Two questions came up from our exit survey feedback: 1) Can we add some value back to goalies, without tipping the scales back too far the other way? 2) Can we make all scored events minimally consequential? To cover both of these, we're adding a little more heft to some of the rarer events that get you KKUPFL points, which will also give goalies a little more upside.

Goalie Wins will now be worth 3 fpts each (vs 2 fpts, previously) Goalie Shutouts will now be worth 3 fpts each (vs 2fpts, previously) Shorthanded Points will now be worth 2 fpts each (vs 1 fpt, previously)

For starters (ha!), increasing the value of a goalie win is a way to give them some more weight and relevance, but without making literally any goalie the obvious stream option due to the near-certainty of big value from collecting big points via SVs (aka, the Season 7 scenario). And then, while SHP and SO are both pretty random and unpredictable events, there is certainly some skill worth rewarding for each! For SHP, there are "power-kill" type forwards who kill penalties by threatening offensively. For SO, good goalies are likely to get more of them, especially if they have a heavy workload (this also applies to Ws). This scoring change slightly bumps up the value of players who fit either of these profiles, and in turn also makes these events a little more meaningful for your overall matchup outcomes. 

In every season until last year, KKUPFL promotions came via the final standings, which were determined by playoff performance.

In Season 8, we piloted a different promotion scheme where promotions could additionally be earned via regular season performance. Promotion was awarded in order of: Playoff Champ, President's Trophy Winner, Playoff Runner-up, Regular Season Points For Leader.

In Season 9, we've decided to fine-tune the set-up by removing the promotion priority for the Regular Season Points For Leader. We're doing this for 3 reasons:

1) It's kind of confusing! Managers shared it was hard to keep track of what their promotion outcome was going to be with our Season 8 rules. It's much easier to explain and understand that promotion priority rankings are "Playoff Champion, President's Trophy, then the rest of the Yahoo rankings."

2) The Regular Season Points For leader has an advantage that they win any tie-break in the standings. While it'd be nice to give them more, there will still be some tangible benefit to putting up the most points in your division. 

3) Points For Leaders can also get rewarded for their PF via the fast track. 

We also ran the numbers, and found that Points For Leaders were largely unimpacted by the rule. Only 5 of 43 Points For Leaders earned a higher promotion with the new Season 8 rule. 3 of those 5 were outside of playoff contention. This, in a way, is what we hoped the rule would do -- but with a pretty low impact that, when weighed against the feedback we saw about interpreting and following the promotions rule, is leading us to simplify things again.

So, for KKUPFL Season 9, rankings used for promotion and relegation outcomes will be as follows:

Playoff Champion

President's Trophy

3-14. Yahoo! Final Rank