Trade deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday October 11th — please have trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by then. Trades will be executed after the Thursday BC/St. Lawrence game and before the Friday BC/St. Lawrence game.

What’s up this weekend?

The schedule for the weekend is available on the Comp Schedule tab of the results spreadsheet, starting at cell AN3 up to midnight on Thursday and cell AG3 from Friday on. (Or somewhere else, if I’m futzing with the spreadsheet while you’re looking at it, in which case just wait a bit). With no insult intended to the other teams, the Minnesota-Duluth/Wisconsin and Colgate/Northeastern two-game series are clearly the marquee matchups of the weekend, though we also have:

• A number of Hockey East conference games from which we will learn absolutely nothing, as is traditional with Hockey East.
• Two exhibitions for Cornell, including one against the Beauts, which sadly won’t score fantasy points for anyone, so don’t go trying to buy Beauts players for $15 because they didn’t play last year.
• Holy Cross against first Providence and then Connecticut, advancing our Murphy/Snodgrass #rivalry #narrative.
• A number of unbalanced-on-paper series which might give a big boost to some managers or might be an opportunity for a great goalie to steal a game: Minnesota at St. Cloud, Ohio State v Minnesota State, Maine v Sacred Heart.
• The start of CHA play, with Mercyhurst v Syracuse.
• And a number of out-of-conference games that will clarify the national picture but are unlikely to be goal fiestas: Quinnipiac at Vermont, Penn State at Union, RPI at Robert Morris./

Brown, Clarkson, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Lindenwood, Princeton, RIT, Yale are all either not playing or only playing exhibitions.

Trade tips

Reminder: if you have Madeleine Wethington you can trade her for free this week, in addition to your regular trade, as she’s still in high school.

I’ve added a couple of columns to the value stats tab on the results sheet that might help inform trade decisions. Column A is players sorted by cost, Column F is points per game, and Column J is points per (games played + 1) — in other words, Column J is basically points per game but with a slight bias towards players who’ve played more games and so whose results are more consistent. This gives you a more apples-to-apples comparison between players with a similar cost. This week’s trade tip, then, is: use that table!

How do I use that table? As well as listing the points per game, I’ve highlighted in red every cell where the player has scored more points per game than any player who costs less than her. That also means, because of #math, that she’s scored more points per game than any player between her and the next highlighted player above her. And that means that she’s the current best player available at any price below the price of that next highlighted player above her. So if you have a certain amount to spend, the red-highlighted players are the ones you should start by considering.

Can you give an example? Sure! In the image above, say I have $40 to spend. The first highlighted player with a cost below $40 is Tereza Vaniššová of Maine. That means that of all the players available for $40 or less, she’s the one who’s scored most points per game. If you think she can keep that up, you should go for her. Likewise, if you don’t trust players who’ve only played two games, the top player under $40 in the points per (games + 1) column is Patti Marshall of Minnesota and you should consider her too. If you don’t trust either of them to keep it up, at least you considered them.

What about goalies? Goalies who have scored more per game (or games + 1) than any goalie are indicated with bold green underline. If they’ve also scored more than any player below them, then the cell is also red.

I’ve also added a “points per team game played” column to the rosters on the Teams tab, so you can get a quick sense of who’s underperforming. Note that this is per team games played this season, not per games played since you hired them; that second stat would be more useful so I’ll see if there’s a way I can provide it.

Let me know if this kind of thing is useful. I’ve found it helped me, but your mileage may vary.

Not to point fingers but: The player who has scored the absolute fewest fantasy points this year (Ashton Bell, Minnesota-Duluth, $19.70, -2.2 — yes, that’s “minus”) was picked by one of our managers. The player who has scored the second-fewest (Olivia Knowles, Minnesota, $27.00, -1.55) was picked by two of you. Maybe they’ll both turn it round! Or maybe this is a trade tip.

Housekeeping

• Birch Davis, the manager of Birch Twigs, contacted me to remind me that his roster should have Daryl Watts instead of Jesse Compher. I checked and I did in fact receive that request before the season started, so I’ve made that change retroactive to the start of the season. Please check if I’ve missed anything on any of your teams and let me know if so.
• Haley Mack (Bemidji, $25.90, picked by three of you) hasn’t dressed since her first game, but I don’t have any info on her status beyond that.
• Christina Putigna (Providence, $25.40, picked by one of you) hasn’t played a game this season.
• Rhyen McGill (Clarkson, $21.60) is apparently out for the season with a hip injury. Ebba Strandberg (Maine, $16.90) hasn’t played a game yet./

Back on Friday with a trades roundup. Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday October 11th please!