+/- is a fickle bitch
December 24th, 2007 by Iani wish i had a way to tell you how to improve your +/- but i don’t really. you can’t rely on a guy doing as well as he did last season because there’s absolutely no guarantee that +/- success continues from year to year. the best advice i do have is to tell you to stock up on the better players on the better teams first and then to bolster with mediocre players off teams that are traditionally (recently traditional) defensive teams. if in doubt ask yourself, who’s the coach and what sort of system does he run?
my +/- has been dropping like a stone this week in my work league. that’s the one league that i want to succeed in, because i see these people every day (almost) and love nothing more than turning the screws on somebody that you’re ahead of in the pool. anyway, this week my +/- has been diving and it’s costing me points. i already have enough troubles with that team after goalie issues out the wazoo but that’s a different post. that team is anchored by Sid the kid and he’s only been even this week. Chris Drury and Alexander Radulov each have been -5 this week and that … blows. Kimmo Timonen is -2 this week and i dropped Marc Staal this morning after he was -2 last night alone. i picked up Andreas Lilja (+11 over the last month) to help offset my losses.
the Rangers aren’t going to stink, Lundqvist won’t keep struggling and neither will their offense so i’m not all that worried about Drury, i am worried about Staal in one year leagues. i was hoping that Staal would be able to contribute more than he has but i’m just not seeing it. he was getting more ice of late but i was still disappointed with the results. keepers still need to keep him around, just keep him on the bench.
i do plan to climb out of this +/- problem though, and soon. a quick route out is to go find a D off the Wings or Sens that may be sitting on your waiver wire. i’d also expect that the lower end D in Anaheim will have some more value as Scott Niedermayer continues to have his impact on the team’s overall play.
i’ll tell you what doesn’t work. don’t look at last year’s stats and expect the same sort of +/- production out of the same guys. guys are switching teams more often now, defense corps are decimated or at least change more easily than other years, and one injury to a team’s D2 will change a team’s defensive play overall. look at Tom Preissing this year. last year he was a world-beater for +/- and this season he joins a much worse team and his value reaks as a King. or how about Francois Beauchemin who had to carry a significantly larger load without Scott Niedermayer around to help with overall defensive play. Beau is -9 on the season after being among the league leaders for ice time for the first couple months of the season.
again the best advice i have for you is to get the best players off the best teams. either that or just let it all play out naturally. good luck with either prospect though.
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