GP CAP
Games Played
FIELD GUIDE
A games-played cap turns streaming into a budget
In most fantasy hockey leagues the only limit on how many games your roster plays is the schedule. Some leagues add another: a cap on the games a manager may start at each position over the season, so that a roster of streamers cannot simply out-play a roster of stars by dressing whoever has a game. Once a cap exists every start is spent from a budget, and the manager who runs out in March watches his best defenceman sit through the playoff weeks while a rival who paced himself keeps starting.
This page is the budget sheet. It reads the fantasy-week schedule for every club on your roster, works out the most starts each position can give you in each week, adds them to the games you have already used, and compares the total with your cap. The difference is the room: games you can still stream at the position, or, when it is negative, games that will have to sit.
Read the rest
Read the rest
Where the cap comes from, and why the numbers here are examples
The cap is set by your commissioner in the league settings and varies from league to league; some cap every position, some only goalies, some none at all. The research this section was built from carries no platform-wide figure, so this page does not claim one. It opens with an example, one club season per starting slot, read from this season’s calendar, which is the shape a cap usually takes when a league wants a roster to be able to start a full lineup every night and nothing more. Replace the figures with your league’s own; they are written into the address, so the link you copy carries them.
How the pace is counted
On any date a position can start at most as many players as it has slots, and only those whose club plays that night. Two centres on two clubs that both play give two starts; three centres on three clubs that all play still give two, because there are two seats. The page walks every date of every fantasy week for the players on your roster, counts the starts each position could take, and sums them by week. That figure is the most the roster can give the slot; a manager who benches someone to save games starts fewer, which is the whole point of the page. Games already behind us are counted the same way unless you enter the figure from your league page in the small box under each cap, which is always better, because the schedule does not know which games you actually started or which players you owned in October. With a figure entered, the past weeks in the grid are spread evenly to that total and the future weeks add on.
Reading the tiles and the grid
Each tile is a position: the projected total against the cap, and a verdict in one line. Room means the cap has games to spare and names how many, which are the games you can afford to spend on streamers at that position; exactly on the cap means a full-lineup roster with no spare; over means the schedule gives your players more games than the cap allows and names how many will have to sit. The bar under each is the projection against the cap. The grid below lays the same figures out week by week, with the running total against a straight-line pace of the cap spread evenly over the season, so you can see whether a slot is ahead or behind the pace before the gap becomes a problem. A position that is behind pace early is a position where a streamer is free; one that is ahead is where a four-game week for three of your players will cost you a benching.
Building the roster
Add players one at a time from the search, which resolves a name the way every search on this site does, with the arrow keys and Enter, or paste the roster from your league page one name per line and the page resolves what it can and names what it could not. Each player is placed by his position under the rule you choose: the split rule seats centres, left wings and right wings separately; the pooled rule seats nine forwards together and does not model the utility seat, so a utility skater’s games should be added to the position you would play him at. A player whose position does not fit any slot, or whom the directory does not know, is listed under the roster rather than silently dropped.
Goalies and the starts cap
A goalie cap is usually a cap on starts rather than on games, and a goalie only counts when he is in net. The pace here assumes your goalies start every game their club plays, which is the ceiling and not the reality of a tandem: a backup on a club with a workhorse starter will give you far fewer starts than his club’s schedule suggests. Read the goalie tile beside the tandem guide, and treat its projection as the most you could possibly use rather than what you will.
What this page does not know
It does not know your league’s settings, which is why the caps are typed in; it does not know which games you actually started, which is why the used figure can be entered; and it does not know a trade or a waiver claim until you add the player. The schedule can change through the season, and a postponed game moves a start from one week to another. The rule, the caps, the used figures and the roster are all written into the address, so the link you copy opens the same plan for anyone.
The fantasy-week schedule and the player directory are our own feeds, refreshed daily. If the schedule is unavailable the page says so rather than showing a plan built on nothing.