Standings

Here are the post-weekend standings for Oct. 29. There are still two games before the end of the week and the trade deadline: Northeastern at Vermont on Tuesday, Oct. 30, and Connecticut at BC on Thursday, Nov. 1. These will both affect the final standings of the week, so consider these provisional...

... unless you’re House of Seven Gabels, of course, because it seems like nothing short of nuclear weapons can stop you in that case. House of Seven Gabels’ lead stretches from 19 to more than 24 points at the top. Moves Like Giguère, Moose, Mokas Gals, and Going Roque stay occupying the second through fifth places. Mike Murphy’s Rooney Tunes, up two places to sixth, looks like it might be ready to make a jump from the peloton to that breakaway group.

All the standings are on the Summary tab of the results spreadsheet, including points scored this week and ranking of points scored this week. All the current rosters are on the Teams tab. The best way to find your own roster is to click on your team’s name on the Summary tab, then click on the little thing that pops up when you do that; or you can go to the Teams tab and use CTRL/CMD-F to search for your team’s name.

What happened last weekend?

• Win streaks end:
  — Wisconsin’s win streak ended at 8, as Minnesota took them down in a high-energy but low-scoring game, 1–0 on Saturday afternoon. The winning goal was scored by Emily Brown ($23.20, 9.1 Season Points [SP]); Nicole Schammel ($36.20, 12.3 SP) added the assist to continue her surprising run at the top of the Gophers’ fantasy point scorers. Wisconsin came back to take the Sunday game 4–1, though when the Gophers had eight straight minutes of possession down only 2–1 in the third period it looked like it could easily have gone the other way.
  — Harvard’s win streak ended at 1, as they lost two one-goal games on the road to more seasoned teams: Cornell 3–2 on Friday, and Colgate 1–0 on Saturday. The Colgate game featured a 49-save performance from Lindsay Reed ($17.30, 3.75 SP) in the Harvard goal. After three bafflingly poor years, this could be a sign that Harvard is getting it back together.
  — Brown’s win streak ended at 3, as expected. They lost 4–0 to Quinnipiac and then 7–2 to Princeton, who started their backup goalie. Last week’s heroes Lizzy Gross ($19.90, 7.5 SP) and Shay Moloney ($17.40, 5 SP) got 1.3 and 0.8 fantasy points each, and Gross is still higher-scoring than the highest scoring player from Bemidji, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Holy Cross, Quinnipiac, Union, Vermont, or Yale.
• Battle of the giganta-goalies: The two-game Minnesota-Duluth at St. Cloud series featured four goalies, each of whom is on their respective national teams. St. Cloud’s goalies have not had an impressive record this year in terms of save percentage, but this weekend was kind of a coming-out party for both of them. On Friday, Janine Alder (St. Cloud / Switzerland, $23.80, 9.25 SP) faced off against Emma Söderberg (UMD / Sweden, $11.60, 0.9 SP); UMD outshot St. Cloud 41–16 but only just squeezed out a win, 2–1. On Saturday, things got even worse for UMD as Emma Polusny (St. Cloud / USA, $30.80, 8.85 SP) faced off against Maddie Rooney (UMD / USA, $43.90, 15.3 SP), and Minnesota-Duluth outshot St. Cloud 50–21 but lost 3–2. The game featured this incredible save from Polusny. If St. Cloud’s goalies have found their groove after last week’s discouraging split against Minnesota State, St. Cloud could pull a few more surprises this year.
• Out of Conference:
  — RIT and RPI’s first game went to OT but ended 1–1; their second game looked like it would go to overtime too, but RPI took it 3–2 with a power play goal at 19:59:58 of the third period.
  — Ohio State / St. Lawrence and Clarkson / Syracuse both featured two very different games. St. Lawrence jumped out to a 2–0 lead on Friday, saw it get pulled back to 2–2, and won 3–2 with a goal halfway through the third. On Saturday, Ohio State jumped out to a 2–0 lead, then jumped out to a larger 5–1 lead, then won 6–1 in a four-point game for Charly Dahlquist ($19.80, 7.5 SP). Clarkson steamrolled Syracuse 6–2 at Syracuse on Friday in a game where Loren Gabel ($76.30, 18.9 SP) was involved in every single goal, then surprisingly needed overtime to win 4–3 on Saturday at Clarkson.
  — UConn clobbered Union 7–0 on Saturday. All three Union goalies played; Kate Spooner ($6.30, 0.35 SP) got a third-period shutout, which may have been some consolation. Savannah Bouzide ($6, 4.9 SP) got a hat trick for Connecticut.
• CHA: Penn State and Mercyhurst played two different but close games: Mercyhurst won 2–1 on Friday and 5–4 in overtime on Saturday, in a game that featured Emma Nuutinen’s ($17.80, 9.6 SP) first hat trick. Robert Morris and Lindenwood tied 2–2 on Friday, then Robert Morris won 2–0 on Saturday, and that’s all there is to say about Robert Morris and Lindenwood.
• ECAC: Apart from the Harvard and Brown games mentioned above, Colgate and Cornell both beat up on Dartmouth (6–0 Colgate, 4–0 Cornell), and Princeton and Quinnipiac both cruised past Yale (4–1 Princeton, 2–0 Quinnipiac). Colgate had a solid weekend, but it was surprising that their highest fantasy scorer was Nemo Neubauerová ($17.10, 5 SP). For Princeton, meanwhile, Carly Bullock ($29.80, 8.3 SP) scored all four goals in the Yale game and tacked on a goal and two assists against Brown, while Maggie Connors ($26.90, 5 SP) got a hat trick against Brown — and Sarah Fillier ($27.70, 5.8 SP), in her last game before the 4 Nations tournament, picked up 4.6 fantasy points for the weekend.
• Hockey East: There are definitely tiers emerging in Hockey East. BC beat supposedly-bad Holy Cross only 5–1 and then supposedly-good Maine 4–1. Northeastern beat supposedly-good Providence 2–0 and not-very-good BU 2–1. Maine beat bad-but-tied-St.-Lawrence UNH 5–3, then Providence beat UNH 1–0. Surprisingly-good Merrimack beat Vermont 2–1 and then beat Holy Cross 5–0. This might be the first Hockey East weekend in history where every game was won by the team you’d probably expect to win it, so I look forward to Connecticut stomping BC 8–2 on Tuesday night to restore balance.
• WCHA:
  — Apart from the big Wisconsin / Minnesota matchup, and the surprising Minnesota-Duluth / St. Cloud results, the other WCHA match was Bemidji against Minnesota State. There, a typically poised performance from Abigail Levy ($23.80, 12.3 SP) in goal and three-point games for Jordan McLaughlin ($22.10, 6.8 SP) and UND refugee Rebekah Kolstad ($9.40, 6.2 SP) saw Minnesota State take the first game 4–1 despite being outshot 31–23. In the second game, Minnesota State outshot Bemidji 33–25, but the game ended in a 0–0 tie.
  — Also, it’s not a result, it didn’t happen last weekend, and it’s behind a paywall, but even so this Athletic article about the Ohio State all-black jerseys is a fun read./

Weekly Awards

Individual Awards

• Most points: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 8.6 points this week [WP], 18.9 points this season [SP]), from Michaela Pejzlová (6.7 WP) and Emma Nuutinen (6.6 WP)
• Most overlooked (highest-scoring player that no one picked): Maggie Connors (Princeton, 5 WP, 5 SP)
• Biggest boost (highest-scoring player that only one manager picked): Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, 6.6 WP, 9.6 SP)
• Biggest contribution (highest value of points this week * number of teams they’re on): Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 8.6 points * 16 picks = 137.6 total contribution) — this going to be hard to beat.
• Best Freshman: Maggie Connors (Princeton, 5 WP, 5 SP)
• Best Sophomore: Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, 6 WP, 14.8 SP)
• Best Junior: Michaela Pejzlová (Clarkson, 6.7 WP, 14.1 SP)
• Best Senior: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 8.6 WP, 18.9 SP)
• Best D: Megan Keller (BC, 5.1 WP, 12.8 SP)
• Best F: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 8.6 WP, 18.9 SP)
• Best Goalie: Sarah McDonnell (Mercyhurst, 4.8 WP, 9.95 SP)/

Team of the Week

The team formed in accordance with the roster rules that scored the most points this last weekend is:

Roster: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, F, 8.6), Michaela Pejzlová (Clarkson, F, 6.7), Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, F, 6.6), Carly Bullock (Princeton, F, 6.6), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 6), Megan Keller (BC, D, 5.1), Maggie Connors (Princeton, F, 5), Sarah McDonnell (Mercyhurst, G, 4.8), Kati Tabin (Quinnipiac, D, 4.7), Sarah Fillier (Princeton, F, 4.6), Jincy Dunne (OSU, D, 4.4), Charly Dahlquist (OSU, F, 4.1), Emma Maltais (OSU, F, 4.1), Jolene deBruyn (Lindenwood, G, 3.45), Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, G, 3.4),

Score: 78.15, which is the highest score for a team of the week by 15 points.

Cost: 558.10, which is the most expensive a team of the week has been all season.

Interestingly, this team is the top 12 skaters and the top three goalies with no other restrictions applying: each of Clarkson, Princeton, and OSU had three very high-scoring players this weekend, with the rest some way behind.

Housekeeping and injuries

I don’t know if I’ve ever said, but the best way to keep track of all the games on a particular evening is to follow the front page of collegehockeystats.net. It updates in very close to real time and has full live gamesheets. It also gives you a sense of when to expect results to go through into the full spreadsheet, as a result will not go through to the stats database until the collegehockeystats game status turns from “Final” to “Box / Text / Sheet.” Because it updates live, incorrect stats will sometimes briefly appear there, so take everything you see during the game with a pinch of salt, but it’s much easier than trying to follow 34 Twitter feeds.

• The Finnish Four Nations roster is out (stick tap to Meredith Foster), and the only NCAA player on it is Emma Nuutinen ($17.80, 9.6 SP) of Mercyhurst. Combined with the Canadian, Swedish, and US rosters that we discussed in the trade tips post last week, that means that we now know the full impact of Four Nations on the NCAA games. Nuutinen will miss four games for Mercyhurst: two against Lindenwood, then two against a Cornell team that will in turn be missing Jaime Bourbonnais ($29.30, 3.4 SP) and Micah Zandee-Hart ($41.40, 5 SP).
• Hah, fooled you, we don’t actually know the full impact of Four Nations on the NCAA games, because we don’t know if Hockey Canada will bring in anyone from the NCAA to replace the injured Emily Clark ($40, 6.8 SP) and Sarah Potomak ($35.80, 6.3 SP). Presumably if they’re going to do it, they’ll be announcing it before this coming weekend, so with any luck if there’s impact on any teams, I’ll be able to mention it in Thursday’s trade tips post.
• New Players This Weekend: Kayla Wormsbecher ($14.60, 1.3 SP), a sophomore who didn’t play last year, got her start in goal for Dartmouth against Cornell and let in four goals on 38 shots. As mentioned above, Emma Söderberg ($17.80, 9.6 SP) got a victory in her first start in net for Minnesota-Duluth in the battle of the giganta-goalies. And that’s it for new players; things seem to be stabilizing.
• Injuries: Haley Mack ($22.90, 0 SP) is back in the lineup for Bemidji after missing five games. Val Turgeon, who was selected by one of our managers, is no longer with the Harvard team (and hasn’t been since the middle of last year — as with Madeleine Wethington, she can be traded at her original value at any time alongside another trade)./

Coming up

BU has no games this coming weekend, UMD has an exhibition against the Whitecaps that doesn’t score fantasy points, and I don’t know who Connecticut thought they were sending to 4 Nations but they don’t have any games this weekend either. (Footnote: it was Snodgrass obviously.) BC, Northeastern, Merrimack, and Princeton only have one game (BC missing four players for 4 Nations, Princeton missing one). Dartmouth and Vermont have three, but good luck turning that to your advantage. Everyone else has two. St. Cloud has two against Ohio State without their top two goalies, which should be exciting for that third goalie! (Karlie Ries, $10.50, 0 SP, good luck, Karlie!)

In Thursday’s trade tips post, a look at who’s been exceptionally good value this season so far. If you have a trade that doesn’t need to wait till then, or any other thoughts or comments, please mail me at tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com. Since there are still two games to play, trades won’t be implemented till after those games to make sure we get the costs right.

Good luck this week, everyone!