It's playoff time in the NHL and as most hockey fans know, that means it's time to make your pool picks. While you will find a wide swath of strategies, the one this "Poolie" prefers could be summed up as "Go Big or Go Home." In essence, it's a boom-or-bust style that recommends stacking players on teams you think will go far into the postseason. If you are right, you almost certainly walk away with the win, but if you are wrong, you might finish close to the bottom.
Other options include a more conservative approach of spreading your players out or always picking the "best" player, but the problem (in my humble opinion) is that it's hard to win with these strategies. You are essentially banking on your opponents all taking a boom-or-bust approach and then busting.
The tough part with pool advice is that every format has different players in different pools, so recommending Player A over Player B won't always fit. So instead, I'm going to highlight a handful of examples to give you an idea of what decisions you might want to make in your pools.
I think we have to start with a base assumption. If you've ever listened to RotoWire's Puckcast with Statsman and AJ, you'll know that I am a diehard Penguins fan. As such, I can't in good conscience not pick Pittsburgh to make a deep run. Also, in the Western Conference, I am high on the Jets this year and
It's playoff time in the NHL and as most hockey fans know, that means it's time to make your pool picks. While you will find a wide swath of strategies, the one this "Poolie" prefers could be summed up as "Go Big or Go Home." In essence, it's a boom-or-bust style that recommends stacking players on teams you think will go far into the postseason. If you are right, you almost certainly walk away with the win, but if you are wrong, you might finish close to the bottom.
Other options include a more conservative approach of spreading your players out or always picking the "best" player, but the problem (in my humble opinion) is that it's hard to win with these strategies. You are essentially banking on your opponents all taking a boom-or-bust approach and then busting.
The tough part with pool advice is that every format has different players in different pools, so recommending Player A over Player B won't always fit. So instead, I'm going to highlight a handful of examples to give you an idea of what decisions you might want to make in your pools.
I think we have to start with a base assumption. If you've ever listened to RotoWire's Puckcast with Statsman and AJ, you'll know that I am a diehard Penguins fan. As such, I can't in good conscience not pick Pittsburgh to make a deep run. Also, in the Western Conference, I am high on the Jets this year and think they may finally be able to get over the hurdle and make the Stanley Cup Final. You'll need to go through your own exercise to determine which team you like this year, as it informs all of your decisions. With that in mind, here are some examples of how to make your picks:
If you are talking season-long fantasy, Andrei Vasilevskiy should be a no brainer first pick, but in this case, I don't have him making it out of the Eastern Conference, so instead, I went with Connor Hellebuyck. Admittedly, I have some concerns about three of my four goalies coming from the West, but in the third and fourth groups, Calgary and Vegas are the only teams I have winning a series. If you are on the Lightning to win (as most people are), then Vasilevskiy is your man, just know the ownership here is going to probably be pretty high.
Elias Lindholm over John Tavares or Auston Matthews, I must be insane right? Well, stick with me here. In my evaluation of the teams, I don't think the Leafs make it past the Bruins, while the Flames should win at least the series over the Avalanche. Even if Toronto goes to seven games and loses, Lindholm by comparison would get a minimum of eight games in my two series prediction. As a result, with the extra games, I think Lindholm can produce more than Tavares or Matthews in a postseason pool. Season-long or DFS? No question I'd take one of the two Leafs.
Finally, sometimes you don't want to overthink it. Sometimes you need to just take the best player in the group. For me, in this grouping, that is Mitch Marner. The fact that he outscored Matthews and Tavares this season speaks volumes to his ability to produce. To be fair, in my playoff picks, I don't have any of the other guys in this group making it out of the first round anyway and if I am wrong about the Leafs, then Marner is a stud option that can continue to produce the rest of the way.
In the end, my usual advice remains on the table. Pick players you like on teams you support. Sure, I could go heavy Washington, as a reasonable argument could be made that the Caps stand a decent shot of repeating, but if the Pens beat them in four games, could I sleep at night? Probably not, and the win just wouldn't be as fun – but to each their own. The main takeaway is to invest the time, what brief chunk of it you have before Wednesday, to break down each series for number of games and eventual winner and go from there. "Go Big or Go Home" and best of luck in your pools.
