derrick - Senators]

Stat Changes are not final and will be voted on. The list provided was just a sample example. The only change that I see imminent is a "Points" category. This, of course, will need to be offset somehow which is why the other options are listed. This is not an immediate issue, but will be focused on in the near future.

P.S. "GWG" is a luck category that has absolutely NOTHING to do with team building. This coming from the 2007/2008 league leader...

[Mark - Bruins]

thats one of the fun things about GWG. not everything in sports (or fantasy sports) can be accounted for, predicted, or calculated. in real life a player's will, crowd noise, adrenaline, pain, a little luck, etc. all factor into winning. i like that GWG kind of represents this in fantasy terms. i say keep it. if anything, i could see "shootout goals" become a category if yahoo ends up keeping track of them.

also, the addition of "points" category seems like a cheap attempt for "stacked" teams to get a free point in each matchup. some teams become built to score goals, others are concentrated to be assists-heavy, and even a few concentrate heavily on goalies to win. to just say "screw it lets just mash 'em together" seems to go against strategy-built teams and favors a couple specific teams in this league.

plus, its like giving a free bonus point if a team is already going to individually win goals and assists category. if they're going to win those two categories they will automatically win points. if a team will already be getting 2 points, is it fair that they get a 3rd point automatically?

[Nos - Sharks]

Exactly, I really like the way the stat categories are currently and would vote to keep them the same.

[Andrew]

I agree highlighting the changes would be helpful.

About the category changes, I like the idea but I don't know if we can implement them. Losses for goalies is a great category.

Apr 9, 2008 19:55:55 GMT -5 Nos - Sharks said:

We don't need another goalie category, especially one that goes hand in hand with goalie wins. If you're losing wins you're also going to be losing losses. It's a 2-0 disadvantage with no diversity. The weighted skater/goalie categories are fine.

If you're losing wins, you're going to lose losses? I don't understand that theory.. if this were roto sure but that's not how it works in H2H. Adding losses just makes managers pay more attention to the goalies' opponents and weigh out the risks of starting their goalie. With GAA and SV%, you run little risk compared to if Ls were involved. The only reason I'm against adding losses is the Goalie:Skater stat ratio, which is too hard to fix.

Points as a category and removing GWG just diminishes the value of goal-scorers in the league big time, and I'm not a fan of that. Plus several teams would be picking up a free cat basically.

[Nos - Sharks]

Apr 9, 2008 23:51:11 GMT -5 Andrew said:

If you're losing wins, you're going to lose losses? I don't understand that theory.

Why not? It's a pretty simple concept. If you lose the game and your opponent wins a game you'd be losing in both categories instead of just one.

You: 0 Wins
Him: 1 Win

You: 1 Loss
Him: 0 Losses

The losses category goes to the team with the fewest losses if I'm not mistaken.

[Andrew]

Look at it in terms of starts. The team that starts the most games will presumably have the most wins and the most losses (this is an over-simplification). If a team is up by a win or two in the matchup, he might be inclined to start all of his goalies to hold onto the category, while the other team can just meet the minimum games requirement and bench the rest of his goalies and have a good shot at taking the losses at least. As long as you don't have piss-poor goaltenders and make an attempt at checking the goalies' matchups, you should do well in a category.

[Nos - Sharks]

Ok, in terms of starts, but isn't that why we have goals against and save percentage? I don't think goalie losses would have much distance from wins on a weekly basis to justify inclusion as a skill category. Some weeks? Sure, but I still dislike the idea.

[Mark - Bruins]

Apr 10, 2008 9:18:07 GMT -5 Andrew said:

If a team is up by a win or two in the matchup, he might be inclined to start all of his goalies to hold onto the category, while the other team can just meet the minimum games requirement and bench the rest of his goalies and have a good shot at taking the losses at least.

why should a team be a) rewarded for not taking risks, b) rewarded for sucking, c) penalized for having 3 goalies on their roster (thus increasing the likelihood of losing a game) or the most likely result of d)being given a bonus for already having great goalies? these are my biggest problems with this category. what people don't realize the debate over "losses" is just like the debate over adding "points."

more often than not, the team that will win the "losses" category is the team that will have the most "wins" in the week. if a team wins a game, they don't get a loss. if they win a lot of games, they still get 0 losses. so the "good team" has a goalie record of 3W-2L, 4W-1L, 5W-0L, etc. each week. meanwhile the "other guy" that has mediocre goalies is averaging 1W-4L, 2W-3L, etc. per week. Guess who this stat is going to help more? thats right, the team with the "good goalies." at best the "good goalies" team will probably stop playing goalies and get a tie with the "bad goalies" team unless the matchup is very close/tight.

i know adding "losses" is supposed to help a team having a bad week (like in your situation written above), but in reality it'll only be a free category for the team with great goaltending that week. thats why we have GAA/SV%. This season, I've seen a lot of instances where the team with the most "wins" didn't win the GAA or SV%. Its these two stats that are supposed to factor in strategy of playing good matchups for your goalie and penalize piss-poor goalies and bad management.

Apr 10, 2008 9:18:07 GMT -5 Andrew said:

As long as you don't have piss-poor goaltenders and make an attempt at checking the goalies' matchups, you should do well in a category.

This statement is 100% true with the categories we currently have.

I don't want to sound like a nag since I'm against "points" and "losses" category. I'm up for including new categories (shoot-out goals, faceoffs won, etc.`), I'm just against adding redundant categories that seem to favor the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer."

[Chris - Capitals]

Yea i deff dont like the L category cause thats exactly what it does it'll make GMs take a look say they have it locked up and bench goalies for the rest of the week....and benching which we have seen in the other threads today is a slippery slope however you do it.

[Andrew]

Benching goalies is a different situation altogether if you're doing so to earn stats. I like losses just because it makes a GM think about his matchups more instead of just throwing their goalies into any matchup saying "go get 'em tiger" with little consequence to a poor decision. Will it make the strong teams stronger? I'm not sure. Both explanations make equal sense to me... I still think giving the GM more responsibility to "manage" their team is a fun aspect. But as I said earlier, I'm really just playing devil's advocate here. I'd be happy to go into next season with the categories we have now.







In response to Mark just for the sake of discussion:

"a) rewarded for not taking risks, b) rewarded for sucking, c) penalized for having 3 goalies on their roster (thus increasing the likelihood of losing a game) or the most likely result of d)being given a bonus for already having great goalies?"

Well, for starters, b and d contradict each other.

a) Rewarded for not taking risks? Hardly. It's being rewarded for playing smart with your goaltenders and hockey knowledge.
b) Rewarded for sucking... do you mean picking up a free category (L) in the way that I mentioned? I don't really see it as being rewarded for sucking, you still have to be careful with your matchups to win a category.
c) 3 goalies on a team. The more goalies you have on a team, the better with an L category. Say you are having a shitty week and are struggling in both the W and L categories, you can start more games than your opponent and chuck the loss category while making a good run at the W. 3+ goalies is a luxury, it means you can play fewer starts and get in more quality ones.
d) Strong goalies become even stronger. Good point. Though I still think the decision-making of the starts can factor in for both strong teams and weak teams.

[Derrick - Senators]

The real issue is that the goalie categories are disproportional to the offensive categories more so than you think. 2-3 Goalies contribute to all 4 stats interchangably without any real negative drawback from starting/benching a goalie since there is a 3 start minimum. Whereas 17-18 skaters contribute to only 6 guaranteed categories once the "luck" cats are removed (gwg, shp). Even less than that if you take into consideration the added emphasis on penalty minutes. The significance of one great skater game is not even close to being as valuable as one great goalie game, or a string of them for that matter.

While I'm all for the added emphasis on having a good goalie, and goalies deciding matchups, I feel the scale is just a little too far tipped. How many times last season did we see a deserving team get shafted by a mediocre goaltender who had a string of good games? For example:

Week 30

Team A
100 G 28 A +20, 32 PIMS 95ppp 1 shp 25 gwg 101 sogs, 5 wins 2.04 gaa .915 sv% 1 sho

Team B
2 G 29A +21, 38 PIMS 5ppp 0shp 0 gwg 55 sogs, 6 wins 1.98 gaa, .918 sv% 1 sho

Winner- Team B (6-5-1)

CLEARLY Team A had the better overall week, but still lost. A number of different scenarios could be drawn up, and the above is obviously a dramatization, but illustrates the need for the POINTS category. With this addition, the above score would have been (6-6-1) with the tie breaker going to the team with 100 goals.

Managers should not have to be forced to build their team around a goaltender if they dont want to. I believe offense should be equal to defense, or in this case goaltenders.
The inclusion of points/goalie losses/exclusion of gwg, one, both, or all three is the best way that i have found to bridge the gap.

The addition of points, gives added value to goals, assists, and power-play points while diminishing categories such as GWG, SOGS, +/-, etc. It doesnt make sense that the GWG or SOG category is equally as valuable as a goal or an assist. While they would remain equal on paper, a points category would offset this lopsided value. This inclusion would also prevent the above from happening: A team who scores 100 goals, 28 assists vs. a team with 2 goals and 29 assists. They each get 1 point in the matchup. How does that make sense? 128 pts vs. 31 points is equal offense? I dont think so.

Goalie losses is a little bit more confusing because it can have its good points and its bad points. The intention is equalize the impact of a great goalie game and a great skater game or games.
Just because you are winning wins does not mean you are losing losses and vice versa. You have to remember, your goalies are not playing your opponents goalies in real life.
This can still be abused. A manager still only has a 3 game minimum start and theoretically could bench out. For example:

Team A: 3 Wins 0 Losses 1.14 GAA .972 GAA 1 SHO
Team B: 4 Wins 3 Losses 2.41 GAA .912 GAA 0 SHO

In this case, more wins for team A does mean that Team B loses losses as well. But for those close battles it does serve a purpose, and it does make you start or not start your goalies more carefully.
Also note, it does not reward the "great goalies." Keep in mind, more starts equal more wins, yes, but more starts also equals more losses.

Dan Ellis 23 wins, 13 Losses
Martin Brodeur 44 wins 33 Losses

Pretty even no?

SAVES was another idea that was toyed with, and would be ideal except for the obvious reasons of abuse. Theoretically a manager could start 10 goalies and just try for the saves/wins category. The only way i see this inclusion is if losses is added as a pair, to prevent the aforementioned issues.

[Chris - Capitals]

I kinda like the GWG category but im not a huge fan of the SHG category wouldnt mind seeing that one gone......

could be the fact that i dont have any SH players but shhh...lol

[Mark - Bruins]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know all the possible categories from last year in yahoo?

[Derrick - Senators]

Forwards/Defensemen:

G Goals
A Assists
P Points
+/- Plus/Minus
PIM Penalty Minutes
PPG Powerplay Goals
PPA Powerplay Assists
PPP Powerplay Points
SHG Shorthanded Goals
SHA Shorthanded Assists
SHP Shorthanded Points
GWG Game-Winning Goals
GTG Game-Tying Goals
SOG Shots on Goal
SH% Shooting Percentage
FW Faceoffs Won
FL Faceoffs Lost

Goalies:

GS Games Started
W Wins
L Losses
GA Goals Against
GAA Goals Against Average
SA Shots Against
SV Saves
SV% Save Percentage
SHO Shutouts

[Andrew]

The balance of goaltending and offensive categories is fine in my opinion, and I'd be careful trying to change that balance. 3 goalies contributing to 4 cats and 16 skaters contributing to 8 sounds like the weighting is flawed, but in the NHL a goalie's performance is almost always more crucial than the efforts of any individual player on the team. I'm sure many people would agree that Martin Brodeur's performance has as big an impact on the Devil's success as the other 18 skaters dressed each night.

As far as the points category, I don't see how it helps. In your hypothetical example of the category supporting a team that dominates one of G/A and struggles in the other, the PPP and SHP categories are already taking care of this (SHP to a lesser extent). Also, it diminishes the value of goals big time since assist are far easier to come by. Now Marc Savard and Henrik Sedin are more valuable than Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley. In most cases, adding this category only makes the strong teams even stronger. If you compare the rankings of G and A categories in the league, there isn't much difference (except for Buffalo, who would certainly suffer from the points category because of his high G:A ratio).

[Derrick - Senators]

That is a valid point. I know that there isn't a perfect solution to the problem, but it is our job to pick the lesser evil. Maybe the system we have now is just that, but maybe it isn't. All I know is the better team doesn't win on a weekly basis WAY more than that can be attributed to just "luck" or a solid week by a player on their opponent's team.

SHP is a category I am not too fond of myself, but it can not be removed because it is an important aspect of several teams build and has a better case than GWG to be included. My complaint is that categories such as PIMS, GWG, SOG, SHP are equal to goals/assits/points and they should not be. Since there isn't any way in our league to assign point values to certain statistical categories, we must try to find a way to increase these categories values, without decreasing other pertinent categories value in the meantime. I do not care how this is obtained, addition, subtraction, both, other, etc.

I see it like this.

Offense

Goals, Assists, PPP

Defense

Wins, GAA, Save%

Luck (provides uncertainty)

SHP, GWG, SHO

Secondary Categories

PIM, +/-, SOG


As it stands now, in the perfect, ideal week, value is assigned something like this

Offense - 25%
Defense - 25%
Luck - 25%
Secondary - 25%

And it should be something like this:

Offense - 30%
Defense - 30%
Luck - 15%
Secondary - 25%


Any other input? Thoughts? Ideas?

[Mark - Bruins]

Apr 12, 2008 17:15:33 GMT -5 Derrick - Senators said:

All I know is the better team doesn't win on a weekly basis WAY more than that can be attributed to just "luck" or a solid week by a player on their opponent's team.

We don't award championships based on preseason rosters like you seem to want it to be. The "better team" is always the team that won that week. Thats the definition of winning. It means you were better than your opponent.

Sometimes Joe Nobody gets on a hot streak and can outscore Joe Thornton that week. It happens. Thats why we play a whole season to determine who the "best" teams are. Over a course of the whole year, the teams with the "better" players will eventually have the best records. In real life, the Red Wings won the President's Trophy as the best team in the league, but during the regular season they've lost to Los Angeles and St. Louis (two worst teams in their conference).

Just to note, in yahoo standard leagues the default categories are G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SOG and W, GAA, SV%, and SO. Yahoo doesn't seem to have a problem with having +/-, PIM, and SOG being worth as much as G & A. Also in our league, we are already putting an extra emphasis on players over goalies by including SHP and GWG. I think things have been fairly balanced overall.

Derrick, I still think adding "points" is redundant. You score goals or assists, they can give you PPP, +/-, SOG, and GWG. Goals and assists are already effecting a lot of categories. Thats why they are already much more valued than just the +/- and SOG categories alone. So I think you miscalculated your percentages because G & A also effect so many other stats. Factor the contribution G & A has on +/- and SOG and the "Offense" category probably already counts for the 30% or so that you want it to be worth. I don't see why we need to add another category.