Happy Fourth-Last Tuesday of this Fantasy League (FLTTFL)! Here are the standings after the weekend. Note that these aren’t the final standings of the week because the CHA tournament starts tomorrow, because someone in the CHA thought it would be funny to have some people’s seasons end on a Wednesday. I’ll have an update post on Friday with the final standings for the week. If you want to do a trade, be aware that costs for players on all CHA teams will change between now and Thursday evening.

Fantasy standings, 2019-03-05

Grant Salzano’s 1.21 GigaWatts — which, I can exclusively reveal, is using an algorithm — continues to pull away at the top, but there are still some very close battles: third and fourth, fifth and sixth, and tenth through fifteenth.

Looking to the CHA tournament, four of our top five teams — 1.21 GigaWatts, House of Seven Gabels, I’m Going To Be Perfectly Frankel, and Team Bewareful — have Jaycee Gebhard of Robert Morris, who has a game on Thursday. That’ll help them put more distance between themselves and the pack, but it won’t separate them from each other, obviously. However, Team Bewareful also has Rene Gangarosa of Penn State, who is definitely playing on Wednesday and, if the seeding works out, should play on Thursday too. Gangarosa is unlikely to score the 21 points necessary for Team Bewareful to close the gap with I’m Going To Be Perfectly Frankel, but she may give Bewareful a chance to put some space between themselves and Birch Twigs in sixth.

What happened this weekend? Final chance for certain puns edition

ECAC

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized (on the ice) by Lovisa Selander.
NCAA: pic.twitter.com/acWg97P2Zz

— RPI Women's Hockey (@RPI_WHockey) March 4, 2019

The Eagle has Selanded: Top seed Cornell and eighth seed RPI played not just the most memorable series of the weekend, but one of the most memorable series of the season. On Friday, after Cornell had put more than twenty shots on net without scoring, RPI went 1-0 up on its second shot of the game. Fifteen Cornell shots later, and two RPI shots later, Cornell finally leveled it at 1-1, and nearly sixteen minutes into overtime Cornell took it 2-1. Lovisa Selander (RPI, $59, 59 SP, 8.3 WP, 1 pick) made 63 saves and RPI took seven shots in total. Saturday was even more epic as RPI massively stepped up their offense, registering ten total shots on goal, and with a goal early in the first period and an empty-netter in the dying minutes took the game 2-0. Blake Orosz (RPI, $24.40, 24.4 SP, 4 WP, 0 picks) scored all three goals across the two games, which counts as a hat trick if you’re RPI. Sadly for fans of Cinderella stories, Cornell came to play in the decider and took it 6-1 to progress to the semi-finals. Selander’s save percentage across the series was an amazing .954. Over to Title IX Hockey for some more great stats:

The 8 seed in the ECAC tournament prior to today had never won a game, and had taken the 1 seed to OT just 5 times for a total of 6 OTs. RPI is 4 of those times and 5 of those OTs.

— Title (MMX)IX Hockey (@TitleIXHockey) March 3, 2019

Selander’s NCAA career is over, but college hockey fans will remember her for a long time. She had already broken Brianne McLaughlin’s official NCAA save record a few weeks back; in the game that RPI won, she beat Nicole Hensley’s 4,094, which isn’t the official record because in Hensley’s freshman year Lindenwood was still transitioning to D1. She ends with 4,153 saves, an average of over a thousand saves a season (for a comparison, the average saves made this season by goalies that play 80% or more of minutes is 822, so Selander was about 25% more tested than the average goalie) and now takes her talents to the Boston Pride, who honestly should consider starting both her and Katie Burt and only playing four skaters.

Related

Lovisa Selander is the best goalie you haven’t heard of

Reed is Good: Weirdly, in the ECAC, it was the first and second seeds who were taken to three-game series. Harvard and goalie Lindsay Reed (Harvard, $44.50, 44.45 SP, 3.95 WP, 9 picks) gave Colgate all they could handle in game 1, taking it 5-2 despite being outshot 33-23 and chasing Colgate goalie Julia Vandyk with two quick early third period goals. Vandyk settled herself for games 2 and 3, which Colgate took 4-2 and 5-2. Senior Olivia Zafuto (Colgate, $45.10, 41 SP, 7.4 WP, 2 picks) was Colgate’s highest scorer, with good weekends for relatively unheralded underclassmen Shelby Wood (Colgate, $24.80, 23 SP, 4.8 WP, 0 picks) and Eleri MacKay (Colgate, $20, 18.5 SP, 4 WP, 0 picks).

Time to Quinnipiac it in: Quinnipiac took Clarkson to overtime for the second time in three consecutive games, but it wasn’t enough: Clarkson took the series 3-0, 4-3 (OT). Quinnipiac’s three goals in the second game were the second-most goals they’ve scored in a loss all season. Clarkson tied that game with 1.1 seconds to go on a goal from — who else? — Loren Gabel (Clarkson, $72.80, 64.1 SP, 4.7 WP, 18 picks), who you may remember from such movies as “Beating Harvard with 4.4 seconds to go in overtime two weeks ago”. The OT goal, on an assist from Gabel, was scored by Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, $80.10, 71.9 SP, 5.3 WP, 15 picks), who you may remember from such movies as “Also being very good”.

Quinnipiac hosts the Frozen Four this year, but they’ll only be watching. Their season started disappointingly and ended encouragingly: it’ll be interesting to see which Quinnipiac shows up next season.

• Injury watch: Ella Shelton (Clarkson, $40.80, 35.5 SP, -0.2 WP, 5 picks) left Saturday’s game early with an apparent injury: no word on her condition./

It Saint Over Till The Fat Lady Sings: St. Lawrence’s two Achilles heels this season, good-but-not-elite goaltending and a plummet in their offensive numbers, came back to bite them in their series with Princeton. [NOTE TO EDITOR — do heels bite? pls verify]. Of all the ECAC top seeds, Princeton had the easiest time despite facing the toughest-on-paper opposition, easing through 4-1, 6-2. Princeton’s big guns Sarah Fillier (Princeton, $51.60, 50.8 SP, 5.6 WP, 7 picks) and Carly Bullock (Princeton, $36.50, 35.7 SP, 4.1 WP, 2 picks) showed up in a big way. Now Princeton takes on Cornell, who they beat 5-0 in February, and Clarkson take on Colgate, who surprisingly swept them in the season series.

Hockey East

It don’t Catamount to a hill of beans in this crazy world: After only leading 3-2 at the end of the first period, Northeastern pounded Vermont 7-2 in the Friday game despite only outshooting them 36-22. In the second game, goalie Blanka Škodová (Vermont, $13.20, 13.2 SP, 1.55 WP, 0 picks) shook off the shellacking from the previous afternoon and nearly pulled off a Selander-level upset, holding Northeastern to a single goal and only giving up that goal on an extra attacker delayed penalty. Northeastern progressed, but Vermont at least went out fighting. Skylar Fontaine (Northeastern, $50.80, 48.8 SP, 5.3 WP, 4 picks) continued her great late-season run, coach Dave Flint picked up his 200th career win, game-winning goal-scorer Kasidy Anderson (Northeastern, $32.40, 30 SP, 2.8 WP, 1 pick) picked up her 100th career point, and the most important save of the game was made by Alina Mueller with less than an minute to go:

ALINA MUELLER!

SAVE OF THE DAY! pic.twitter.com/mRRoEwVreg

— Northeastern Women’s Hockey (@GoNUwhockey) March 2, 2019

Yes We UConn’t: BC handled UConn 4-1 on Friday. Then on Saturday, after initially leading 1-0, they let in more goals from UConn in the second period than they’d previously let in all season. Down 3-1, BC’s Erin Connolly (BC, $2, 1.8 SP, 1.2 WP, 0 picks), the penalty queen of Chestnut Hill, scored with a second left in the second and added another early in the third as BC moved to a 4-3 lead. With two minutes to go, Connecticut pulled the goalie and scored what seemed like ten seconds later to send the game to overtime, where, in a scrum in front of the Connecticut net, depth player Ryan Little (BC, $10.70, 10.2 SP, 1.2 WP, 0 picks) pushed the puck in to send BC through.

Related

GOAL BY GOAL: BC Women’s Hockey Wins 5-4 OT Thriller Against UConn To Advance To Hockey East Semifinals

Bully Durham: BU beat UNH 5-1, 3-1 and were never in any serious trouble. Sammy Davis (BU, $51, 50.6 SP, 5.1 WP, 6 picks) and Jesse Compher (BU, $63.70, 63. SP, 4.7 WP, 11 picks) stepped up all weekend, and Nara Elia (BU, $35.80, 19.7 SP, 2 WP, 0 picks) had a great game on Friday.

No Rae of Sunshine: In two low-shooting games, Providence effectively shut down Merrimack’s top-end talent and made it through to the semi-finals in two very similar games, 2-0 and 2-1. (In the second game the Merrimack goal came with twenty-five seconds left, so the games were even more similar than the headline results make them look). Providence’s offense was spread pretty thinly: Maureen Murphy (Providence, $46.70, 45.8 SP, 2.1 WP, 8 picks) scored in both games but Providence will need more from her against Northeastern. Merrimack’s Samantha Ridgewell (Merrimack, $44.90, 44.9 SP, 2.2 WP, 0 picks) looks likely to end the season as the highest-scoring goalie that no-one had on their fantasy team at any point.

WCHA

A Season-Ending TheodosopouLOSS: Wisconsin may have been surprised to be in the quarter-finals at all, having been well positioned for the bye as recently as last weekend, but they took the advantage of the opportunity to get in some target practice against St. Cloud’s goalies. The score was 5-0 on Friday, 8-0 on Saturday. Annie Pankowski (Wisconsin, $45.10, 43 SP, 6 WP, 8 picks) had a huge weekend, including a hat trick on Saturday, and Britta Curl (Wisconsin, $31.70, 30.4 SP, 4.2 WP, 0 picks) continued her very solid freshman campaign. Two great stats from Wisconsin’s Twitter feed: Kristen Campbell (Wisconsin, $39.20, 36.8 SP, 4.3 WP, 6 picks) becomes Wisconsin’s first goalie to record consecutive 30-win seasons, and...

.@anniepank became the third #Badgers player to score 20+ goals in all four collegiate seasons in @BadgerWHockey 8-0 victory over St. Cloud State on Saturday. The other two were pretty good: @HilaryKnight and @mduggan10.https://t.co/r5ZrpVYydF

— Todd Milewski (@ToddMilewski) March 3, 2019

Stand and De-Levy: Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, $48.10, 48.05 SP, 3.2 WP, 7 picks) nearly pulled off a last triumph, pushing Ohio State to overtime on Friday, but Emma Maltais (OSU, $50.40, 45.4 SP, 2.1 WP, 7 picks) ended it 3-2 twenty-eight seconds later. In the Saturday game, Levy kept it to 1-0 until sixteen minutes into the third period, but Ohio State were able to get the second with 3:30 to play and add the empty netter to progress. Brooke Bryant (Minnesota State, $15.10, 15.1 SP, 1.2 WP, 0 picks) scored both Minnesota State goals on Friday to move from third to first in goals for this season.

Leave it, Beavers: Bemidji State couldn’t pull it off, losing a pair of one-goal games, 3-2 and 4-3, to Minnesota Duluth. (In both cases, Bemidji scored the last goal, so these games maybe weren’t as close as they seem). This was the fourth time in the last five years that Bemidji and Minnesota Duluth had met in the WCHA quarter finals, and the first of those times that the series wasn’t won by the road team. Maggie Flaherty (Minnesota-Duluth, $31.70, 31 SP, 3.8 WP, 0 picks) was Minnesota-Duluth’s highest scorer for the second week running.

CHA

Robert Morris had a couple of decisive wins over Syracuse, 5-0 and 4-2. Kirsten Welsh (Robert Morris, $15.30, 15.3 SP, 3.4 WP, 4 picks), back from her injury earlier in the season, was the best skater for the Colonials. Mercyhurst beat RIT 4-0 and 2-1, and Penn State beat Lindenwood 3-1 and then tied them 3-3. Michele Robillard (Mercyhurst, $11.20, 10.5 SP, 4.2 WP, 0 picks) had the best weekend of any CHA skater

Team of the week on Friday

We need to see how the CHA tournament will play out.

How it works from here on

The league runs right to the weekend of the Frozen Four.

For this week’s trade you can trade TWO players.

The field for the NCAA tournament will be announced on March 10. For the trade with deadline March 14th, you can trade TWO players and you can have up to FOUR players from a single school. The NCAA quarterfinals happen that weekend and are single game elimination held at the higher seed’s site on March 15 or 16.

The Frozen Four takes place at Quinnipiac on March 22 (semi-finals) and March 24 (finals) . For the trade with deadline March 21, the final trade of the season, you can trade THREE players and you can have up to FOUR players from a single school.

The requirement for 12 skaters and 3 goalies on a team still holds. Players count for their position whether or not their team has been eliminated.

Good luck in the last few weeks, everyone! Costs are here on the spreadsheet, trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 pm Eastern on Thursday March 7th please.