Comprehensive S65 VHL Fantasy League Breakdown

[omgitshim 899]

 

S65 is in the books and with that means that all fantasy stats have been accumulated! There were a total of 15 fantasy drafts this season (though group 12 never finished, so all tallies will be out of 14). I'm not here to tell you who won each group or who had the best overall team (Bushito should have those tallies and your TPE totals up soon), but I am here to break down the numbers and figure out the good picks from the bad picks. Let's start things off with the highest scoring team possible:

 

 

F- Matt Thompson, 248

F- Elias Dahlberg, 231

F- Sebastian Ironside, 230

D- Elasmobranch Fish, 283.4

D- Maxim Kovalchuk, 263.6

G- Roger Sterling, 204.3

 

Starting with the forwards, Thompson was the most popular first overall pick this season, taken at the top 7 out of 14 times. Ironside was another player who was picked in every single league, often in the first two rounds. Dahlberg is the biggest surprise here, going undrafted in a couple leagues, though many people snagged him fast in later drafts once they saw him putting up numbers early in the season. At goalie, Sterling was the only one to eclipse the 200 point mark despite starting 1 fewer game than most other starting goalies. He was not picked in every league (in fact, Alexander Pepper was the only goalie universally selected), but 13 out of 14 means he might as well have been. For defensemen, Maxim Kovalchuk was also selected just 13 out of 14 times (only 4 defenders got the full 14 picks), but he was well worth it given his 23.6 point advantage over the 3rd place Shawn Glade. Now for the elephant in the room: Fish. Fish was the leading scorer by a mile this season thanks in large to his league leading 197 shots blocked. Only 3 people picked the rookie, but those who did were well rewarded.

 

Next up, let's take a look at the best sleeper picks this season. I am defining sleeper in this case as someone who was picked in just 10 or fewer drafts, so they were likely available much later than their performance suggests. Shout out to Rylan Peace who would have made this list if I made the cutoff 11 picks!

 

 

F- Kronos Bailey, 210 (9 picks, 8th F)

F- Leph Twinger, 202.4 (10 picks, 9th F)

F- Ryuu Crimson, 175.8 (6 picks, 12th F)

D- Elasmobranch Fish, 283.4 (3 picks, 1st D)

D- Shawn Glade, 240 (8 picks, 3rd D)

G- Johnny Havenk Carison, 198.77 (8 picks, 3rd G)

 

After logging nearly 200 hits as a rookie last season, Bailey led the entire league with 346 this season. Pair that up with 87 points and you got a solid starter on your hands. Twinger was the odd man out for Riga last season, but the move to New York gave him the numbers boost he needed to be a viable fantasy option. Of course, the opening in Riga meant more playing time for Crimson, who benefitted quite nicely with those extra 4 minutes per game. We've already talked about how crazy Fish was, so let's go to Glade. Picked in just over half of drafts, Glade surprised everyone with 28 goals this season, by far the most amongst defensemen. For all the hype that Ryan Kastelic received (picked in every draft), it was Glade who was Riga's best defender this season. Carison has been a great Cinderella story for Toronto this season, coming less than 1 fantasy point behind Kallis Kriketers for 2nd best. While he doesn't have the shutout numbers that Sterling, Kriketers, and Pepper have, Carison made up for it by racking up the most saves of the group by far. With JB Rift on the roster, Carison knew he had to play his best to hang on to a starting spot, and he exceeded all expectations in the process.

 

Now that we've gone over the good, let's go over the bad. Here are the biggest busts of the S65 season. Since we defined a sleeper as picked in 10 or fewer drafts, to qualify for bust status the player must have been picked in at least 11 drafts. In addition, the player must have underperformed to the point that in an ideal situation, no one would have picked them for their team (i.e. since there are 6 teams with 3 Forwards, 2 Defensemen, and 1 Goalie, these players must rank outside the top 18 in Forwards, top 12 in Defensemen, and top 6 for Goalies). Shout out to Vaydar Odinsson who avoided this list by only being picked in 10 drafts!

 

 

F- Podrick Cast, 158.6 (14 picks, 19th F)

F- Edwin Preencarnacion, 157 (14 picks, 20th F)

F- Julian Borwinn, 155.6 (11 picks, 21st F)

D- Ryan Sullivan Jr., 202 (11 picks, 15th D)

D- Ryan Kastelic, 190 (14 picks, 18th D)

D- Paolo Nano, 172.4 (12 picks, 20th D)

G- Tristan Iseult, 138.95 (12 picks, 9th G)

 

Lot of Riga on this list, likely a factor of many mouths to feed on a defensive oriented team. Cast just barely makes this list as he is just one spot out of the top 18, but once you factor that he was drafted first overall 5 times, that's gotta sting. Teammates Preencarnacion and Kastelic were also taken in every single draft, and they too did not provide the bang for their buck. Borwinn seemed primed for a breakout this season, and while he did improve across the board, it wasn't quite as much as his drafters were hoping for. Sullivan Jr. got a lot of love as the reigning rookie of the year, but as New York got better, his shot blocks went down, and his other stats did not improve enough to overcome that. Nano saw his overall point total go up with the move to New York, but he lost 100 hits in the process to negate those gains. Finally we come to Iseult, who was by far the worst goalie this season (amongst the regular starters). He was 26.9 points behind the 8th place Brick Wahl, which was fewer than the difference between Wahl and the 4th place Pepper. Iseult's value was hurt since he only started 55 games this season, but even on a per start basis, his 2.53 fantasy points per start was 0.10 fewer than Wahl.

 

We took a look at the busts, now let's take a look at the worst of the worst. This is the lowest scoring team possible out of all players who were picked at least once:

 

 

F- Joel Ylonen, 88.8 (1 pick, 44th F)

F- Roction King, 114.2 (3 picks, 41st F)

F- Carles Puigdemont, 117.6 (3 picks, 39th F)

D- Jagger Philliefan, 144.8 (1 pick, 25th D)

D- Lando Baxter, 168.6 (6 picks, 22nd D)

G- Tristan Iseult, 138.95 (12 picks, 9th G)

 

Ylonen was the only player picked this season who failed to reach the 100 fantasy point mark. Not good for someone who was playing with a chip on his shoulder after missing out on the all-rookie team last season. Granted his improvement in Faceoff Percentage made him better for New York, just not in a fantasy relevant way. King was quietly a pretty good fantasy player last season, but the move to Helsinki just killed his stats across the board. A few people thought Puigdemont would be an immediate success as a rookie, but it was actually Kyson Blake who became the overnight rookie superstar. Speaking of rookies, Philliefan got some love from one bold drafter, but much like Vancouver as a whole, he was a disappointment. A lot of people were on the right track thinking that Calgary would be so bad that someone on their defense would be a shot blocking machine. Unfortunately, 6 of those people opted for Baxter instead of Fish. Whoops. Also here's another reminder on just how bad Iseult was this season.

 

Finally, let's end off with some miscellaneous stuff. Overall, 4 different players were drafted first overall: Matt Thompson (7 times), Podrick Cast (5 times), Joseph McWolf (1 time), ...and Kyson Blake (1 time). Had group 12 finished, Jasper Canmore would have been on the list as well. All of those guys were picked in all 14 drafts except for Blake, who was only picked twice (though given he did better than Cast, maybe that guy was on to something). In addition, there were two players who were not picked in any draft yet made the cutoff for being startable: Wlodzimierz Zajaczkowski (17th F) & Evgeni Komarov (12th D). The only starting goalie that was not drafted at all was Moscow's finest Justin Cole. While he couldn't quite crack the top 6, Cole did manage to beat out both Wahl and Iseult thanks to being lit up like a slot machine. He had more saves (2,395) than any other goalie even had shots taken at them. It's a small miracle he's still alive. Finally, here's a link to the spreadsheet I compiled to determine all these stats. See how well your players actually did and use it as a reference for next season!

 

 

1530 words; for week ending 4/28 and two following weeks pending the various media/doubles weeks that pop up

Edited April 25, 2019 by omgitshim
auto-emojis/corrections ruin everything

[Nykonax 1,551]

17 minutes ago, omgitshim said:

Ylonen was the only player picked this season who failed to reach the 100 fantasy point mark

nice @Esso2264

[Dil 1,749]

I picked 3 of the people on the bust list. Nice

[diamond_ace 3,106]

If you'd have told me before the season that I'd have more points than Podrick Cast, I'd immediately have had you tested

[Esso2264 773]

5 hours ago, Nykonax said:

nice @Esso2264

idk why people would pick me, im a defensive forward

[Beketov 8,722]

17 minutes ago, Esso2264 said:

idk why people would pick me, im a defensive forward

Defensive is the key. SB are basically the most heavily weighted thing for fantasy players, points are also important as are hits. So 2-way forwards that play on lower tiered teams and can get a lot of SB are pretty much the ideal fantasy players.

[Esso2264 773]

16 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Defensive is the key. SB are basically the most heavily weighted thing for fantasy players, points are also important as are hits. So 2-way forwards that play on lower tiered teams and can get a lot of SB are pretty much the ideal fantasy players.

yeah but not that defensive

[Beketov 8,722]

1 hour ago, Esso2264 said:

yeah but not that defensive

I mean people don’t really know that haha. A lot of fantasy drafting is basically educated guessing. 

[omgitshim 899]

2nd use for week ending May 5th.

[gorlab 4,321]

when your entire team is on the fantasy busts list

 

 

[Anthony Matthews 65]

I had kallis at 206.69.  Ill check my numbers again, but they shouldnt be that off

[Anthony Matthews 65]

Then again i also has sterling at 210.08

 

Carry on