A board that drafts for your categories — goalies included.
A fantasy hockey draft is a roster-construction problem: nine categories, five positions, two goalie slots, and a player who is a first-round pick in one format and a fourth-rounder in another. This board values every skater and goalie for your scoring, draws real tiers, tells you who will still be there at your next pick, and says why the pick is the pick. It is free.
Six things the board knows that a cheat sheet doesn't
Yahoo defaults, 12-cat, or points — the board reorders.
Every player is a z-score in each of your categories against the pool your league will roster. Add blocks and the defensemen climb; score ESPN points and a starting goalie is the first pick. Tiers break at the real gaps in that number, per position. Next to each player: the chance he is still there at your next pick, from the market's ADP.
Wins, GAA and SV% are scored against the goalies your league rosters and put on the skaters' axis by replacement level and how much of the week two goalie slots carry. A starter ranks with the top skaters; a tandem goalie does not.
Fills an open slot, last of the tier, unlikely to last to your next pick, fell past his consensus — read straight off the board. Three alternatives sit under it with the one thing that separates them.
Need-weighting is soft early and hard late: it never talks you into a third centre at pick one, and when the picks left equal the holes left — the second goalie, the fourth defenseman — filling the hole is the only recommendation.
A forward counts toward his position and toward F and UTIL; a defenseman toward D and UTIL. The board values a candidate by the best slot he can fill and never lets a roster end the draft with a slot nobody can play.
Mock opponents draft from ADP with reaches and fallers, take their goalies when the market does, and stop hoarding a position once they have enough of it. A full 12-team, 16-round draft simulates in seconds.
Tap "It's actually my pick" when the room gets ahead of you and keep drafting; fill the unrecorded picks in the next lull, or never. Tapped the wrong player? Tap the pick and change it.
Mock now. Run the real thing on draft night.
- ✓Shape a draft from a league you have connected — its real roster slots and scoring
- ✓Or from a preset: 12-team Yahoo defaults, 10-team ESPN points
- ✓Or type in the teams, your slot, the rounds and the scoring
- ✓Simulate to your turn, pick, undo, reset, run it again from a different slot
- ✓Phone, tablet or laptop; free, with no league connected
Questions
Is draft mode free?
Yes, for everyone, with no trial clock and no league connected. The season pass is for the in-season product: the Monday memo, the checks before puck drop, streams and trades, extra leagues.
When should I take a goalie?
The board answers it for your format instead of a rule of thumb. In Yahoo's default categories a starting goalie ranks in the top 15; in ESPN points he is the first pick; add a shutout category and he moves again. The chance-to-last on every row tells you whether you can wait a round.
Where do the rankings come from?
This season's projections and ADP, scored by the category model for your league's scoring — the same model that writes the weekly memo. Players the projections do not cover are valued on last season's line.
Does it follow my Yahoo or ESPN draft live?
Not yet — Sleeper rooms are followed live, and Sleeper hosts no hockey leagues. On draft night you mark each pick as it happens, one tap, and the board keeps up. If the room gets ahead of you, tell the board it is your pick and it catches up, leaving the unrecorded picks blank to fill in later.
What about injured players?
A designation is read against ESPN's NHL injury feed: out for the season (or LTIR) is worth a quarter of his rank; day-to-day is flagged and not discounted. Tap any name for the note as written and the expected return.