ESPN Releases Their Projections

Already this off-season, I've already looked over the projections from the Hockey News (THN), Hockey - The Magazine (HTM) and the Score and hopefully you've taken it upon yourself to figure out which one suits your picking style the most or got a good idea of the points I've enjoyed pointing out, because that's what I'm looking for this year.  Next on the list of projection lists is the one from the fantasy guys at ESPN.com.  Unfortunately, the first thing I found with ESPN's projections, they are a little all over the map, so it will take a little bit to decipher, but hopefully it still works out in the end.  They run on a full fantasy gammut, something more aligned to their fantasy game and system, so I'll try and round it out to the Sherpa's system, which is far easier and will be used in his pools.

Just like the previous three articles, I'll go through the interesting points of the projections and as you compare, you can gain a good idea if their strategy or projections fit your idea of the coming season.

First of all, the top scorer in the league has been dominated by Sidney Crosby by the other three publications and ESPN is no different.  ESPN has Crosby coming in at a whopping 125 points in the coming year.  Second place shouldn't come as a terrible surprise, it's listed as Joe Thornton at 115 points in the scoring race.  Thornton is projected to lead the league in assists, according to this list.  Alexander Ovechkin does make an appearance in third with 108 points, including a league-high 61 goals.

The interesting players of note: Mats Sundin, Joe Sakic and Teemu Selanne sit at 60, 62 and 61 points respectively.  All three players listed on their teams from last season, but only Sakic having signed on for the season in Colorado makes his number the most legitimate at the moment.

The top rookies on the list go like this: Steven Stamkos to lead at 59 points, Kyle Okposo to nab 54, Kyle Turris at 50 points, Bobby Ryan at 46 and they wouldn't even handicap Fabian Brunnstrom.  Every team didn't have all their players handicapped, so this system may not give you an overall picture of what you should do in your hockey pools.

Next, we'll look at the goalies, where they only listed the number of wins that they would earn this season.  It is two points for a win in the Sherpa's pool, so we'll just list the wins and then you can handicap the shutouts (which is also two points each) later on.  Martin Brodeur leads the list of winning goalies at 44 wins this season, followed by Evgeni Nabokov & Carey Price (42), Marty Turco (40) and J-S Giguere (39).

Finally, the next curious bunch we'll look at is the top defensemen.  This race isn't even close at the top, where we find Nicklas Lidstrom alone at 70 points.  No real surprise, I suppose, but scoring from the blueline has seemingly improved with some new faces.  Sergei Gonchar comes in second at 64 points, while it becomes a little more clouded below.  Dion Phaneuf and Scott Niedermayer are listed for 57 points, while Mike Green, Brian Rafalski and Andrei Markov all have 55 points beside their name.

Again, this list is generally useful for ESPN's own fantasy game, but some of the scoring projections could be thought of as useful in other applications.  Your advanced keeper league may benefit from some of this information, especially if you're just starting one up this season.  Since it isn't a real comprehensive list, you may want to only use it sparingly as you prepare for your hockey pool season.