I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say on the Devils’ roster moves tomorrow.  Right now I feel like reserving my comments until the final roster comes out at 5 PM tomorrow even though significant things have already happened (Peter Harrold and Steve Bernier being waived, Ryan Carter signing in Minnesota).  Instead of talking about that before the whole picture’s completed, I’m going to go off the beaten path while we still have time before the regular season.  While NHL GM’s finish shaping their real teams before the season, fans all over North America are shaping their fantasy teams.  Derek I’m sure has had fun with his KHL draft and the other fantasy leagues he’s in.  This year I’m only in one – the NJDevs league with twelve other Devil fans and the one and only fellow BONY Sabres blogger Brian.

Generally, it’s been a twenty-team league but due to inactivity problems it was scaled back to a fourteen-team league this year.  To compensate we decided to make it even more NHL-realistic by having 23-man rosters with four starting LW’s, four starting C’s, four starting RW’s, six starting D and one starting goalie (every individual position having an 82-game limit, so LW/C/RW actually has a 328-game limit for example).  We have ten offensive categories (including faceoff wins, hits and blocks but not including PIM’s) and four goalie categories (W, GAA, save pct, SHO) in a roto format.

In the prior three seasons I’ve finished second to the same team twice and out of the running three years ago thanks to an autodraft snafu while Sanborn’s had a couple of competitive seasons in the past as well.  Of course competitive being a relative term because the only thing we compete for is bragging rights, a Yahoo trophy and the ability to pick our draft spot the next season.  Our 14-team, 23-man roster draft was held on Sunday night and a good time was had by all in our two and a half hours.  I wound up with the #5 pick which in the snake format means my second rounder wasn’t till #24 and had my sights set on one of the big three goalies or Crosby/Stamkos with the top five pick.  Of course I would have had kittens if the only goalie of my big three that was left was Lundqvist.  Fortunately Corey Perry went #1 for some odd reason, then the next three picks were Crosby/Rask/Stamkos so I drafted Cup winner Johnathan Quick with the #5.  I’ll just post my roster and various comments below:

C – Kopitar, M. Koivu, Zajac, Nielsen

LW – Zetterberg, Marleau, Eriksson, MacArthur

RW – Franzen, Wheeler, Grabovski, Gallagher

D – Weber, Hedman, Seabrook, Visnovsky, Girardi, Reilly

G – Quick, M. Jones (technically he’s a bench guy too since you can only play one goalie a night)

Bench – Brassard (C), Smith-Pelly (RW), DeKeyser (D)

At center I didn’t want to load up with too many center-only eligible players too early though I couldn’t resist Kopitar in the early third round.  My next center-only guy (many of my wings are also eligible there) was one of ‘my guys’ Mikko Koivu in round 10 who I usually get on my team cause he’s a solid all-around – and perpetually underrated – player.  I couldn’t resist Zajac in round 15…a bargain compared to where most other Devils were being drafted, and thought Frans Nielsen in round 18 and Brassard in round 21 were fine value

On left wing I have two solid pros in Marleau and Zett (rounds 4-5) and am banking on a bounceback from Eriksson (round 11).  MacArthur was kind of a mistake since I had Tarasenko in my queue but accidentally drafted MacArthur in round 12.  Might not be the worst thing in the world though, especially since MacArthur will help out a little in the hits category and had a pretty good year for Ottawa last season.

At right wing I actually drafted Wheeler first in the seventh round again partly due to hits and all-around play (though in hindsight I might not have paid enough attention to hits given a lot of other teams have at least a couple of forwards that are monsters in that category).  I kind of like Franzen in the eighth better though.  I don’t really trust Grabovski but in the 14th round, why not?  Especially with the added faceoff boost.  Gallagher could wind up being a pretty good bargain in the 16th.  I was sweating out drafting Smith-Pelly in round 22 and wished I’d drafted him above Brassard until he finally fell back to me again.

Defensively my choice for top defenseman in round two was between Weber and Subban.  I picked Weber, Subban went the pick after me.  I went D again in round 6 with Hedman, a pretty good get with pick #80.  In the 9th I drafted Seabrook and the 13th I probably reached for Visnovsky a bit.  Girardi I took in the 17th for the hits/blocks combo and workable numbers otherwise, Reilly and DeKeyser were my 19th/20th round upside picks.  Of course since I only need 82 goalie games I backed up Quick with his backup Jones and hope to get in most of the Kings’ 82 games as possible.

I’ll also post the ‘Dishonor for Conor’ roster below too (if you even have to ask who this is you don’t read this blog or my first paragraph):

C – Backes, Hodgson, Bozak, Monohan

LW – Benn, Ladd, Silfverberg, Ennis

RW – Simmonds, Pominville, Brouwer, Ryder

D – Pietrangelo, McDonaugh, Giordano, Phaneuf, S. Jones, Brodin

G – Bishop, S. Mason

Bench – Jenner (IR), Kulemin, Orpik

Clown getting Mason as his second goalie in round 11 could be a steal, and neccesary insurance in case second-rounder Bishop dissapoints.  His defense looks fairly strong and overall he loaded up on high-upside guys late like Silfverberg, Jones, Brodin, Monohan and Jenner.  Benn, Backes, Simmonds and Ladd were a solid start up front within the first eight rounds, all wing-eligible players.  He took care of his top four on defense in the first nine rounds too with Pietrangelo, McDonaugh, Giordano and Phaneuf all going within rounds 3-9.

It’ll be interesting to see how things turn out for us and eleven other teams as we all try to dethrone three-time champ Sworn Defenders.  If you want to look at everyone’s rosters and predict who’s the best team I’ll try to post the link to the full draft results:

http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/hockey/5625/draftresults?drafttab=team