The Greatest Fantasy Hockey Team That Probably Won't Win a Championship

            I’ve never publicly declared that one of my fantasy teams is vastly superior to the other squads in the league. Believe it or not, I’m usually not pompous enough to do that. I wanted to make a Namath-esque guaruantee with my baseball keeper league team last season, but didn’t want to jinx it. However, one of my two hockey teams this year is loaded enough to handle the pressure of a No Credentials guaruantee.
            My club is in a 10-team head-to-head re-draft league (spit that out three times) that I’ve been participating in since the 2007-08 season. Because I was 21 at the time, I decided it would be fitting to name my team Dogfight. This was right when the Vick scandal was huge, and I was also fixated on making a team name that didn’t end with an “s”. My first team won the title (thanks to an infamous “drunk Joe Thornton trade” that maybe someday I’ll share with the public, assuming I can get permission from the person I made the trade with), so it’s been named Dogfight ever since.
             This year’s edition is the most loaded hockey team I’ve ever assembled. To have a team worthy of making a “unless something really fucked up happens, my team should win” type claim, I have one simple requirement… If you plugged your fantasy roster into the newest video game for whatever sport you’re playing, would your team be so dominant that friends would ban you from using it in games? The following breakdown of my team will make the case that Dogfight is such a team.

Line 1

LW = James Neal, Penguins (Season Rank 2, Average Game Rank 3), drafted in the fourteenth round
C = Steven Stamkos, Lightning (Season Rank 12, Average Game Rank 11), acquired via trade
RW = Evgeni Malkin, Penguins (Season Rank 1, Average Game Rank 2), drafted in the second round
            Malkin was tabbed to be the team captain before the season, and has been everything Dogfight could’ve asked for. However, he’s too busy making fun of Sidney Crosby to make inspiring team speeches.
            “College freshmen have bounced my skull off of headboards harder than that hit Crosby took in the Winter Classic last year,” Malkin says of his real-life teammate, “What a pussy.”
            James Neal isn’t more talented than any of the players on the next two lines, but his chemistry with Malkin is what has vaulted him to the number 2 ranking in Yahoo fantasy. Stamkos is my prized mid-season acquisition. Dogfight gave up four dudes to get him (including the breakout performer of the year, Maple Leafs winger Joffrey Lupul), but Stamkos knack for tickling the twine was well worth the cost of acquiring him.

Line 2

LW = Taylor Hall, Oilers (Season Rank 80, Average Game Rank 31), drafted in the tenth round
C = Henrik Sedin, Canucks (Season Rank 19, Average Game Rank 30), acquired via trade
RW = Marian Gaborik, Rangers (Season Rank 31, Average Game Rank 35), acquired via trade
            It would be more accurate to call this group “Line 1B”. Henrik Sedin is the ultimate facilitator, and an elite goal scorer like Gaborik was built to play with him. I think I offered Hall in 20 different trades, but fortunately for me no one else in my league realizes how good he is.

Line 3

LW = Dany Heatley, Wild (Season Rank 72, Average Game Rank 102), drafted in the sixth round
C = Patrick Marleau, Sharks (Season Rank 50, Average Game Rank 44), drafted in the fourth round
RW = Kris Versteeg, Panthers (Season Rank 30, Average Game Rank 34), picked up off the waiver wire
            Line 3 is the wildcard unit of this team. All three guys are capable of getting red-hot and carrying the team for five game stretches. They are also all equally capable of falling into ten-game slumps. In a video game, they’d run roughshod over opposing team’s third lines. 

Line 4

LW = David Perron, Blues (Season Rank 435, Average Game Rank 134), acquired via trade
C = Adam Henrique, Devils (Season Rank 178, Average Game Rank 177), picked up off the waiver wire
RW = Danny Cleary, Red Wings (Season Rank 163, Average Game Rank 210), picked up off the waiver wire
            These guys don’t do much, other than making sure Evgeni Malkin has enough condoms for the team’s west coast trips.

Defenseman

Duncan Keith, Blackhawks (Season Rank 109, Average Game Rank 145), drafted in the seventh round
Brent Burns, Sharks (Season Rank 173, Average Game Rank 174), drafted in the ninth round
Tobias Enstrom, Jets (Season Rank 404, Average Game Rank 185), picked up off the waiver wire  
Mark Streit, Islanders (Season Rank 311, Average Game Rank 191), acquired via trade
            The blue-line is admittedly the weak link of Dogfight, but with the top three lines possessing the puck most of the game, who needs defense anyway?

The Goalies

Henrik Lundqvist, Rangers (Season Rank 4), drafted in the first round
Jimmy Howard, Red Wings (Season Rank 8), drafted in the fifth round
            Shoddy defense is all right when you have these two guys in net. I’ve never gone with just two goalies in fantasy hockey (I’m typically a quantity over quality kind of guy, at least in terms of my fantasy goalies), but in a league where you only need three starts per week, rolling with two isn’t a bad plan. It doesn’t hurt that I ended up with two of the top-3 net minders in terms of Yahoo rank. I punt saves almost every week, but am still rock solid with the other four categories.

The IR Spot Guy

Sidney Crosby, Penguins
            Ever since Angels infielder Howie Kendrick spent the majority of the 2008 season hogging up the DL spot on my championship winning team, I’ve always made sure to keep one crippled guy on my roster. Sidney Crosby just got dropped in this league, so he seemed like an upgrade from Andrei Markov.

            So there you have it. My team is built to destroy. I can’t wait to find out how it will somehow finish in fourth place.