Fantasy All Star Draft … Reality Bragging Rights
Adrian Fung | Jan 29, 2011 | Comments 3
Last night the 2011 NHL All Star Fantasy Draft took place in Raleigh, North Carolina as 36 players were selected one by one to populate the rosters of Team Lidstrom and Team Staal for the game that will take place Sunday at 4 pm EST. Throughout the blogosphere, many pairs of hockey fans have held their own “All Star Fantasy Drafts”. I decided to throw my hat in the ring and held a draft this morning on Twitter with Jana Kimmel, co-host of 4thNinchesShow and editor of NumberOneBaseball.com, to produce our own versions of Team Lidstrom and Team Staal.
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Jana had first overall selection and chose All Stars for Team Staal. PenguinsMarch picked players for Team Lidstrom.
We stuck with the NHL format for the first three members of each team. That is, the captains and two alternates were predetermined before we started alternating picks. Jana and I also agreed on a simple scoring system to create a vested interest in the All Star Game: 1 point will be given for each goal or assist scored by a player. 1 point will be taken away for each goal given up by a goalie. If we tally up our fantasy points and end up in a tie, the tiebreaker will be the number of combined goals scored by the two real NHL All Star Teams tomorrow afternoon.
Jana predicts 9 goals in total; I’m going with 17.
The first table shows our final rosters. The round and overall draft position are shown in brackets after each player’s name. The second table shows our picks in order with some brief commentary.
| TEAM LIDSTROM | Adrian | TEAM STAAL | Jana | ||
| PLAYER | NHL TEAM | PLAYER | NHL TEAM | ||
| G | Jonas Hiller (3-6) | Anaheim | G | Cam Ward (3-5) | Carolina |
| G | Marc-Andre Fleury (10-20) | Pittsburgh | G | Henrik Lundqvist (6-11) | N.Y. Rangers |
| G | Carey Price (13-26) | Montreal | G | Tim Thomas (10-19) | Boston |
| D | (C) Nicklas Lidstrom | Detroit | D | (A) Mike Green | Washington |
| D | Dustin Byfuglien (2-4) | Atlanta | D | Duncan Keith (5-9) | Chicago |
| D | Shea Weber (5-10) | Nashville | D | Dan Boyle (7-13) | San Jose |
| D | Zdeno Chara (9-18) | Boston | D | Kris Letang (9-17) | Pittsburgh |
| D | Marc Staal (11-22) | N.Y. Rangers | D | Keith Yandle (14-27) | Phoenix |
| D | Erik Karlsson (16-32) | Ottawa | D | Brent Burns (16-31) | Minnesota |
| F | (A) Patrick Kane | Chicago | F | (C) Eric Staal | Carolina |
| F | (A) Martin St. Louis | Tampa Bay | F | (A) Ryan Kesler | Vancouver |
| F | Alex Ovechkin (1-2) | Washington | F | Steven Stamkos (1-1) | Tampa Bay |
| F | Jonathan Toews (4-8) | Chicago | F | Henrik Sedin (2-3) | Vancouver |
| F | Anze Kopitar (6-12) | Los Angeles | F | Rick Nash (4-7) | Columbus |
| F | Patrick Sharp (7-14) | Chicago | F | Jeff Skinner (8-15) | Carolina |
| F | Paul Stastny (8-16) | Colorado | F | Brad Richards (11-21) | Dallas |
| F | Claude Giroux (12-24) | Philadelphia | F | Matt Duchene (12-23) | Colorado |
| F | Daniel Sedin (14-28) | Vancouver | F | David Backes (13-25) | St. Louis |
| F | Martin Havlat (15-30) | Minnesota | F | Corey Perry (15-29) | Anaheim |
| F | Loui Eriksson (17-34) | Dallas | F | Daniel Briere (17-33) | Philadelphia |
| F | Phil Kessel (18-36) | Toronto | F | Patrick Elias (18-35) | New Jersey |
Below, the draft in round-by-round order with micro-analysis (and some cries of agony).
| ROUND/TEAM | PLAYER | COMMENTARY |
| 1/Staal | Steven Stamkos | Jana makes the wise choice for 1st pick. |
| 1/Lidstrom | Alex Ovechkin | I gritted my teeth at this. |
| 2/Staal | Henrik Sedin | |
| 2/Lidstrom | Dustin Byfuglien | The first burn of the draft. Jana wanted him. |
| 3/Staal | Cam Ward | |
| 3/Lidstrom | Jonas Hiller | |
| 4/Staal | Rick Nash | |
| 4/Lidstrom | Jonathan Toews | |
| 5/Staal | Duncan Keith | |
| 5/Lidstrom | Shea Weber | I’m expecting big things out of him tomorrow. |
| 6/Staal | Henrik Lundqvist | Jana takes both King Henriks. |
| 6/Lidstrom | Anze Kopitar | Jana: “nooooo! that was my next pick you jerk!” |
| 7/Staal | Dan Boyle | |
| 7/Lidstrom | Patrick Sharp | |
| 8/Staal | Jeff Skinner | Jana raising some Cane(s) |
| 8/Lidstrom | Paul Stastny | Loved watching Peter Stastny; his son’s not bad either. |
| 9/Staal | Kris Letang | Jana burns me. I have to cheer against Tanger tomorrow. |
| 9/Lidstrom | Zdeno Chara | My strat: load up on D cannons. |
| 10/Staal | Tim Thomas | |
| 10/Lidstrom | Marc-Andre Fleury | |
| 11/Staal | Brad Richards | |
| 11/Lidstrom | Marc Staal | Totally forgot about the “draft all goalies by round 10 rule”. I’m a jerk. |
| 12/Staal | Matt Duchene | |
| 12/Lidstrom | Claude Giroux | The one Flyer I’d like to see on the Pens. |
| 13/Staal | David Backes | |
| 13/Lidstrom | Carey Price | |
| 14/Staal | Keith Yandle | |
| 14/Lidstrom | Daniel Sedin | Just like real life: separating the twins. |
| 15/Staal | Corey Perry | Burn city: I hoped he’d slip through another round. |
| 15/Lidstrom | Martin Havlat | |
| 16/Staal | Brent Burns | |
| 16/Lidstrom | Erik Karlsson | |
| 17/Staal | Daniel Briere | |
| 17/Lidstrom | Loui Eriksson | |
| 18/Staal | Patrick Elias | |
| 18/Lidstrom | Phil Kessel | Me to Jana: “Nooo. I’m already doomed. Any Leaf is a curse. I refuse to even type his name.” |
Proving our Fantasy imitates last night’s Fantasy which imitates reality, it is no surprise that Kessel and by extension, the Maple Leafs bring up the rear. I can already see it coming. Third period, Kessel’s team down by a goal tomorrow. Jana leads me by 1 point. Kessel gets a breakaway with five seconds left; he totally dekes the goalie but as he shoots, a visiting Toronto fan throws a waffle at the crease, knocking the puck off his stick. The horn sounds. Kessel fails. Team Adrian Lidstrom loses.
Filed Under: Eastern Conference • Fantasy Hockey • Featured • NHL • NHL Teams • Western Conference
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