With my fantasy hockey draft coming up on Saturday, I can't help but fight the overwhelming feeling that I'm going to get screwed. I dominated last year because I had the most explosive offensive team in the league featuring: Jason Spezza, Dany Healtey, Ilya Kovalchuk, Patrik Elias and Marian Gaborik (when they got healthy), Eric Staal, Markus Naslund, and then the rookie phenoms Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.

This year we did a little modification and made it a keeper league and I got to keep three guys. After deliberation I went with Crosby, Ovechkin, and Heatley. But after that I have no idea what it's going to look like because there are quite a few talented players that might be considered risky picks for whatever reason, whether they were injury prone last year or just had an off year. Such as:

• Gaborik, Spezza, and Daniel Briere - Great numbers, but can they stay healthy? If so, Spezza and Heatley will continue to produce like crazy and Gaborik has been on fire with Pavol Demitra so far. Briere was very impressive in his shortened season and the playoffs.
• Evgeni Malkin - Obviously a phenomenal talent. Getting hurt in his first preseason game is not a good start though, and I hope he's more durable than this. He'll get a lot of playing time and is set up to succeed, just like Crosby. I'm ready to take the chance on him.
• Colby Armstrong - Played 47 games alongside Crosby as a rookie last year and picked up 40 points. Don't feel bad if you don't know who he is, I'm counting on everyone else in my draft not knowing either. I'm targeting him as my third pick for the right side.
• Roberto Luongo - Will playing for a better team improve his numbers even more or by some chance will we find out that maybe he isn't as spectacular as we all thought before? My guess is he's going to put up good numbers, but Vancouver's D isn't as deep as it was before. Losing Jovanovski hurts them.
• Cam Ward - The kid looked great in the playoffs but can he translate that into a full season? We've seen more than one flash-in-the-pan over the years (Related question: Can Andrew Raycroft recover this year?) but I want to believe he's the real thing.
• Kari Lehtonen - Atlanta's playoff hopes will live and die with this guy. If he stays healthy all year then the Thrashers will be competing for their first playoff spot. If he gets hurt...

Honorable Mentions: Dominik Hasek, Martin St. Louis, Todd Bertuzzi, Naslund, Peter Forsberg

Will these guys come through like all of us pinning our fantasy hopes on them need them to, or will they be subjected to another off-year? Only once the last buzzer sounds to end the season will we know the answer.