There are 2 things in fantasy hockey pools that can be so frustrating, injuries and shutouts. Long term injuries to key players, especially early on in the season, can be really frustrating.
In the 1st week and half fantasy players have seen Andre Markov and Johan Franzen go on the shelf for up to 4 months. If you have both, you’re season may be over before it really got started.
If you’ve done a ‘pick from a box’ type of pool and had one of them, your odds of winning have dramatically dropped. Any type of long term injuries in one of those pools where you can’t interchange players, I wish you luck.
The latest player to be out, albeit for not as long Markov and Franzen, is Daniel Sedin of the Canucks, who’s gone for 4-6 weeks with a broken left foot. Though he may be back in a month or so, it may take a little longer for him to get going after recovering from a broken foot.
Getting back to why shutouts can be really frustrating. After seeing one of your players get seriously injured, having a backup goalie get a shutout while you have that teams starter, has to be the next most annoying thing in fantasy hockey. It’s not as bad for teams that have goalies that split time (which seems like plenty of NHL teams are doing so far), but when you goalie usually gets 60-70 starts in a season, it makes you want to throw you computer mouse across the room. Stephen Valiquette was the last goalie to do this, with a 3-0 shutout last night. Antti Niemi of the ‘Hawks and Mathieu Garon have also recorded shutouts. In all 3 cases, the teams #1 starter has yet to record a shutout.