The Toronto Maple Leafs are not a team you should bet on.
If I could give one piece of advice to any gambler, it is this: Do not bet on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
If you do, you will lose.
Bet against them and they will win.
Choose to believe they will lose, then of course that is when they finally win.
To be honest, I suck at gambling and I don’t do it. I hate how gambling has taken over the NHL and I hope that my son’s love of hockey doesn’t mean he’s being brainwashed three times a week into becoming a gambling fiend.
But while I don’t bet on games, I do enjoy hockey pools and I am either very good at them or playing in a very easy league.
So here is my advice on hockey pools.
Hockey Pool Advice (Not Strictly for Toronto Maple Leafs Fans)
First off all, if at all possible, do a live draft and put it online later. It’s way better, and you can also get a major advantage because at least half the people who show up will get too drunk for their own hockey pool good. If you can swing it, provide free booze!
Secondly, there will be people at the draft who have no patience and will want to go home because one guy is way too drunk and takes up to 9 minutes per pick, only to draft a guy who has been selected much early, every single time. .
Third, do a keeper league because Keeper League’s rule.
Fourth, you gotta let the Commissioner veto trades, because inevitably, some people will be idiots and make league-ruining trades. A keeper league is good because people who are out of it still have a reason to care and can at least work on their teams.
Fifth, do a yahoo pool. All the rest of them are garbage.
Sixth, don’t blow a high pick on a goalie. Barring injury, Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews are guaranteed to produce, where as you can’t guarantee any goalies performance. They should be the first two picks. If anyone else is picked, try to get people to raise the stakes because you are in a very easy pool.
Seventh, make sure your league requires four goalie starts every weak. This is because the goalies are your most important players, but they are also the most random. Forcing everyone to carry at least three goalies adds some really fun strategy to the pool that will lesson the amount of randomness involved in winning.
Eighth, while you should never blow a pick on a top goalie, if you can, hoard a few and then sell them off. I once punted the first two weeks of the season by drafting five goalies and trying to sell them off to people who were relying on streams to fill their required starts. I don’t really think this was that great of a strategy, but it was helped because my keepers were so good.
Ninth, let other people pay for premium defenseman and goalies. Take reliable forwards, and spend late picks on a 40 point defenseman who gets on the PP.
Tenth, plus/minus and PIMs, along with three of four goalie categories, are almost completely random, so don’t even factor them into your decisions. Focus on the categories you can control, like goals, assists, shots and wins.
That’s my advice on hockey pools.