Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Handicapping the Fantasy Draft: Who might end up on Team Staal, Lidstrom?

stallallstar

James O’Brien

It’s silly to make any bold proclamations about tonight’s Fantasy Draft, especially considering the fact that it’s about fun above all else. There also might be a bit of one-upping, as the two sides try to turn the screws on each other.

Still, it might be fun to guess who might pick whom, even if we’re proven wildly wrong. So here are a few things to consider.

Alternate captains: Martin St. Louis and Patrick Kane for Team Lidstrom; Ryan Kesler and Mike Green for Team Staal

St. Louis will push for Steven Stamkos and possibly former teammate Brad Richard. Kane will push for Chicago Blackhawks Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Patrick Sharp (maybe former ‘Hawk Dustin Byfuglien too).

Meanwhile Kesler will push for the Sedin twins while both Kesler and Kane are equally likely to pull for Americans. Green will push for Alex Ovechkin.

It would be surprising, then, to see Stamkos on Team Staal and Ovechkin on Team Lidstrom, but you never know.

Sedins split?

I think splitting the Sedins might come down to timing (or just how much the two sides are conspiring to split them up). Fellow Swede Lidstrom might manage to snap them up while Staal is satisfying teammates Cam Ward and Jeff Skinner along with his brother Marc. Unless there’s some draft time shenanigans with that as well, of course. We shall see.

Country loyalty/friends

Again, Lidstrom will lean toward Swedes in specific and Europeans in general. Kesler will likely want the handful of Americans but will be canceled out by Kane in that regard. Green might want more Canadians, but so will Eric Staal and St. Louis.
***

If Staal and Lidstrom call most of the shots, both sides will feature an interesting disparity between Europeans and North Americans as well as Eastern Conference players vs. West. Then again, Lidstrom might lean toward drafting defense and goalies before Staal does.

So what is the takeaway? Well, we don’t really know what is going to happen, but it should be fun to watch.

Kudos to the NHL for coming up with this interesting wrinkle.

(NHL.com tries to get inside the heads of the two captains here.)