Yahoo! Fantasy Hockey Rankings: Make These Changes

This is for those of you that will be doing a fantasy hockey draft on Yahoo! in the coming weeks. Yahoo! has default pre-draft rankings that you can modify and we'd recommend that you do that based on what we advise below or in the heat of the moment you could end up with some pretty wacky picks or miss a real steal. This is particularly important if you plan on doing an autodraft.

Yahoo! also gives you the option in their draft tool to sort on Average Draft Position, which is a great idea but the problem is that with so many drafts being done by auto-pick, the ADP is heavily biased toward the default pre-draft rankings, so it doesn't really help you that much.

We should mention that Yahoo! does a decent job with their rankings, it actually seems like someone gave it the old college try but when you're dealing with a life-or-death fantasy hockey draft (at least to some of us) then you want the job done right... so that's where we come in.

These should be pretty self-explanatory but we'll add some comments, the number indicates the overall Yahoo! ranking.

Guys Who Should be Higher (higher, as in closer to Stamkos):

15 James Neal – top 5 in goals & shots last year.

38 Jonathan Toews – think he’s probably better than a few of the 14 centres ahead of him.

67 Evander Kane

72 Max Pacioretty

76 Jamie Benn – does it all and had dual eligibility.

93 P.K. Subban – all around stud is only 10^th best dman?

95 Ryan Getzlaf – looking to bounce back in contract year.

99 Ryan Callahan

100 Pavel Datsyuk – not going to rack up PIMs but a point-a-game will do.

135 Vincent Lecavalier

136 Marian Gaborik – a lock for 40 goals if he can stay healthy.

144 Semyon Varlamov – have a good feeling about him.

161 Antti Niemi – Ranked as #27 goalie.

189 Kevin Bieksa

227 Oliver Ekman-Larsson

234 Victor Hedman

261 John Carlson

266 James Reimer – below Tokarski?

288 Shane Doan

302 Michal Neuvirth – could be the #1 in DC.

316 Viktor Fasth

371 Nikolai Khabibulin – he’s ranked below AHL goalies, which is (a little) harsh.

375 Brad Boyes – a decent sleeper, could be 1^st liner with NYI.

385 James van Riemsdyk

406 Andy McDonald

510 Ryan Johansen

522 Brayden Schenn – worthy of consideration about 400 spots higher.

572 Marc Staal

574 Roman Josi – nice breakout potential.

600 Travis Zajac – Does Yahoo! think he’s staying in Russia too?

718 Gustav Nyquist

749 Jaden Schwartz

764 Tim Erixon

767 Mark Scheifele

804 Ryan Strome – if you want Calder candidates, look no further than the 800s.

808 Dougie Hamilton

810 Damien Brunner – Swiss dynamo could surprise.

815 Roman Cervenka – Round 68 material (in a 12 team league)?

817 Mikhail Grigorenko

820 Justin Schultz – hotshot rookie is toying with AHL.

826 Vladimir Tarasenko

840 Nino Niederreiter – dude is ranked dead last, don’t make him wait this long.

Guys Who Should be Lower (lower, as in closer to Cam Janssen):

26 Anze Kopitar – he’s solid but this is a little high, even if he was fully healthy.

62 Brian Campbell – ranked as #5 dman and is only good for A & PPP.

87 Justin Williams – how is he a better risk than Gaborik?

88 Jordan Staal – his career high is 50 points, so I wouldn’t take him ahead of Getzlaf or Datsyuk.

132 Teddy Purcell – maybe in an assist-only league.

150 Jacob Markstrom – ranked ahead of #1s like Niemi, Lindback & Bobrovsky?

152 Brandon Saad – he’s about 600 spots ahead of more likely Calder candidates.

157 Ryan Whitney – way too fragile to take him as your 2^nd dman.

169 Chris Kreider – let some jabroni in your league believe the hype and pick this guy.

176 Andrei Markov – see Whitney.

239 Ryan Ellis – could surprise as a rookie but I’d wait.

259 Ryan Murray – out for the season with shoulder injury.

287 Tim Thomas – pretty sure he ain’t playing this year.