The Law and I decided to have a contest for the NHL All-Star Game starting with a mock draft completed earlier this week. Just as the weekend is broken up into three days, our competition will have three different rounds.
Round 1 is the Fantasy Draft which went on last night.
Round 2 is the Skills Competition.
Round 3, of course, is the game itself.
Round 1 Scoring rules
There are 3 ways to score on Day 1.
- Each team will receive 2 points for drafting a player in the same round he ended up getting drafted in. For instance I correctly picked that Cam Ward would go in the first round to Team Staal which means 2 points for me.
- Each team will receive 1 point for drafting a player +/- 1 round he ended up getting drafted in. For instance The Law predicted that Team Lidstrom would take Keith Yandle in the 11th round, and he took him in the 12th: 1 pt to him. This ended up being a good way to show how accurately we assessed the value of the players.
- Finally, bonus points will be added or subtracted depending on the intangibles predicted. This scoring will make more sense at the end.
Results of Round 1
First I need to start by saying this. Out of 18 draft picks The Law and I correctly chose 14 players for each of our teams. We each got all 3 goalies correct, 3 out of the 5 defensemen and 8 out of 10 forwards. That is ridiculous.
With all the mock drafts posted across the internet I guarantee there isn’t an “expert” out there that did better. And if it wasn’t for The Law’s stupid aversion to the Sedin twins and Shea Weber, we could have done even better.
Here is the breakdown of our draft vs. the actual draft
| Rd | Team Staal | The Legend as Team Staal | Team Lidstrom | The Law as Team Lidstrom |
| 1 | Cam Ward | Cam Ward | Steven Stamkos | Steven Stamkos |
| 2 | Alex Ovechkin | Alex Ovechkin | Duncan Keith | Jonathan Toews |
| 3 | Daniel Sedin | Daniel Sedin | Henrik Sedin | Patrick Sharp |
| 4 | Zdeno Chara | Henrik Sedin | Shea Weber | Marc-Andre Fleury |
| 5 | Rick Nash | Dustin Byfuglien | Tim Thomas | Tim Thomas |
| 6 | Henrik Lundquist | Kris Letang | Daniel Briere | Daniel Boyle |
| 7 | Marc Staal | Henrik Lundquist | Dustin Byfuglien | Brent Burns |
| 8 | Patrick Sharp | Claude Giroux | Jonathan Toews | Brad Richards |
| 9 | Daniel Boyle | Carey Price | Marc-Andre Fleury | Daniel Briere |
| 10 | Carey Price | Corey Perry | Jonas Hiller | Jonas Hiller |
| 11 | Jeff Skinner | Zdeno Chara | Brad Richards | Keith Yandle |
| 12 | Kris Letang | Shea Weber | Keith Yandle | Anze Kopitar |
| 13 | Claude Giroux | Matt Duchene | Brent Burns | Duncan Keith |
| 14 | Erik Karlsson | Marc Staal | Martin Havlat | Martin Havlat |
| 15 | Corey Perry | Rick Nash | Anze Kopitar | Erik Karlsson |
| 16 | Patrick Elias | Jeff Skinner | Matt Duchene | Loui Ericksson |
| 17 | David Backes | David Backes | Loui Eriksson | Patrick Elias |
| 18 | Paul Statsny | Paul Statsny | Phil Kessel | Phil Kessel |
As you see we did remarkably well. But let’s get to the scoring.
2-point round
The Legend correctly predicted that Team Staal would draft Cam Ward, Alex Ovechkin and Daniel Sedin 1, 2, and 3. Very nicely done. He also predicted that David Backes and Paul Statsny would go to Team Staal with the last 2 picks.
The Law correctly took Steven Stamkos first for Team Lidstrom. He got Jonas Hiller with the last goalie selection, Phil Kessel with the last pick overall and in the middle of the draft was able to nail Tim Thomas and Martin Havlat.
Results
10 points each: a draw.
While The Legend was able to navigate the beginning and end of the draft successfully, The Law benefited from having 2nd choice when it came to rounds 10 and 18. Nevertheless it was The Law correctly grabbing Tim Thomas and Martin Havlat in the middle of the draft that evened this round out.
1-point round
The Legend picked Henrik Sedin in Rd. 4 when The Law easily could have gained an extra point, and accurately grabbed his goaltenders in the middle rounds.
The Law was able to grab Keith Yandle in the middle and Loui Ericksson in the late rounds to show his acumen.
Results
3-2 The Legend.
The Legend took advantage of his goalies in this round, as well as The Law’s mistake in passing over Henrik Sedin, to take a lead overall.
Bonus Points
The Legend gets a bonus point for his assessment of Shea Weber. He remarked as he drafted him, just after his selection of Zdeno Chara, that the pick would lock up the Hardest Shot competition. Sure enough when Team Staal pulled the trigger on Chara in round 4 of the real draft Team Lidstrom responded with Weber for the same reason.
He also gets a point for correctly predicting Eric Staal’s dig of his brother when he selected Henrik Lundquist. Though the real Staal did not go to the extreme The Legend wrote of in his mock draft, his choice to delay after saying “from the NY Rangers…” before announcing Henrik Lundquist’s name showed the perverse pleasure The Legend know would come out.
Finally, The Legend gets another bonus point for correctly predicting the first 3 picks by Team Staal. It wasn’t just the Cam Ward pick, which had been rumored for awhile, but knowing that Staal would go after Mike Green’s teammate 2nd and then pick Daniel over Henrik took a lot of knowledge and a little bit of luck.
The Law gets a bonus point for, and it hurts me to say this, correctly predicting the large number of Blackhawks that would end up on Lidstrom’s team, including one being taken in the 2nd round.
However, there were some big mistakes by both teams and points have to be deducted as well.
The Legend was certain Eric Staal would not draft his brother. While there was the light hearted ribbing, at the end of the day, Marc is playing with his brother.
The Law took Toews as Lidstrom’s 2nd pick. Meanwhile, he ended up being drafted 16th overall, after both of his Chicago teammates.
He also chose to pass on Henrik Sedin, choosing instead to take Patrick Sharp. This is the kind of error we just can’t allow pass. Sorry Law.
Results
The Legend – 2
The Law – -1
Total – Round 1
15-11 The Legend takes the early lead on The Law
As for Round 2 and Round 3, only players correctly drafted by The Legend and The Law will be eligible for scoring. Which means that anything Dan Boyle, Erick Karlsson, Patrick Elias and Patrick Sharp do for Team Staal won’t count for The Legend and anything Dustin Byfuglien, Shea Weber, Henrik Sedin and Matt Duchene do for Team Lidstrom won’t help The Law.
However, before we wrap this up we must announce an additional penalty to The Legend’s squad. Because of his certainty that Marc Staal would not be drafted by his brother Eric we are going to declare Marc ineligible for The Legend’s team for the rest of the weekend. Which means The Law, though behind, has an extra player in play for Rounds 2 and 3.
Enjoy the skills competition tonight and we’ll see you all back here tomorrow for the results.
