Midweek games

There was only one game after the weekend, where Dartmouth beat Vermont 3-1. As has become traditional, even one not very high scoring game is enough to change our team of the week: Tess Bracken (Dartmouth, $17.3, 4.9 SP, 5.8 WP, 0 picks) displaces Maggie Lague (Robert Morris, $33.6, 9.7 SP, 4.8 WP, 1 pick) as best D and Sena Hanson (Brown, $15.8, 7.9 SP, 4.6 WP, 0 picks) as most overlooked, and Bracken and Dartmouth goalie Christine Honor (Dartmouth, $33.3, 6.35 SP, 3.8 WP, 0 picks) sneak on to our team of the week. Final team of the week is therefore:

• Roster: T.T. Cianfarano (Clarkson, F, 7), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 6.2), Tess Bracken (Dartmouth, D, 5.8), Maggie Lague (Robert Morris, D, 4.8), Sena Hanson (Brown, F, 4.6), Olivia Zafuto (Colgate, D, 4.3), Emma Maltais (OSU, F, 4.3), Michaela Pejzlová (Clarkson, F, 4.1), Grace Graham (Cornell, F, 4), Lexi Templeman (Robert Morris, F, 4), Christine Honor (Dartmouth, G, 3.8), Maggie Knott (Mercyhurst, F, 3.8), Calla Isaac (Brown, G, 3.7), Terra Lanteigne (RIT, G, 3.45), Maggie McLaughlin (SLU, F, 3.1)
• Score: 66.95
• Cost: 492.20/

Trade Recommendations

I just want to note at this point that since I sold Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, $71.7, 21 SP, 6.2 WP, 14 picks) and bought Tereza Vanisšová (Maine, $32.9, 8.7 SP, 0 WP, 8 picks), Giguère has scored 17.2 points and Vanisšová has scored 4.1. So maybe don’t listen to me too closely. But you should certainly listen to SCIENCE, and this week the SCIENCE is recommending the following picks (** means no games this coming weekend):

• Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, $71.7, 2.1 PPG) **
• Maureen Murphy (Providence, $40.3, 1.89 PPG)
• Carly Bullock (Princeton, $30.9, 1.82 PPG)
• Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, G, $25.4, 1.49 PPG) **
• Sara Hjalmarsson (Providence, $21.6, 1.23 PPG) **
• Shay Maloney (Brown, $19.8, 1.2 PPG)
• Sena Hanson (Brown, $15.8, 1.13 PPG)
• Lauren Bailey (Robert Morris, G, $15.4, 1.1 PPG)
• Rachel McQuigge (Princeton, G, $6.9, 1.08 PPG)/

Another way of thinking about who’s being good value this season is to look at change in cost. Change in cost basically measures whether a player is scoring faster or slower than last season. The top fifteen players in change in cost, who come from all over the cost spectrum, are:

• Lauren Bailey (Robert Morris, G, 13.25 SP, $15.4, up $11.95)
• Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, G, 14.85 SP, $25.4, up $10.4)
• Jenna Brenneman (Penn State, G, 11.05 SP, $12.8, up $10.15)
• Andrea Brändli (OSU, G, 13.65 SP, $24, up $9)
• Megan Fergusson (Merrimack, 9 SP, $9.7, up $8.7)
• Emma Maltais (OSU, 20.5 SP, $47.4, up $8.5)
• Hallie Theodosopoulos (St Cloud, 11.4 SP, $16.7, up $8.3)
• Maureen Murphy (Providence, 15.1 SP, $40.3, up $8.2)
• Taylor Leech (Maine, 8.4 SP, $9.6, up $8)
• Anonda Hoppner (Syracuse, 8.6 SP, $10.7, up $7.8)
• Morgan Fisher (UConn, G, 10.6 SP, $19.4, up $7.5)
• T.T. Cianfarano (Clarkson, 15.9 SP, $42.4, up $7.4)
• Brooke Hobson (Northeastern, 10.9 SP, $22.9, up $6.8)
• Veronika Pettey (Northeastern, 13.2 SP, $31.9, up $6.7)
• Ellie Larson (RIT, 7.4 SP, $9.1, up $6.7)/

One thing this illustrates is that the best buy is a goalie who wasn’t a starter last year and is this year. But the other thing it illustrates is how even high-powered players like Cianfarano and Maltais can outperform significantly, and even formerly role playing players like Leech and Fergusson can have breakout years at any time. Anyway, any of these players are worth thinking about — if they continue to produce at their current rate, their price is only going to go up.

Games this weekend

With this weekend being the height of Four Nations, a ton of schools are off: BC, Clarkson, Harvard, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State, Penn State, Quinnipiac, St Lawrence, Wisconsin. Among the teams that are playing, we have a decent mix of in-conference and out-of-conference, with a lot of ECAC/CHA match-ups.

The one traditional ECAC weekend is Brown and Yale against Union and RPI, which at the start of the season would have seemed like four bad teams playing each other (especially with RPI missing Selander in goal) but is now, amazingly, a chance for Brown to get to seven wins. If they do, that’ll mean that in nine games this season they’ve equalled their total wins from 2016-17. (By winning the first two games this season they equalled their total wins from 2017-18; we shall not speak of 2017-18 again, except we shall three paragraphs down). Sena Hanson (Brown, $15.8, 7.9 SP, 4.6 WP, 0 picks) and Lizzy Gross (Brown, $19.8, 8.4 SP, 0.9 WP, 0 picks) are both looking like value pickups at the moment... but of course next weekend Brown is up against Clarkson and St. Lawrence, which is a completely different kind of challenge.

Hockey East has a series of one-offs: BU against Connecticut and Maine against Providence on Friday, Maine against Connecticut on Saturday, Providence at Vermont on Sunday. Providence are favored to take the Vermont game, I suppose, even with Hjalmarsson, but the rest are hard to call. Hockey East also has a couple of two home-and-home series: Northeastern play New Hampshire, which seems likely to be a good series for Northeastern, and Merrimack take on Holy Cross, where you have to favor Merrimack.

The WCHA just has one in-conference game, with Ohio State traveling to THE Bemidji State. A few weeks ago this would have seemed like a shoo-in for Ohio State, but Bemidji showed more signs of life than you might expect against a below-par effort from Minnesota last weekend. Ohio State are still favorites for this one though.

In the ECAC-CHA matchups, Colgate, who were just beaten by Brown last weekend, play Robert Morris, who beat Brown 11-0 to open their season last season. Cornell minus three Canadian National Team players play Mercyhurst minus one Finnish National Team Player. RIT play Dartmouth, whose goalie Christine Honor ($33.3, 6.35 SP, 3.8 WP, 0 picks) has been keeping them in some games recently. Princeton minus Sarah Fillier play Syracuse; two weeks ago this would have seemed a likely blowout for Princeton and a change for Carly Bullock (Princeton, $30.9, 10.9 SP, 2.6 WP, 2 picks) and Karlie Lund (Princeton, $23.3, 5.1 SP, 2.2 WP, 0 picks) to pick up several points, but Syracuse woke up against Penn State last weekend and might give Princeton a game. All of these are two-game series, at Robert Morris, Mercyhurst, Dartmouth, and Syracuse respectively.

St Cloud travel to Lindenwood for two games. Lindenwood’s tradition of great goaltending (it’s Nicole Hensley’s alma mater) has dropped off a bit and St Cloud’s good-against-bad-teams forwards like Julia Tylke (St Cloud, $21.7, 12 SP, 1.6 WP, 2 picks) and Hallie Theodosopoulos (St Cloud, $16.7, 11.4 SP, 1.1 WP, 0 picks) could score heavily in this one.

No games after Sunday this week. The next week almost everyone’s back; Dartmouth, Mercyhurst and Union take the weekend off, several teams have three games, and Penn State somehow have four.

Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 Eastern on Thursday November 8th. Here’s to a fun weekend!