In case you missed it, we released our annual Best Puck rankings a couple of weeks ago. The rankings revolve around Underdog Fantasy's Best Puck Classic contest, which has a prize pool of $200,000 and pays $25,000 to first place. We're the only outlet with public rankings for the massive contest, as we're into year three of our deep expertise in maximizing your results.
We're only a year removed from our own D.J. Mitchell as the reigning champion, and he was no slouch last season with advancing six entries into the final round of the Best Puck Classic. Using PuckLuck's projections as his guideline and combining them with his excellent draft strategy, D.J. was able to dominate the contest for the third consecutive year.
So what goes into the rankings? Buckle up and immerse yourself in the deepest, most intricate projection process you'll come across.
Creating Best Puck Rankings
Projecting Upside
Let's work a bit in reverse here and start with an overview of how we rank the players. I'll detail how I crafted these projections at a later date, but each player has a standard and upside projection since in Best Puck you're drafting for upside. While consistent production throughout the season is important, you want ceiling outputs each week since that is what scores.
Not only does the upside play a role in the weight of the projections, but fantasy points per game do as well. There are standard and upside per-game projections that factor into the final rankings to avoid docking players projected to play fewer games entirely. Even if a player is injured throughout portions of the season, they can still score for you when healthy and help your team advance into the playoffs.
You can see the results of the weighted standard and upside values in the "Rating" column on the CSV download.
Average Positional value
One of the most important factors of Best Puck rankings is positional value, as you draft more wingers than centers and defensemen and centers generally score the most in fantasy formats. Goalies also score differently than the other positions, of course, so we need to even out the value.
There's a weight baked into the rankings for average points by position to counteract the skew in scoring. This is measured on a per-game basis and helps balance the playing field.
Value Over Replacement
To help offset the uneven number of players drafted at each position, a replacement value for each player is determined. The fine research done by D.J. and his fellow Morning Skate Pod co-host Matt Moody helped determine the ideal number of players drafted at each position. They saw that a three-center, seven-winger, three-defensemen, and three-goalie lineup was the best for advancing to the playoffs.
Using these measures, the rankings search for the 36th-best center (12 teams by three centers to draft), for example, and use that player's projections as the basis for a replacement value. In other terms, that projection is the "score to beat" to make a player draftable.
This is done for each position, and the value over the replacement player at the position is weighted to bump a position group up or down the rankings to ensure you don't miss out on tiers at the position.
Not Ignoring ADP
General Consensus
The average draft position of a player in the Best Puck Classic is not to be taken lightly for a few different reasons. First, it serves as a consensus ranking essentially modified by drafters. The public consensus on players is important to consider regardless of your personal opinion or PuckLuck's projections.
Smart Drafting
Second, you don't want to be drafting players too early when you can wait and grab them in later rounds. There are hidden gems within PuckLuck's projections, and factoring in ADP helps you sit on those gems while you accumulate other top talent in the draft.
After all, you want as many scoring options on your roster as possible, and practicing discipline and patience to not reach for a player is proven to increase your advance rate.
Minimize Overexposure
D.J. will be the first to tell you that if you're drafting 150 lineups in the Best Puck Classic, you're going to want to get different. Even if it's a portion of the 150 maximum allowable entries, you can't go into drafts with the same players in mind every time.
Understanding ADP allows you to play with your combinations and strategies to form unique lineups. PuckLuck's projections should serve as your guideline, with a player's rating not serving as gospel. Play with different players in each tier and see what happens.
ADP Value
This is where ADP value comes in, as the "ADP Value" column in the download shows you where PuckLuck ranks a player compared to consensus after all of the adjustments.
If you really want to get different, I encourage you to download the spreadsheet and create a column showing the variance between ADP and PuckLuck's pre-adjusted rank for each player. This takes some more discipline not to jump too high on a player, but can really show the discrepancies and find value between the two.
Final Rankings and Tiers
Combining a player's "rating", average positional value, value over replacement at the position, and ADP create a final ranking for each player. As for the effect of the adjustments, take the top-drafted trio of Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Auston Matthews for example. PuckLuck projects Matthews as the top dog, followed by MacKinnon, then McDavid. Thanks to upside and ADP, the final ranking slots McDavid number one, with MacKinnon and Matthews following suit.
In reality, any of the three are solid top selections with projections so close to each other. They all play the same position, so it's an easy comparison. They're joined by wingers David Pastrnak, Nikita Kucherov, and Brady Tkachuk in the top tier thanks to the positional value metrics.
The tiers are determined by percentiles of the overall calculations. Compounding all of this into one number allows us to calculate these percentiles, and appropriately convert them into tiers.
Tier-based drafting is ever-important in Best Puck drafts. You're looking to avoid drop-offs at a position, and following tiers as opposed to individual rankings allows you to navigate the field more easily. On top of that, tiers help you identify simple ways to get different and create unique lineups. A player may be going a round later but falls in the same tier, signaling that it's not necessarily a bad choice to draft a round early.
In the same sense, if you have a lot of players at the same position in the same tier, it may be beneficial to wait a round to draft that position.
Summary
It's already established that PuckLuck's Best Puck projections are a winning formula. Hopefully, this helps you better understand how these rankings are determined since they vary from the actual projection. Using these rankings to maximize your winnings in the Best Puck Classic is the goal.
For anyone interested, the rankings are available to view and download for all monthly subscribers at PuckLuck.com/best-puck. If you're just interested in accessing the rankings to win your Best Puck contest, you can purchase the Best Puck Rankings for a one-time price of $50 for the same access.
If you're not on Underdog Fantasy yet, sign up using the code PUCKLUCK and have your first deposit matched up to $1,000. In other words, if you deposit $2,000 they'll give you $1,000 free to help max out the Best Puck Classic!
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