Now allow me to put that into context for you

The only stipulation: if you get first pick, you have to forfeit your second and third round picks. Why Because the first pick is obviously, under any circumstances, Tiger Woods. And since Tiger wins something like oh, every tournament, it's incredibly unfair to have him in your lineup This is much like Alexander the Great My friend Stryker (That's his last name. I know, it's awesome.) knows next to nothing about hockey, so obviously the fantasy gods blessed him with the first pick. He immediately selected Ovechkin and this is what he received in week one: five goals, five assists, 5, four penalty minutes, four power play points, one game winning goal, and 35 shots on goal.Now allow me to put that into context for you.

Our teams consist of two centers, four wingers and four defensemen Ten skaters. His team posted 11 goals, twenty five assists, /-0, 20 penalty minutes, 17 power play points, one short-handed point, two game winning goals and 129 shots on goal. Therefore Ovechkin had approximately half his goals, a fifth of his assists, a plus/minus more than twice as high as anyone else on his team, a fifth of his penalty minutes, half of his game-winning goals and just under a fourth of his shots on goal.That's preposterous. And he did this all in week one, which admittedly is a bit longer than an average week, but still He's incredible I mean look at the picture. He shoots so hard the front end of his stick disappears. Penalty minutes are a good thingHockey is the only sport (in America at least) that promotes the idea of having thugs on your team They're called enforcers Donald Brashear of the Rangers for example. Essentially his job is to intimidate the other team to the point that they change their style of play or to protect a star player.This is a real and important part of hockey, so how do you represent it in fantasy You make penalty minutes a positive stat. Not only is the idea completely ridiculous and comical, but it makes for an interesting angle when forming a line-up strategy.

Are you willing to give up a spot where you could use a defensive scorer for a guy who won't give you anything but a dump-truck full of penalties It doesn't translate to other sports because while a fight or a boarding can change momentum in hockey, a false start or offensive pass interference can never help in the NFL.If it did work the same way though, Flozell Adams might be a second round pick Well, if you drafted offensive linemen Which my fantasy league seriously considered I told you we're a bit nutty. Here's a fun example. Daniel Carcillo is a left winger for the Philadelphia Flyers. In 2008-2009 he scored three goals, had 11 assists, held a -15, three power play points, took 130 shots and amassed TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR PENALTY MINUTES. HE SPENT NEARLY AN HOUR MORE TIME IN THE BOX THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE LEAGUE. Again, some context: I did the math (with a calculator, I don't do numbers) and Carcillo spent five percent of the season in the penalty box.

Now, I didn't try to figure out his exact ice-time, but CBSsports has him listed as the Flyers fourth left winger. This means he spends no more than approximately 25 percent of the game on the ice Okay back to the calculator. Fifteen minutes per game (and that's being generous) times 82 games is 1230 minutes He spent 254 of those in the box. So to recap all this, Dan Carcillo spent about 20-25 percent of his ice-time in the penalty box No wonder he only scored three goals. Here's the best part. This guy is actually worth having on your fantasy team! Our Yahoo fantasy hockey league has 25 weeks. That makes Carcillo's average from last season ten penalty minutes per week. Our league looks to average around 30 penalty minutes per team, per week.