Final standings for the week

In post-weekend games:

• Mercyhurst straightforwardly took down Union 5-2 after trailing 1-0.
• Boston University straightforwardly took down Brown 5-2 after trailing 1-0, in a game where Jesse Compher (BU, $37.8, 20.4 SP, 1 WP, 2 picks) surprisingly only picked up one point.
• Northeastern and BC played a thriller. BC led 2-0. Northeastern led 3-2. BC led 4-3 with less than two minutes to go. Chloé Aurard (Northeastern, $30.2, 21 SP, 2.1 WP, 5 picks) capitalized when Maddy McArthur (BC, $32.4, 17.95 SP, 0.9 WP, 7 picks) couldn’t quite keep a saved puck in her glove with an extra attacker for Northeastern on the ice to level at 4-4. With 10 seconds to go, Caitrin Lonergan (BC, $56.1, 13.4 SP, 1 WP, 7 picks) was open on the blue line, picked up a stretch pass, skated in alone on goal, and was completely stoned by Aerin Frankel (Northeastern, $32.5, 15.7 SP, 2.15 WP, 9 picks) to send the game to OT. Northeastern dominated the overtime, and eventually snuck the puck through to an unmarked Mia Brown (Northeastern, $13.6, 4.4 SP, 2.3 WP, 0 picks) on the far post for the 5-4 win. Frankel faced 50 shots, McArthur faced 33./

Although they were high-scoring games, no individual skater really dominated: Alina Mueller (Northeastern, $38.8, 23.4 SP, 3 WP, 12 picks) was the highest scorer that anyone picked. So there’s no significant change in the standings:

Standings, November 28th

And there’s no significant change in the team of the week.

What’s happening this weekend?

We’re nearing the holiday break. Almost all teams have four games before then, except:

• Brown (1 game, v Providence, next Tuesday)
• Connecticut (2 games, v Providence, this weekend)
• Cornell (2 games, v St. Lawrence and Clarkson, this weekend)
• Dartmouth (3 games, all this week)
• Holy Cross (3 games, two v Northeastern and one v Providence, over the next two weeks, lucky Holy Cross)
• Lindenwood (2 games, v RIT, this weekend)
• Maine (2 games, v Vermont, this weekend)
• Minnesota-Duluth (2 games, v Minnesota State, next weekend)
• Northeastern (2 games, v Holy Cross, this weekend)
• Penn State (2 games, v Robert Morris, this weekend)/

Among the games this weekend, good bets for goal fiestas include Northeastern v Holy Cross (KRACH probability for Northeastern: 0.991), Wisconsin v Syracuse x 2 (KRACH 0.976), Minnesota @ Yale x 2 (KRACH 0.971, though that’s what KRACH said about Yale v Clarkson), Providence @ Brown (0.911) and v Connecticut (0.897), and any game Clarkson’s in obviously. The two BC/BU games should be fun to follow, and Minnesota State completing their four-game season series against Ohio State is my tip for an upset in at least one of the games.

Mercyhurst and Minnesota-Duluth aren’t playing this weekend. In three weekends’ time, Mercyhurst and Ohio State have the only fixture of that weekend, a two-game series in Columbus keeping up Mercyhurst’s tradition of having the absolute hardest possible out-of-conference schedule.

Who’s going to give me an edge?

Here are the highest-scoring players, in points per game, who’ve been picked by two managers or less. If the name of the game isn’t just scoring a lot, but scoring when other managers don’t, some of these players may be worth considering.

Skaters

• Jesse Compher (BU, $37.8, 20.4 SP, 1.7 PPG, 2 picks): Compher is yet another one of this year’s power sophomores (see also: Maureen Murphy, Emma Maltais, Natalie Heising, everyone’s pre-season vision of Daryl Watts), but has been slightly under the radar because BU have played the fewest games of any non-Ivy school. By the end of next weekend BU will have finished their season series with both Northeastern and BC, and you have to fancy Compher to get better not worse after that.
• Jaycee Gebhard (Robert Morris, $43, 26.5 SP, 1.47 PPG, 2 picks): As I mentioned last week, Robert Morris are in the middle of a season-long scoring slump, which makes Gebhard’s increase in production all the more remarkable. Word of warning to those considering picking her up: Robert Morris only has 14 games left in its season, the least of any team in Division 1, and two of those are against Minnesota.
• Claire Thompson (Princeton, $30.7, 12.6 SP, 1.26 PPG, 0 picks): On a Princeton team with stars like Carly Bullock, Karlie Lund and Sarah Fillier, junior Thompson is surprisingly in second place on fantasy points per game. Her production’s been steadily ticking up year on year.
• Madlynne Mills (Cornell, $36.4, 13.6 SP, 1.24 PPG, 0 picks): Yet another sophomore! Mills had 33 (non-fantasy) points in 33 games last year, and 12 in 11 games this year. Cornell have regrouped after Four Nations and have a varied slate to finish out the season, facing both the highs and the lows of the ECAC. Mills was Ivy League Rookie of the Year last year so if you think she’s good you’re in good company.
• Brooke Hobson (Northeastern, $28, 18.1 SP, 1.21 PPG, 1 pick): Northeastern’s third highest scorer, after the much more intriguingly foreign Mueller and Aurard (footnote: I know that Canada is technically foreign), and another sophomore. She’s a former Canadian U18, a defenseman, and a key playmaker for her team. If Northeastern grow in confidence after their win over BC, look for her scoring to increase.
• Nicole Schammel (Minnesota, $37.6, 18.8 SP, 1.175 PPG, 1 pick): senior Schammel led the Gophers in points per game all season until Kelly Pannek literally exploded last weekend. The Minnesota State transfer has been a very consistent scorer, and Minnesota’s next two games are against traditionally defensively-challenged Yale and Robert Morris. (Footnote to that: Yale beat Clarkson)./

Goalies

• Terra Lanteigne (RIT, $40.2, 23.75 SP, 1.58 PPG, 1 pick) is only 0.1 points per game behind phenom Abbey Levy. But she does cost more than Levy, so the only reason to pick her up rather than Levy if you have the option would be if you already have three Minnesota State skaters. Four years ago RIT rode the amazing Ali Binnington all the way from last place in the CHA to a tournament victory and an NCAA tournament place: could Lanteigne be their ticket to the NCAAs this time? Fun Lanteigne fact: she won a Canada-wide science prize for redesigning a hockey puck to reduce its bounce, which is the most Canada thing ever.
• Lindsay Reed (Harvard, $22.1, 10.95 SP, 1.36875 PPG, 1 pick): We all thought the Harvard starting job was junior Beth Larcom’s. We were wrong. Reed has started seven of eight games, has the third-highest save percentage in D1 after Frankel and Levy (of goalies who’ve played more than 33% of their team’s minutes), and has picked up those save percentages against teams with real firepower like Wisconsin and Princeton. Amazingly, every single one of Harvard’s losses has been by one goal, so it could be that a little puck luck will see Reed picking up wins as well. Harvard have 21 games left in their season so Reed may be worth considering.
• Rachel McQuigge (Princeton, $13.3, 12.85 SP, 1.285 PPG, 0 picks): Impressed everyone in Princeton’s valiant stands against Wisconsin and has started eight of Princeton’s ten games. The only question mark over her is whether her effective starting position is at risk if Steph Neatby returns from the undisclosed reasons that have kept her off the ice so far this season.
• Samantha Ridgewell (Merrimack, $36.3, 19.05 SP, 1.27 PPG, 0 picks): Ridgewell has dropped off a little from her giddiest heights — at the start of November she was on 1.54 points per game — but is still a very reliable goalie, and locked in as starter.
• Lovisa Selander (RPI, $40.5, 18.25 SP, 1.22 PPG, 1 pick): Selander starts most games for RPI, and will have an even higher chance of starting games in the rest of the season as she won’t be playing for Sweden in the Four Nations. So this points per game count could easily tick up. However, she’s been so good for so long that she’s not exactly a bargain./

Trades by Thursday night pls

As a reminder: your team roster is on the Teams tab, but that just records the cost you bought your player at. To see how much you can sell her for, you need to check the cost tabs: either Column K on the cost master tab, which is sorted by school, or the sorted cost in Column E on the Value Stats tab, or Column O on the Points stats tab. That also shows how much you can buy other players for. The amount of money you have in the bank is also on the Teams tab.

Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 Eastern on Thursday November 29th, please!