Updated standings

Happy American Thanksgiving everyone! Here (and here) are the updated standings after all the midweek games. No huge changes in the standings from the start of the week, much to the disgust of those of us who thought four games for Natalie Heising (Penn State, $29.3, 16.3 SP, 3.1 WP, 5 picks) was a shoo-in for easy points.

Standings November 22nd

Those games did significantly affect the team of the week, though. Megan Keller (BC, $50.5, 22.1 SP, 7.5 WP, 9 picks) rocketed to the top to be highest scorer of the week for the first time, and also displaced Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, $72.6, 25.1 SP, 4.1 WP, 15 picks) as highest contributor of the week. The BU and Penn State additional games saw Jenna Brenneman (Penn State, $18.1, 16.6 SP, 5.55 WP, 4 picks), Izzy Heminger (Penn State, $16.6, 8.3 SP, 5.3 WP, 0 picks), Kelsey Crow (Penn State, $25.1, 13.6 SP, 4.4 WP, 0 picks) and Mackenna Parker (BU, $23.1, 5.5 SP, 4.2 WP, 0 picks) make it into the team of the week as well. Cayla Barnes (BC, $43, 14.6 SP, 4.1 WP, 4 picks) has emerged as a classic BC-style offensive defender and is the team of the week’s sixteenth player, tied on points with the players who formally made it.

Roster: Megan Keller (BC, D, 7.5), Jesse Compher (BU, F, 7.1), Maureen Murphy (Providence, F, 6.2), Skylar Podvey (SLU, D, 5.7), Terra Lanteigne (RIT, G, 5.65), Jenna Brenneman (Penn State, G, 5.55), Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, G, 5.4), Claire Thompson (Princeton, D, 5.4), Izzy Heminger (Penn State, D, 5.3), Kelly Pannek (Minnesota, F, 5.1), Kelsey Crow (Penn State, D, 4.4), Mackenna Parker (BU, F, 4.2), Jincy Dunne (OSU, D, 4.1), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 4.1), Tia Stoddard (Clarkson, F, 4.1),

Score: 79.8, which beats the previous high of 78.15.

Cost: 513.60

What’s happening this weekend?

Not a lot of games in the coming week, so let’s do the KRACH thing again. Remember, the number is the probability that the first-named team wins.

• Boston College @ Holy Cross: 0.983
• Wisconsin v Harvard (x2): 0.974
• Providence @ Yale: 0.937
• Mercyhurst @ Union: 0.876
• Minnesota @ St. Lawrence: 0.835
• Maine v Dartmouth: 0.833
• Minnesota State @ Lindenwood: 0.728
• Cornell @ Robert Morris: 0.694
• Syracuse @ Vermont: 0.65
• Rensselaer @ New Hampshire (x2): 0.633
• Connecticut @ Quinnipiac: 0.604
• Boston University @ Brown: 0.602
• Clarkson v Minnesota Duluth (x2): 0.592
• Northeastern v Boston College: 0.554/

There are a few very intriguing matchups here.

Northeastern v BC on Tuesday night: BC have not been as dominant this year as their talent on paper suggests they should be, and a surprising amount of their offense has been driven by defensemen. They had great sustained pressure against BU on Tuesday night but came away with a 4-3 win which was closer than you’d expect. Northeastern have a goal margin per game played of +2.14, good for third in D1 behind Wisconsin and Clarkson, and 1A goalie Aerin Frankel has had four shutouts this season, which is tied with Wisconsin’s Kristen Campbell for most in the NCAA even though Frankel has played half as many games. This is probably the biggest game of freshman phenoms Alina Mueller and Chloe Aurard’s careers, except of course for all of those ones Mueller played in the Olympics.

Clarkson v Minnesota Duluth on Friday and Saturday: there’s a good preview of this series here. Minnesota Duluth had high prospects at the start of the season, with Maddie Rooney returning from Olympic triumph and a couple of U18s on the roster, and those prospects seemed even higher after their season-opening sweep of BC, but they haven’t managed to come together. They managed a tie against Minnesota, but had a disappointing loss to a St. Cloud team they should have beaten and just got swept by Ohio State last weekend. Clarkson, on the other hand, have appeared dominant, but a lot of their early wins are over teams that looked better at the start of the year than they do now: the sweeps of Bemidji and Robert Morris to start the season, before either team had its goaltending sorted out, don’t tell us as much as they seemed to at the time. KRACH puts their strength of schedule 27th in D1. They lost to a solid St. Lawrence team. Syracuse took them to overtime. Last weekend they inexplicably lost to Yale. And lead goalie Kassidy Sauvé ($51.2, 13.25 SP, 0 WP, 11 picks) missed the last weekend’s games after taking a puck to the helmet in practice, exposing the holes in Clarkson’s never-play-your-backups approach to goaltending. The polls have Clarkson rated much more highly than UMD, and they’ll certainly get more shots off, but this will be a great series and we may get a better sense from this of whether Clarkson is still well placed to win the whole thing in March (SPOILER: they are and they will).

Minnesota v St Lawrence in the Windjammer Classic in Vermont on Friday: This is a game I wish I could be at in person, the Gut is a brilliant old-timey arena and these are two very good but very different teams. St Lawrence have victories over Clarkson and Ohio State on their record, but should not have lost to Robert Morris or tied UNH early in the season. The Gophers are the only team that’s beaten Wisconsin this year, but didn’t look as dominant as usual in the early season and have been played close in at least one game of a series by St. Cloud and Bemidji, who shouldn’t be in the same class. You have to favor Minnesota to win this, but saying they’re likely to win it five times out of six (as KRACH does) may be underestimating St. Lawrence.

The following week, Mercyhurst and Minnesota-Duluth are off, but everyone else has two games and some teams have three.

Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11.59 pm Eastern tonight, Thursday November 22nd please. Enjoy your turkey!