Pre-Season Projections

Every season I deal with the onslaught of predictions from the experts of the fantasy hockey world.

In 2005-06 it was Carolina and Buffalo were the two worst teams in the Eastern Conference (both teams would make the Eastern Conference Finals that season), in 2007-08 it was the Montreal Canadiens would miss the playoffs, and we need to look no further then what is going on in baseball right now with the 100-1 longshot Tampa Rays.

This just in, the sportswriters of North America don't have a delorean in their driveway and access to Biff Tannen's Sports Almanac. Who will be injured? Will a stud from the minors emerge altering the existing food chain? Will one player make the leap and positively effect the point totals of their linemates? Will a coach fired mid season change the philosophy of a team from offensive to defensive effecting every players stats on the team? Will a player rebound from a terrible year? How will the powerplay minutes be distributed?

So guided by this knowledge why the hell do people buy into stat projections?

Take a look at Dobber hockey and their pre-season projections for the Montreal Canadiens last season.

Saku Koivu - 77GP - 20G - 49A - 69PTS - 56PTS
Well the Dobber nailed the GP. Koivu finished the season on the second line and struggled through a healthy season to finish up with 56 pts. He suffered his worst season since his rookie year which was preceded by a career year in 2007. That projection is the difference between picking Koivu 3-4 rounds to early in your draft

Alex Kovalev - 70 GP - 18G - 33A - 51PTS - 84PTS
Why not just post up the 2007 seasons stats and forego the prediction? Alex Kovalev had a HUGE season which resulted in 84 pts. His emergence helped Andrei Kostitsyn and Tomas Plekanec make a great statistical leap and knock Koivu, Higgins and Ryder to the 2nd line. This is one of the main pieces of evidence which show stat projections are useless.

Tomas Plekanec - 80 GP - 22G - 31A - 53PTS - 69PTS

Plekanec had a strong kick to finish up the 2007 season and had shown signs of blossoming, but this projection is very safe at best. Well, with 69 pts Plekanec ascended to the number one center position and with Kovalev and Kostitsyn became the number one line and powerplay unit.

Michael Ryder - 81GP - 30G - 30A - 60PTS - 31PTS

The poster boy for being ignored due to emerging talent. Ryder seemed like a lock for 30G and 55-60 pts because of his previous 3 seasons. Well Andrei Kostitsyn stole his first unit powerplay time and a demotion to the second and third line and the poor season by Koivu lead to Ryder a 31 pt season and a ticket out of town.

Carey Price - No Games Played - 24Wins

The expectation that Price would not make the NHL in 2008 was fairly unimaginative. After leading Hamilton to the Calder Cup as the MVP and with incumbent Cristobal Huet approaching a contract year it would have been pretty conservative for the Canadiens to leave Price in Hamilton. Price forced the Canadiens hand and was dominant down the stretch. One player being promoted changed the fortunes of Huet and Halak.

Fantasysense is just pointing out the lack of common sense in projecting situations that are impossible to predict. The projections are generally based on the previous season, so why not just view last season's stats and go from there? Players have comeback seasons, players have bad years, players get injured.

Most of these projections are safe because the individual prognisticator is interested in erring on the side of caution. They want the ability to toss out "well who knew he was going to play on the first line?" They undervalue with modest projections in order to save face. If they tell you that Plekanec is going to finish with 75+ points and he gets 50, the individual who drafted him will be pissed off at the prognosticator for wasting a pick to early. If they say 58 pts and he finishes with 70 pts, they puff out their chest and tell you I told you so. Huh? You told me 58, not 70. It is disingenuous and only serves to self promote, similar to the Trade deadline nonsense about "Sportsnet broke the story first", when in reality they got to air with it 45 seconds before TSN and 15 minutes after somebody reports it on a blog, messageboard or website.

I don't assume you are stupid, so I will not treat you as such. Fantasysense is not here to blow smoke up your ass and pretend to tell you the future. The purpose of this blog is to gather as much information as possible and provide you with common sense scenario's for a player's future production and potential. If you are looking for a different edge, this blog is step one.