The first basically-full weekend of the second half of the season, and suddenly House of Seven Gabels’ lead is down to twelve points!

Standings, 2019-01-07

Full spreadsheet is available here. (It seems to be taking a while to bring itself up to date when you open it — maybe there’s a new version of Google Sheets that’s making that happen).

I’ve also added a column for second half points and ranking by second half points, which are similar to the first half rankings but different enough to be worth tracking. The team with the biggest drop in ranking, overall compared to second half, is Mokas Gals, which goes from 11th overall to 29th considering second half only. Mokas Gals actually led after our first week, only to be overwhelmed by House of Seven Gabels as we all have been. On the happy side, the greatest rise in ranking, overall compared to second half, is Wings, which goes from 27th overall to 7th in the second half. Wings has not made a single trade all year and perhaps joined this league specifically as a cautionary tale about overthinking things.

Biggest rise this week was... well, it was me, now fancy that. (Yes, we ALWAYS mention who had the biggest rise).

There are still three games to come on Tuesday: Syracuse at RPI, Cornell at Penn State, New Hampshire at Yale. Cornell at Penn State is the one with the greatest chance of having an impact on our leaderboard; these rankings may shuffle around a bit, and the price of any player on those teams will probably change, before the trades happen.

Spreadsheet housekeeping

I’ve reorganized everyone’s team listing so that your current players are at the top. I don’t think this has broken anything, but let me know. This has also had the effect that the listing of your current players isn’t ordered in any particular way, because the way the sheet is set up I’d have had to do that manually every week. Let me know if this is a pain (tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com) and I’ll see if I can automate it. Also, let me know if there’s anything I can do to make the spreadsheet easier to use in other ways. I know it would be great if a manager could try out a trade and see if they could afford it; to do that they’d have to be able to edit the whole spreadsheet, though, and I don’t want to go that far. (If only Google Sheets let you have one editable sheet and the rest read-only).

What happened this weekend?

• Imperial in the Ivies: Princeton extended their undefeated streak to 14 games, another new program record, easing past Harvard 4-1 and Dartmouth 5-2. Princeton’s travel partner Quinnipiac also did the business, beating Dartmouth 5-1 and Harvard 1-0. The Princeton game was Harvard’s (and goalie Lindsay Reed’s (Harvard, $29.7, 21.45 SP, 3.15 WP, 7 picks)) first loss by more than one goal all season. Abbie Ives (Quinnipiac, $34.2, 21.8 SP, 3.8 WP, 4 picks) was the highest-scoring goalie of the weekend. For Princeton, Sarah Fillier (Princeton, $34.7, 23.8 SP, 5.6 WP, 3 picks), Maggie Connors (Princeton, $27.1, 16.2 SP, 4 WP, 0 picks) and Carly Bullock (Princeton, $35.9, 25.1 SP, 4 WP, 6 picks) all had four fantasy points or more on the weekend.
• Nice Nice Baby: In the first Minnesota Cup, Minnesota, Minnesota State, Minnesota-Duluth, and St. *koff MINNESOTA koff* Cloud played a weekend tournament. As with the Windjammer Classic before the break, Minnesota won as expected. They needed OT to beat Minnesota-Duluth 4-3 (and were outshot by UMD 36-21) but then rolled past St. Cloud 5-1. Once again, scoring came from a lot of places but not Kelly Pannek or any Potomak. Taylor Heise (Minnesota, $31.5, 21 SP, 5 WP, 8 picks), Taylor Williamson (Minnesota, $16.8, 14.4 SP, 3.1 WP, 0 picks) and Grace Zumwinkle (Minnesota, $43.5, 27.3 SP, 3.1 WP, 8 picks) were the Minnesota players who got more than three fantasy points.
  On the other side of the draw, Abigail Levy’s (Minnesota State, $38.5, 32.3 SP, 2.05 WP, 8 picks) Minnesota State outshot St. Cloud 41-25 but still lost a 2-2 game in a shootout. Minnesota State were then 3-1 up on Minnesota-Duluth going into the third period, only to fall 5-3.
  Former U18 Gabbie Hughes (Minnesota-Duluth, $27.6, 15.5 SP, 5 WP, 1 pick), Kailee Skinner (Minnesota-Duluth, $15.5, 8.2 SP, 4.3 WP, 0 picks), and Anna Klein (Minnesota-Duluth, $16.3, 12.9 SP, 3.6 WP, 1 pick) all had good weekends for UMD. They also scored heavily relative to their current season records — over half Skinner’s points come from this weekend, and so do almost a third of Hughes and Klein’s. If this is a permanent step up in their scoring, keep an eye on them.
• CHA-mpions: RIT beat Brown, 2-1 and 2-0, and Mercyhurst tied Colgate 1-1 before the team coaches clearly got together and decided that wasn’t enough goals, resulting in Mercyhurst winning the final game 8-5 from 5-4 behind. Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, $21.6, 16.7 SP, 5.3 WP, 2 picks) got four goals in the second game. The CHA is therefore officially the best conference.
• Ouch: Lindenwood beat Post 12-0 on Saturday, outshooting them 74-1, and 5-0 on Sunday, outshooting them 81-7. Post have twelve skaters and are going full D1 next year. Lindenwood had a lot of skaters that scored a lot of points in this series but listing them would make me feel slightly dirty.
• WCHA-mpions: In another out-of-conference matchup, struggling Bemidji State beat strugglinger Union 3-0 and 6-2. Union had showed signs of life earlier this season but this is a dispiriting result for them. Kiki Radke (Bemidji, $8.1, 3.7 SP, 3.3 WP, 0 picks) almost nine-tupled her points for the season as scoring leader for Bemidji. Bemidji started Lauren Bench in goal in game 1, and a pillow in game 2. The WCHA is therefore officially the best conference.
• Ouch 2: UNH came from behind to beat BC 3-2. UNH goalie Kyra Smith (UNH, $18.7, 16.35 SP, 1.2 WP, 0 picks) is quietly undefeated in the last eight games, including creditable wins over Merrimack x2 and a tie with Harvard; meanwhile, goalie partner Ava Boutilier has not dressed since the start of November. Smith might be worth a flutter as a cheap goalie who’s getting the job done. Meanwhile, Taylor Wenczkowski (UNH, $20, 11.2 SP, 1.6 WP, 0 picks) has 9 points (goal + assist points) in her last five games.
• Also: Vermont beat Providence 5-4 in OT, pulling senior goalie Madison Myers’ (Providence, $41.5, 21.6 SP, 1.6 WP, 2 picks) save % from an unworldly .949 to a basically still unworldy .940. Providence then won the second game 2-1. Ève-Audrey Picard (Vermont, $23.2, 15.5 SP, 3.3 WP, 2 picks) had a good weekend for Vermont, Whitney Dove (Providence, $25.7, 17.5 SP, 3. WP, 0 picks) had a good one for Providence. Elsewhere in Hockey East, BU lost 1-0 to Maine and then beat them 3-0, with Jesse Compher (BU, $48, 36.1 SP, 2.1 WP, 10 picks) doing her thing but at a slightly slower rate than usual.
• Hockey East-mpions: Northeastern tied defending national champions Clarkson 3-3, and then beat them 3-1, in the Friendship Series in Belfast in front of a huge crowd. It was a big, though not enormous, weekend for Alina Mueller (Northeastern, $41.4, 28.6 SP, 3.5 WP, 16 picks), and Aerin Frankel (Northeastern, $33.9, 19.95 SP, 2.4 WP, 9 picks) finally got to start both games. If this is a pattern for Frankel then she’s still worth picking up, but I would expect Northeastern coach Dave Flint to go back to the split-goalie approach until the playoffs. This was a huge and well-deserved win over the defending national champions, and Hockey East is therefore officially the best conference.
• SNODGRASS: Coming up to the second half of the season we were wondering whether Natalie Snodgrass’s (UConn, $36.5, 20.5 SP, 6.2 WP, 6 picks) shooting percentage could stay at what seemed an unsustainably low 0.03. Well, whether it could or not, it didn’t. In her three games since the break, Snodgrass has scored six goals on nineteen shots, including a hat trick in UConn’s 4-3 and 6-3 sweep of Holy Cross. The other game was against Dartmouth, so Snodgrass hasn’t yet shown she can sustain this new shooting quality against top-level goaltending. This weekend’s games against UNH, whose goaltending seems a step up from Holy Cross and Dartmouth, will be interesting to watch. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Holy Cross game, Rachel Moore (Holy Cross, $12.4, 10.4 SP, 5.2 WP, 0 picks) and Julie Matthias (Holy Cross, $11.8, 9.8 SP, 4.2 WP, 0 picks) both had surprisingly big weekends./

Weekly Awards

Team of the week

• Roster: Natalie Snodgrass (UConn, F, 6.2), Jada Burke (Lindenwood, F, 6), Nikki Friesen (Lindenwood, F, 6), Maddison Stitt (Lindenwood, D, 5.6), Sarah Fillier (Princeton, F, 5.6), Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, F, 5.3), Rachel Moore (Holy Cross, F, 5.2), Taylor Heise (Minnesota, F, 5), Gabbie Hughes (Minnesota-Duluth, F, 5), Morgan Wabick (UConn, F, 4.7), Vilma Tanskanen (Mercyhurst, F, 4.5), Kailee Skinner (Minnesota-Duluth, D, 4.3), Abbie Ives (Quinnipiac, G, 3.8), Terra Lanteigne (RIT, G, 3.75), Carly Jackson (Maine, G, 3.7)
• Score: 74.65
• Cost: 373.10/

Team of the week excluding points scored in games against Post because that’s just unfair

• Roster: Natalie Snodgrass (UConn, F, 6.2), Sarah Fillier (Princeton, F, 5.6), Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, F, 5.3), Rachel Moore (Holy Cross, F, 5.2), Taylor Heise (Minnesota, F, 5), Gabbie Hughes (Minnesota-Duluth, F, 5), Morgan Wabick (UConn, F, 4.7), Vilma Tanskanen (Mercyhurst, F, 4.5), Kailee Skinner (Minnesota-Duluth, D, 4.3), Julie Matthias (Holy Cross, F, 4.2), Sam Isbell (Mercyhurst, F, 4.2), Carly Bullock (Princeton, F, 4), Abbie Ives (Quinnipiac, G, 3.8), Terra Lanteigne (RIT, G, 3.75), Carly Jackson (Maine, G, 3.7),
• Score: 69.45
• Cost: 402.00/

Individual awards

• Most points: Natalie Snodgrass (UConn, 6.2 points this week (WP), 20.5 points this season (SP)), from Jada Burke (6 WP) and Nikki Friesen (6 WP)
• Most overlooked (highest scoring player that no-one picked): Jada Burke (Lindenwood, 6 WP, 13.2 SP) but really Rachel Moore (Holy Cross, $12.4, 10.4 SP, 5.2 WP, 0 picks)
• Biggest boost (highest scoring player that only one manager picked): Gabbie Hughes (Minnesota-Duluth, 5 WP, 15.5 SP)
• Biggest contribution (highest value of points this week * number of teams they’re on): Alina Mueller (Northeastern, 3.5 points * 16 picks = 56 total contribution)
• Best Freshman: Jada Burke (Lindenwood, 6 WP, 13.2 SP) but really Sarah Fillier (Princeton, $34.7, 23.8 SP, 5.6 WP, 3 picks)
• Best Sophomore: Natalie Snodgrass (UConn, 6.2 WP, 20.5 SP)
• Best Junior: Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, 5.3 WP, 16.7 SP)
• Best Senior: Nikki Friesen (Lindenwood, 6 WP, 6.2 SP) but really Vilma Tanskanen (Mercyhurst, $19.4, 8.2 SP, 4.5 WP, 1 pick)
• Best D: Maddison Stitt (Lindenwood, 5.6 WP, 4.7 SP) but really Kailee Skinner (Minnesota-Duluth, $15.5, 8.2 SP, 4.3 WP, 0 picks)
• Best F: Natalie Snodgrass (UConn, 6.2 WP, 20.5 SP)
• Best Goalie: Abbie Ives (Quinnipiac, 3.8 WP, 21.8 SP)/

That’s it

Things are a bit busy in work this week so I probably won’t have a trade tips post, though if I did it would probably just say SNODGRASS. (I may do a quick-hit standings update post after Tuesday’s games). Teams that have no games next weekend are Lindenwood (because they worked so hard this weekend, poor dears), Mercyhurst, Penn State, Robert Morris and St. Cloud.

Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 pm Eastern on Thursday January 10 please! And here’s one last link to the sheet to make things easy.