Roto vs Head-to-Head Strategy

Hi there gang,

It has been a long time since I have competed in a H2H hockey pool and I must admit they always seem to be a little too random for me. But I did just join one and I am wondering if any of you H2H experts have any tips for me.


I am looking for anything that might be a little more H2H specific as opposed to the standard Roto style that I am more used to playing in.

One of my first fantasy hockey win ever came in a H2H league but it wasn't because I really knew what I was doing, and that's what's always worried me about this style. Anyhow, thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Anyone at all have thoughts on this or they just too similar to really have much of a chance in strategy?

Doulos,

H2H strategy comes down more to goalies and cats such as PIM.
Play your big PIM guys Monday/Tuesday and hope you have a good game from your goalies early in the week. If you get a shutout early in the week I like to rest my 2nd/3rd goalie if they have a bad matchup but always play your stud goalie unless you have won the week alreay.

thats funny doulos, I'm the opposite, I haven't played a roto league in forever and all I play is H2H now. I find H2H to be alot more daily maintenance...typically I'll set my roster for the whole week in advance and then tweak it throughout the week according to injuries, matchups and what cats I'm winning in.

As crazynuck notes, goalie starts are important. How many starts does your league require per week? I'll often use the same strategy...say my league requires 2 goalie starts per week to qualify...if I start off with wins of 2-0 and 3-1 or something like that I'll often sit my goalies, esp if they dont have favorable matchups...the logic being that I already have GAA, S% and probably SO locked up so why risk getting hit with a 7-6 blowout just to try to lock up the Wins cat, make sense?

Injuries you have to be really on top of, nothing worse than starting a scratch and having a guy on your bench score 4 pts that night.

Also, each team will have its strengths/weaknesses so I often look at that. So for example if I'm playing a manager with a lot of grit on his team I might just concede PIM to him for the week and focus on pts.

good luck!

I have only every been in one H2H league, but i must agree with what is being said. These leagues are won in the Goalie categories. My one year saw me have easily the best set of skaters in the league, but due to the somewhat "random" nature of H2H, this alone wasnt enough to secure me a playoff birth. My goalies were Fluery and Ward, once fluery went down with injury, my chances were shot. So lol, after all that, pay particular attention to your goaltenders and when you draft, try to avoid poor +/- players as well as low Pim guys.

Hey Doulos
I was in my first H2H last year which i won and had to take a lot of chances to get there. It was risky but in the end it paid off and this also may not work for you depending on how the league is set up.
What i did and a few other GM's started to do was to only carry a few "full time" players and used the rest of the spots for "floaters" the league had no limit on moves and no goalie mins so every morning first guy on the site woudl drop 5-10 players and pick up guys that play the next day so they woudl have a full roster, stupid me i started it in week 1 when i realized i was going to be 11 man games short of the guy i was against and then a few other GM's realized it works. Come the playoffs with no goalie mins i got a 1-0 win and with stat cats as W,L,GAA,SVS and SHO gave me 2 wins out of the 5 stats which i was week in so i dropped my G's to allow me to pick up more players.
It becomes a lot of work and only favours GM's that beat others to the bunch, if your league has a limit on moves you might have to wait until playoffs to do this but it has been proven to work, but is a lot of work to do.