Drafting a Six-Slot Squad: A-Squad Strategy Guide

Start with the size of the prize. In our simulations, a squad filled with random eligible picks from each spin averages around 30 wins over 84 games, which is deep in the LOTTERY grade. A squad drafted competently, taking the best available card that fits, lands in the high 50s. The ceiling, with a lucky set of spins and clean picks, is in the 80s.

That is close to 30 wins of skill between a careless draft and a careful one, on identical reels. The daily and the challenge are built on that gap: everyone gets the same six spins, so the scoreboard measures drafting, not dealing.

When a spin lands, the roster opens as a stack of cards. Each carries the player’s natural positions, his seasons with that team in that era, a stats line paced to 84 games and adjusted for era, and a circled number labelled IMP. IMP runs 1 to 99 on one scale across every position, and it answers the draft’s real question: given this bucket, does it help me more to take the goalie or the winger?

Tap a card and two meters unfold beneath it, OFF and DEF. Those are ranked within position, so they answer a different question: among defencemen, how much of this player’s value is scoring and how much is keeping the puck out? A shutdown defenceman can read OFF 51 and DEF 99 and be a very good pick. Goalies show only DEF.

A gold star beside the name marks a Hall of Famer. That is history, not a rating. A Hall of Fame career built on three other franchises does not make a two-season stop with this team a strong card, and the IMP number will say so. Trust the card over the plaque.

The six slots are C, LW, RW, D, D and G. Any forward can fill any forward slot, though a forward playing a spot he did not play in real life carries an out-of-position cost, and the result sheet will flag it. Defencemen fill only the two D slots and goalies fill only G. That asymmetry is the most important structural fact in the draft.

The three rigid slots are the ones a bad spin can strand. If your first four spins produce brilliant forwards and no goalie you would play, you now need a goalie from whatever the last two reels offer, with no room to say no. So fill rigid slots while you still hold re-spins: if a spin shows a strong D or G and that slot is open, take him, even over a slightly shinier forward.

In our simulations and in play, the goalie slot swings a record more than any single skater slot. That is an observation, not a published weight, and it matches the eye test. A great goalie behind an ordinary five is a playoff team; an ordinary goalie behind a great five is a firewagon that loses 6-5.

So do not settle for a cameo goalie. A goalie card marked cameo has fewer than 20 starts for that team in that era, and a small sample is treated cautiously, so the card rarely carries the upside the name suggests. A handful of starts as a backup is not a run of full seasons in the crease.

Watch for the est. badge too. Shot and save data was not recorded league-wide before 1955-56, so goalie cards from earlier seasons are estimated from what was recorded and carry that badge. An estimated goalie is not a bad pick, but the projection stands on less evidence. Skaters carry the same badge for seasons before 1959-60, when the defensive statistics did not exist yet.

Every run gives you a free re-spin budget of each kind, shown on the two buttons beside the reels: re-spin the team and keep the era, or re-spin the era and keep the team. They solve different problems.

Re-spin the team when the era is rich and the club is not: an expansion team in the 1970s or a 1990s club in its first seasons will offer thin cards, while another team in the same decade may be deep. Re-spin the era when the franchise is strong but you landed on its thin years. The Canadiens have a decade or two you would rather not draft from, and so does every original franchise.

Two patterns we have observed, not rules. When the roster has one great card and it fits an open slot, take it and save the re-spin; the odds of a better single card on the next reel are worse than they feel. And a bucket with two or three strong cards at different positions is the one to remember, because on a daily or challenge everyone saw it.

Round one is spun for you, and after that you choose when to spin and when to re-spin. The temptation is to spend re-spins early, when a mediocre first roster is annoying. Resist it. Early rounds have five open slots and every forward slot still flexible, so almost any roster offers something usable.

Late rounds are where a re-spin is worth the most. With one slot open, a roster either has a player for it or it does not, and if that slot is D or G it may have nobody you would play. Our rule of thumb: hold at least one re-spin of each kind until you are down to two open slots, and never enter the last spin with a rigid slot open and nothing in hand. Between spins, glance at the tray: if the open slots are all forwards you can gamble on eras, and if one is D or G you cannot.

Scoring in the NHL has moved a long way over a century. In 1955-56 the league scored about 2.5 goals per team per game. In 1981-82 it scored about 4.0. A 30-goal season in the first of those leagues is a bigger achievement than a 45-goal season in the second, and a raw stats line would tell you the opposite.

A-Squad adjusts for that. Every card’s stats line is rescaled to a common scoring environment before it is paced to 84 games, and the model compares players in that environment. A first-line centre from the mid-1950s therefore reads with a pace that looks respectable next to a 1980s scorer, because relative to his league he was. Trust the pace numbers on the card over your memory of raw totals, especially for eras you did not watch.

The flip side is that a name that looks huge from the 1980s may look ordinary after adjustment, because 90 points in a league where many people scored 90 points was a good season and not a legendary one. Neither direction is a trick; the cards do the arithmetic for you.

Finishing runs earns coins, and coins buy extra team or era re-rolls once the free budget is spent. The price climbs with each purchase in a run, 25 coins, then 50, 100 and 200, and four is the most you can buy. They work only in Play and Practice: daily and challenge runs give everyone the same re-spins.

A run that used a bought re-roll is marked boosted. It earns no coins, appears on no board, and does not count toward your GM Card, and the result sheet says so. That is not a punishment; it is what keeps the boards honest and stops coins from minting coins.

What boosted runs are good for is learning. Spend a few coins, see what a fourth or fifth reel of a decade offers, and notice which cards keep showing up as the ones worth having. Just do not mistake a boosted 70-win season for a ranked one; the game will not.