Four Nations frenzy

Yesterday afternoon, Hockey Canada announced that they’re taking Kristin O’Neill (Cornell, $43, 5.5 SP, 1 pick) for Four Nations, along with Jamie Lee Rattray, to replace the injured Emily Clark and Sarah Potomak. This probably won’t hurt Cornell’s chances much against Union and RPI this weekend, but it makes the games against Mercyhurst next weekend more interesting. We still don’t have a timetable for the return to the ice of Potomak (Minnesota, $35.8, 6.3 SP, 9 picks) or Clark (Wisconsin, $40, 6.8 SP, 3 picks).

Trade summary

I haven’t done a trade summary post for a couple of weeks, and there’s been some movement.

• Lonergone: Almost all the trades this week seem to have been influenced by Four Nations: four managers sold Caitrin Lonergan (BC, $63.7, 9.4 SP, 7 picks), one sold Kristin O’Neill (Cornell, $43, 5.5 SP, 1 pick), one sold Annie Pankowski (Wisconsin, $39.5, 10 SP, 13 picks), one sold Kelly Pannek (Minnesota, $41, 7.8 SP, 9 picks), and one sold Lovisa Selander (RPI, $43.5, 11.8 SP, 1 pick). Apart from that, the trades all seemed to be clearing out unused goalies: Amanda Zeglen (OSU, $8.8, 3.5 SP, 1 pick), who is firmly in the backup role at OSU behind Andrea Brändli (OSU, $23, 11.8 SP, 1 pick), and Jolene DeBruyn (Lindenwood, $37.3, 8.55 SP, 1 pick) who’s starting most of the games but not earning heavily.
• Her favorite movie is The Maltais Falcon: Emma Maltais (OSU, $45.1, 16.2 SP, 10 picks) was the highest beneficiary, with three managers hiring her (including our first ever duplicate trade, with two managers selling Lonergan and buying Maltais)./

Full rosters are available on the Teams tab of the spreadsheet.

Overlooked and underrated

Our managers have done a good job at picking players: of the top 40 points scorers this year, all but 5 have been picked for at least one of our teams. The overlooked ones are:

• Samantha Ridgewell (Merrimack, G, $36.5, 13.85 SP)
• Hallie Theodosopoulos (St Cloud, $16.2, 10.3 SP)
• Sarah McDonnell (Mercyhurst, G, $24, 9.95 SP)
• Grace Bizal (BC, $26.4, 9.7 SP)
• Alyson Matteau (Maine, $29.3, 9.7 SP)/

McDonnell is having a decent year, but there are 11 goalies who’ve scored more points this year than her. From the strategy point of view, this seems to indicate that picking a goalie who starts a lot is more important than exactly how well she does.

Bizal has been having a bit of a coming-out party in her senior year at BC, scoring a number of important goals and being strong on the blue line overall. Interestingly, she’s the sixth highest scorer this year at BC, and of those six top scorers only two are forwards, Daryl Watts ($69.9, 11 SP, 19 picks) and Makenna Newkirk ($59.5, 10.6 SP, 6 picks). This just emphasizes the odd performance we’re seeing out of BC this year, where games are being won relatively comfortably but none of the elite forwards have been quite exploding the way many of us expected.

The mystery of Minnesota

Minnesota’s top fantasy scorers this year are Nicole Schammel ($36.2, 12.3 SP, 1 pick), Patti Marshall ($30.3, 11.2 SP, 4 picks), Emily Brown ($23.2, 9.1 SP, 0 picks) and Grace Zumwinkle ($37.4, 9 SP, 8 picks). Minnesota’s most picked players this year are Kelly Pannek ($41, 7.8 SP, 9 picks), Sarah Potomak ($35.8, 6.3 SP, 9 picks), Taylor Heise ($23.3, 4.9 SP, 9 picks) and Grace Zumwinkle. No other team has such a discrepancy between its top picks and its top scorers. Maybe Pannek will come back from Four Nations and Potomak will come back from her injury fired up to play together? What up, Minnesota?

Final team of the week

The Northeastern and BC games resulted in a few changes to the team of the week for week 5, with Megan Keller, Daryl Watts, Alina Müller and Maddy McArthur all sneaking in there.

Roster: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, F, 8.6), Megan Keller (BC, D, 6.9), Michaela Pejzlová (Clarkson, F, 6.7), Emma Nuutinen (Mercyhurst, F, 6.6), Carly Bullock (Princeton, F, 6.6), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 6), Daryl Watts (BC, F, 5), Maggie Connors (Princeton, F, 5), Sarah McDonnell (Mercyhurst, G, 4.8), Kati Tabin (Quinnipiac, D, 4.7), Alina Müller (Northeastern, F, 4.6), Sarah Fillier (Princeton, F, 4.6), Maddy McArthur (BC, G, 4.1), Charly Dahlquist (OSU, F, 4.1), Jolene deBruyn (Lindenwood, G, 3.45),

Score: 81.75

Cost: 582.10

This is both the highest score for a team of the week, and the highest cost by far — the top 12 skaters plus top three goalies resulted for the first time this season in a team that cost more than $600, so it was necessary to swap Jincy Dunne (4.4 points on the week) for Charly Dahlquist (4.1) to bring the cost down. This is an enormous score for the week, and (as we discussed above) maybe shows that the players we were expecting to be elite this year are finally figuring it out.

Fun Fact

Eight games into the season, Minnesota State has a 0% power play and a 100% penalty kill.

Thoughts / comments / corrections to trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com. Check your trade on the teams tab and let me know if it went through correctly.