by Timo Seppa
You may already have noticed Tom Awad’s latest VUKOTA projections available for purchase here on our website. In addition to providing the most accurate player projections as usual, this year we’ve included team projections (as teams are currently composed).
Who’s our top ranked team? Well, let’s say that Vegas isn’t exactly crazy with who they’re favoring to win the Cup. On the other hand, those who expect the Wild to immediately become a championship contender with the additions of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter should temper their expectations. You won’t see it in these final projections, but the first pass of VUKOTA, pre-July 1, had Minnesota as one of the handful of lowest-projected teams. It’s reasonable to at least consider them a bubble team now.
On the player side, we give you projections of games played, goals, assists, points, offensive GVT, defensive GVT, total GVT, PIM, and save percentage. Needless to say, it’s a great tool for fantasy hockey players.
Finally, if you subscribe to ESPN Insider, you can take a look at some of the most interesting VUKOTA projections in their Summer Skate series, which beginning this week. They’ve kicked off the series with the Pacific Division, with Rob Vollman letting you know who’s expected to trend up and down, while ESPN’s Craig Custance providing readers with a Name To Know (prospect). We’ll be reposting our portions of the series here at Hockey Prospectus.
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Many of you are no doubt anticipating our third annual, Hockey Prospectus 2012-13. I’m pleased to report that we’ve been working on the material for the last month and a half, and have most of the team chapters written.
Authors include much of the regular cast, such as Rob Vollman, Tom Awad, Corey Pronman, Matthew Coller, Ryan Popilchak, Ryan Wagman, Jonathan Willis, and of course, myself.
We’ll have some additional innovations included this year–we’ll keep them under wraps for now–that will definitely make you want to pick up this year’s annual.
As with everything in the hockey world, we need to wait and see when the season will be starting before we give you a definitive date on when Hockey Prospectus 2012-13 will be available. I’ll update you when I know more. Let’s hope it’s soon!
