Last Three Season Comparisons, by Positional Drafting

For something to do this morning, I thought I would have a look at the last three hockey drafts I've done to see how the top three teams broke down, in terms of position drafting. Does having the best forwards or the best group of defense or group of goalies make any difference?  The rankings below show where these teams ended up, in terms of points compared to the rest of the pool that year.  It's just a generalized idea, nothing too terribly scientific.

First of all, in my drafts, the teams breakdown like this: 8 forwards, 4 defense and 2 goalies per team. In the past three seasons, I have had 17 teams each year participating, which is kind of a fluke, but still interesting. I'm definitely hoping for more teams in 2011, which should increase the competitive level and decrease the overall points, but I think the forwards, defense and goalie rankings should still be comparable.

2008	Points	Forwards	Defense	Goalies
1st Place (Stuart)	820	3rd	4th	3rd
2nd Place (Clayton)	817	1st	12th	13th
3rd Place (Chris)	780	5th	2nd	7th
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2009	Points	Forwards	Defense	Goalies
1st Place (Clayton)	787	1st	16th	4th
2nd Place (John B.)	769	5th	6th	9th
3rd Place (Peter)	769	7th	7th	3rd
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2010	Points	Forwards	Defense	Goalies
1st Place (Leon)	779	5th	4th	3rd
2nd Place (Wayne)	773	1st	8th	6th
3rd Place (Dale B.)	763	9th	10th	2nd

Consistently, we see the team with the most points from their forwards in the top three and with more forwards, should come a lot more points. The highest ranking between defense and goalies is only 2nd, which happened once each, defense in 2008 and goalies in 2010. 

In the past two seasons, I've had the same guy win the defenseman race, both years he had a fair margin on 2nd place in the category.  In 2009, he finished 14th and in 2010, he finished 4th.  He was way off one year and actually in much better shape last season, obviously learning from his prior mistakes.

In terms of teams leading the pool in goalie points, in 2008 it was a 7th place finish; in 2009, it was a 10th place finish; and in 2010, it was a 10th place finish again.  Getting the best tandem in net doesn't seem to be a great way to go, despite getting a good number of points between only two players.  The goalies are almost a garnish to a good team, but if they are taken too high in this draft, you might be giving up on some more consistent scoring in the early rounds.