NCAA Fantasy Hockey Week 4: Post Weekend Standings

Sorry about no trade tips or trade reports post last week; #life.

Here are the post-weekend standings for Oct. 22. There are still two games on Tuesday of this week: Connecticut at Brown, and Syracuse at Cornell. Both of these should impact scores, so there may be a little change in the standings before the trade deadline.

House of Seven Gabels’ lead has stretched to a massive 19 points, with the team coming 4th out of 31 in points scored this weekend. Unlike in the Olympics, though, coming second here is something to brag about, and the second place race is tightening up: Mokas Gals in second is only 5 points ahead of Moves Like Giguère in fifth, and the 19-point gap between first and second is also the gap between second and 18th. The highest riser from last week to this is Moves Like Giguère, up eight places on the back of 40.55 points from the weekend.

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 probably to click on your team’s name on the Summary tab, then click on the little thing that pops up when you do that.

What happened this weekend?

  • Undefeated streaks end: Coming into the weekend, six teams that had played hadn’t yet lost a game: Clarkson, Merrimack, Maine, Minnesota, Providence, and Wisconsin. Going out of the weekend, three teams that have played haven’t yet lost a game: Wisconsin, Harvard, and Brown. This makes Brown the fantasy league leader in (games won / fantasy picks), where their score is currently INFINITY. (Other teams with no picks: Dartmouth and Yale — good thing the Ivies give students a good education at least.) Brown has a game against Connecticut on Tuesday evening, which may spoil their undefeated run: Connecticut have been inconsistent this year, but they’re not Holy Cross.
  • They call it the CHA because being a goalie there is tor-CHA: Syracuse played Lindenwood and Mercyhurst played Robert Morris in two two-game series where the winning score was at least 4 goals in each game. (SYR-LIN: 5-4 OT, then 6-3; MCY-RMU: 4-2 then 1-5). As a result you’ll see a lot of Syracuse players high in the points this week’s table, with Anonda Hoppner ($7.90, 5.1 points on the week (WP), 5.4 points on the season (SP)) nearly twenty-tupling her season points total (if twenty-tupling is a word) and winning our Most Overlooked award for highest scoring player of the week that no fantasy manager picked.
  • Top Ten Battles:
    — Minnesota outshot OSU 47-18 on Friday and won 3-0, then outshot them 42-28 on Saturday and lost 3-2. Andrea Brändli ($20.80, 8.9 SP) was in net for Ohio for both games; Alex Gulstene ($13.10, 4.7 SP) had the win for Minnesota, Sydney Scobee ($34.80, 3.85 SP) had the loss. Emma Maltais ($43, 12.1 SP) continued her quiet run of excellence: she’s never been OSU’s top scorer on any weekend, but she’s in fourth place in the whole league in total points scored for the season. Also, Ohio state literally took a penalty at the start of the second game because the numbers on their jerseys weren’t a different enough color from the background.
    — Clarkson played St. Lawrence a home-and-home in their annual “Just For One Weekend Can We Not Sit On A Bus For Four Hours” series. St. Lawrence handed the Golden Knights their first loss of the season, 4-3 in OT, on Friday, and Clarkson took revenge 4-0 on Saturday. The series was notable for a five fantasy point explosion from Elizabeth Giguère ($66.10, 8.8 SP), who started the season quite quietly until I traded her last week. Ella Shelton ($48.90, 12 SP) had her first weekend of the year where she wasn’t Clarkson’s highest point scorer, with 1.4 fantasy points.
  • Out of conference:
    — A weekend after Mark Johnson became the winningest coach in NCAA D1 women’s hockey history, he made another little piece of history as Wisconsin played their first ever games against Princeton. Princeton could have been forgiven a blowout, playing their first two games of the season against a seasoned and excellent Wisconsin team, but they put up a respectable showing, losing 4-3 and 3-0 and only being outshot 28-19 and 32-25. I think it was widely expected that junior Steph Neatby ($31.10, 0 SP) would get the start, but in fact redshirt freshman and fellow Ontaroon Rachel McQuigge ($4.50, 3.95 SP) started both games. Wisconsin got balanced scoring, with Abby Roque ($41.10, 12.9 SP) and Sophie Shirley ($27.90, 8.2 SP) the biggest contributors. Carly Bullock ($24.80, 1.7 SP) and Sarah Fillier ($24.60, 1.2 SP) both got two goal/assist points on the weekend, though it seems like Fillier is a bit fond of the penalty box.
    — Providence and Penn State played probably the wildest series of the weekend. Providence took the first one 3-2 in overtime. In the second, Penn State went up 3-0; Providence pulled the goalie (Sandra Abstreiter, $14.40, 1.4 SP) with seven minutes to go and immediately scored to make it 3-1; then they put her back in the net and were scored on seven seconds later to make it 4-1; then they pulled her again and gave up an empty netter to make it 5-1; and then they got two power plays in the last three minutes of the game and scored in the last thirty seconds of both of them for a 5-3 final score. Natalie Heising ($28.20, 10 SP) continued to dominate for Penn State with 3.3 fantasy points on the series, and Maureen Murphy ($40.10, 12.3 SP) crushed the doubters again for Providence with 6.1 fantasy points on the weekend, making her the weekend’s highest fantasy scorer by a healthy margin.
  • Around the WCHA: Minnesota State, traditionally the weakest of the WCHA teams, outshot St. Cloud and beat them 3-1 on Friday, then outshot them more and lost 2-1 on Saturday. Emma Polusny ($30.20, 6.5 SP) got the win for St. Cloud, Janine Alder ($23.5, 7.5 SP) got the loss. Abigail Levy ($21.30, 8.9 SP) was in goal for Minnesota State and as usual was their highest fantasy scorer for the weekend. Minnesota-Duluth pounded Bemidji 6-1 on Friday and tapped them lightly 2-0 on Saturday, in a series in which all eight UMD goals were scored at even strength. Ashton “arson in a naval dockyard” Bell ($22.80, 3.7 SP) scored 4.3 fantasy points, giving her a positive total for the first time the season and totally justifying the decisions of managers who didn’t trade her even if that was by accident.
  • Around Hockey East: Northeastern beat Maine 3-0 and New Hampshire 3-1. Northeastern’s top fantasy point scorer was Brooke Hobson ($21.90, 8.3 SP) who, with Veronika Pettey ($30.90, 9.6 SP), is quietly putting together an impressive season that sees them both in the top 15 in points per game. BC beat Merrimack 3-1 and Vermont 3-0 — neither win super convincing, but the Vermont win was Maddy McArthur ($28.80, 8.45 SP)’s first collegiate shutout. UConn tied BU 1-1 and then lost 3-1 to Merrimack. Maine lost to Northeastern 3-0 and then squeezed past BU 2-1, giving up a goal to an extra attacker with 90 seconds to go but holding on for the win.
  • Around the ECAC: Harvard beat Dartmouth 3-1 in both teams’ first game of the season. Former USA U18 captain Dominique Petrie ($26.30, 2.1 SP) got two goals in her first collegiate game.
  • Up goes Brown: The last time Brown had a season record over .5 was 2005-06 (this was also the only Olympic cycle where the USA won bronze, so it was clearly just a weird year). Last year, Brown won only two games. This year Brown is 2-0-0 to start! It’s probably worth noting though that two seasons ago the Bears also started 2-0-0 with two games against Sacred Heart in which they scored more than they did against Holy Cross in the weekend just gone (3-1 and 4-0 this weekend, 6-0 and 7-3 two years ago) and that season ended 7-22-0.
  • At this point it just looks like slacking off: Cornell and Yale still haven’t played, though Cornell’s first game, against Syracuse on Tuesday, will count for this week’s final standings./

Weekly Awards

Individual Awards

  • Most points: Maureen Murphy (Providence, 6.1 points this week (WP), 12.3 points this season (SP)), from Maddie Rooney (5.45 WP) and Naomi Rogge (5.3 WP)
  • Most overlooked (highest scoring player that no-one picked): Anonda Hoppner (Syracuse, 5.1 WP, 5.4 SP)
  • Biggest boost (highest scoring player that only one manager picked): Naomi Rogge (Minnesota-Duluth, 5.3 WP, 6.9 SP)
  • Biggest contribution (highest value of points this week * number of teams they’re on): Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, 5 points * 14 picks = 70.0 total contribution). This week, Sophie Shirley (4.1 * 16 = 65.6), Maddy Rooney (5.45 * 12 = 65.4) and Loren Gabel (4 * 16 = 64) also had total contributions over 65 points. Last week the highest contribution was 36!
  • Best Freshman: Shay Maloney (Brown, 4.2 WP, 4.2 SP)
  • Best Sophomore: Maureen Murphy (Providence, 6.1 WP, 12.3 SP)
  • Best Junior: Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, 5.45 WP, 14.7 SP)
  • Best Senior: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 4 WP, 10.3 SP)
  • Best D: Whitney Dove (Providence, 4 WP, 6.6 SP)
  • Best F: Maureen Murphy (Providence, 6.1 WP, 12.3 SP)
  • Best Goalie: Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, 5.45 WP, 14.7 SP)  /

Team of the week

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

Roster: Maureen Murphy (Providence, F, 6.1), Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, G, 5.45), Naomi Rogge (Minnesota-Duluth, F, 5.3), Anonda Hoppner (Syracuse, F, 5.1), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 5), Ashton Bell (Minnesota-Duluth, F, 4.3), Shay Maloney (Brown, F, 4.2), Abby Roque (Wisconsin, F, 4.1), Sophie Shirley (Wisconsin, F, 4.1), Andrea Brändli (OSU, G, 4.05), Loren Gabel (Clarkson, F, 4), Whitney Dove (Providence, D, 4), Jessica DiGirolamo (Syracuse, D, 4), Rachel McQuigge (Princeton, G, 3.95), Sierra Burt (Lindenwood, F, 3.1)

Score: 67.45 (maximum score by a manager this week: 40.55, Moves Like Giguère)

Cost: 444.20

Housekeeping

  • Injuries: Emily Clark (Wisconsin, $43.50, 6.8 SP) is out indefinitely with an ankle/knee injury; apparently the expectation is that she’ll miss Four Nations, which is a real pity. Haley Mack ($24.40, 0 SP) for Bemidji still hasn’t played since their first game. In better news, Christina Putigna ($24.30, 1.1 SP), who was Providence’s highest point scorer last season but hadn’t yet played this season, returned to action in the second game of the Penn State series and scored 1.1 fantasy points.
  • New Players This Weekend:
    — Jacquie Tam (Brown, $15, 1 SP) — freshman forward at Brown who got a point in her first weekend, which has not happened a lot for Brown in the last ten years.
  • Players Who Didn’t Play Last Year:
    — Rose Falzone (Dartmouth, $4.20, 1 SP): Junior who didn’t play as a sophomore and got a point in Dartmouth’s first game against Harvard this weekend.
    — Annelise Rice (Providence, $13, 0 SP): Sophomore who played one year with North Dakota and skated with the Whitecaps last year while between schools. Tweets a lot about dogs.
    — Lexie Laing (Harvard, $1, 0 SP): The last of the Laing sisters, injured three games into her intended senior year last year and returning to hopefully play a full senior season this year. As a junior she was Harvard’s highest point scorer with 21 goals+assists on the season, so if she’s healthy that could be a shot in the arm for the Harvard offense (and a value pickup for managers).
  • Name Changes: Christie Honor (Dartmouth, $34.80, 1.45 SP) -> Christine Honor./

Coming up

Every single team is playing next week. BU (v Northeastern) and Union (v Connecticut) only have one game; BC (v Holy Cross, Maine, and Connecticut) and Northeastern (v Providence, BU and Vermont) have three; and everyone else has two. The most mouthwatering games for my money are Minnesota at Wisconsin on Saturday and Sunday, and Ohio State at St. Lawrence on Friday and Saturday, though the one-off Northeastern / Providence game on Friday should be a shot fiesta.

In Thursday’s trade tips post, a look at the Four Nations rosters and how they may affect play at the start of November. 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. Good luck this week, everyone!