Happy Tuesday, again! We have three more 600 point-getters and razor-thin margins between 5th and 6th, 7th and 8th, and 10th through 16th. And I’m Going To Be Perfectly Frankel is closing on House of Seven Gabels! THRILLING. Our leader is still Grant Salzano’s 1.21 GigaWatts, as we’ve come to reconcile ourselves to, though he’s in for a shock when I rule that you can only win if your team name is a pun on a player who’s actually still on your team. No backsies no do-overs.

Standings, 2019-02-19

The full standings, dynamically updated, are here. There are no more games till next Friday, sadface, so these are the final standings for the week and the Team of the Week below is also final.

What happened this weekend?

Well, in the ECAC, this happened:

Much excitement! pic.twitter.com/qdAmu4BcvB

— Dartmouth WHockey (@Dartmouth_WIH) February 16, 2019

Yes, that’s Dartmouth beating Clarkson with nine seconds to go in overtime on a poor line change. Dartmouth was 4-20-1 coming into this weekend, and the highlights of their season to date had been the day they had a really nice meal and that one time they all saw a puppy. This was a very different team from the one whose previous best result was a 3-2 overtime win over Quinnipiac, back when Quinnipiac was bad. Dartmouth finished up a memorable Senior Weekend with a 0-0 tie with St. Lawrence, giving them their first three-point weekend of the season.

Meanwhile, just down I-93 on Saturday, this happened:

Since no-one else seems to have tweeted it... Here's the game winning goal for @CUknights against @HarvardWHockey, a thrilling conclusion to a great game with less than five seconds left in overtime. pic.twitter.com/ojnsmqJkki

— wwhyte (@wwhyte) February 18, 2019

Yes, that’s Clarkson beating Harvard 3-2 with 4.9 seconds to go in overtime in another thrilling game. The winning goal was, of course, Loren Gabel (Clarkson, $73.30, 57.6 SP, 3 WP, 18 picks) from Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, $77.50, 62.8 SP, 3.6 WP, 15 picks). Prior to that game, Harvard had won six of seven games in February and scored four or more goals in five of those games, capping it off with a 4-2 victory over St. Lawrence the previous Friday. So a good Senior Weekend for Harvard too.

In Quinnipiac/Princeton v Union/RPI, Quinnipiac beat Union 5-0 and RPI 4-0. In both games the losing goalie had a save percentage of over .900, and in both games Quinnipiac kept their opponent to under 15 shots. Quinnipiac have now scored four or more goals in four of their last five games. What is unhappening at Quinnipiac and why didn’t it unhappen earlier?

Meanwhile, Princeton beat Union 4-1 in a 53 shots to 33 shots shootout, with Union goalie Amelia Murray (Union, $24.20, 23.75 SP, 3.95 WP, 0 picks) making 97 saves over the weekend. Most significantly for the Pairwise, RPI took a 2-1 lead over Princeton halfway through the second and held on against 58 shots on goal for a huge victory, their first of the year over ranked opposition. Lovisa Selander (RPI, $51.30, 48.95 SP, 4.45 WP, 1 pick) was the hero of the weekend for RPI, obviously.

Related

2018-2019 NCAA Women’s Hockey Pairwise Rankings

Interestingly, for these relatively weak weekends for both Clarkson and Princeton, both Clarkson head coach Matt Desrosiers and Princeton head coach Cara Morey were at the Rivalry Series instead of on their college team’s bench. Desrosiers was assistant-coaching Canada, Morey was assistant-coaching the USA. You have to wonder if that game-losing line change for Clarkson against Dartmouth would have happened with Desrosiers there.

Brown/Yale at Colgate/Cornell went much more according to the form book, though on Friday both Brown at Cornell and Yale at Colgate were tied through to halfway through the second period. Eventual scores were Colgate 6 Yale 3, Cornell 4 Brown 1, Colgate 4 Brown 0, and Cornell 4 Yale 0. Shae Labbe (Colgate, $46.50, 39.5 SP, 6 WP, 1 pick) and Maddie Mills (Cornell, $43, 36.8 SP, 4 WP, 0 picks) both had good weekends and are on track for 40 fantasy points for the season.

Hockey East

UNH and BU played a home-and home. On Saturday, in BU’s big barn at Agganis arena, BU twice missed an empty net with barely a minute to go, and UNH’s Taylor Wenczkowski (UNH, $25.10, 23.4 SP, 2.6 WP, 0 picks) got her first career hat trick with twenty seconds left to level the game at 3-3. UNH held on through overtime. On Sunday, BU took the game 2-1 to extend the longest undefeated streak in D1 to thirteen games, 10-0-3. (The longest win streak is, of course, Wisconsin’s at five).

Vermont beat Holy Cross twice and Maine lost to BC 2-1 and 5-2 in two very different games, which means that the winner of the one-off Vermont/Maine game on Saturday Feb 23rd goes through to the playoffs and the loser goes out. As your agent, I still have to advise you to dump all players from both teams, but you’re a grownup and can make your own decisions. Stick tap to freshman Theresa Schafzahl (Vermont, $16.20, 15.3 SP, 4.1 WP, 1 pick), who’s the fourth different Vermont player to appear in a Team of the Week.

Northeastern, with the Hockey East regular season title wrapped up and home ice for the NCAA tournament all but guaranteed, seem to be taking the foot off the gas a little. They beat Providence 3-1 and then lost to them 5-2 in a series in which the big guns were pretty silent: there were low scores for Christina Putigna (Providence, $25.20, 21.6 SP, 1.3 WP, 0 picks), Maureen Murphy (Providence, $47.20, 42.9 SP, 0.2 WP, 9 picks), Alina Mueller (Northeastern, $45, 39.9 SP, 0.2 WP, 16 picks) and Chloé Aurard (Northeastern, $29.50, 26.4 SP, -0.2 WP, 8 picks). Skylar Fontaine (Northeastern, $44.3, 40.4 SP, 5.4 WP, 2 picks) continues to be Northeastern’s most consistent player; she’s only a sophomore, so things look promising for Northeastern for the next few seasons.

And Merrimack blasted Connecticut 7-1, and followed it up by coming from 2-0 down to earn a 2-2 tie. Katelyn Rae (Merrimack, $42.30, 40.2 SP, 6 WP, 3 picks) had a huge weekend, and Mikyla Grant-Mentis (Merrimack, $32.80, 31.8 SP, 3.2 WP, 0 picks) continued her recent strong run.

WCHA

We thought that the Wisconsin / UMD series was a chance for Wisconsin to drop a game, but Wisconsin thought different. Game one went 6-1, with points for the players we’d assumed would be Wisco’s big guns, i.e. Emily Clark (Wisconsin, $28.10, 21 SP, 3 WP, 4 picks) and Annie Pankowski (Wisconsin, $43, 36.7 SP, 2.7 WP, 7 picks). Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, $46.90, 41.15 SP, 3.1 WP, 11 picks) was pulled after 4 goals on 27 shots, but Emma Söderberg (Minnesota-Duluth, $6.70, 4.55 SP, 0.35 WP, 0 picks) let in two goals on 11. Game two went 3-0, with Rooney making 49 saves on 52 shots.

We thought that the Minnesota / Minnesota State series was likely to be two easy wins for Minnesota, but Minnesota thought different. Game one went 3-1 Minnesota, game two was a 3-2 overtime epic where Minnesota trailed at the start of the third period. Abigail Levy (Minnesota State, $44.30, 43 SP, 3.15 WP, 7 picks) had two games in a row with a save percentage over .92 and may be putting Minnesota State in a position to surprise someone in the WCHA playoffs.

Ohio State had the weekend off, and Bemidji beat St. Cloud 4-2 and 2-1.

CHA

The CHA continued its campaign to be about as predictable as a coin flip, but take longer and be more fun.

On Friday, there were two ties and a one-goal victory (Mercyhurst 1 Penn State 1; Robert Morris 2 Lindenwood 2; Syracuse 0 RIT 1).

On Saturday, Mercyhurst tied Penn State 2-2, RIT tied Syracuse 1-1, oh and Lindenwood scored six goals on 15 shots and Sophie Wolf (Lindenwood, $21, 19.55 SP, 3.75 WP, 0 picks) made 41 saves for a 6-1 (!) victory over Robert Morris. That’s the CHA!

While I have your attention, here are some stats about overtime games

Harvard has played seven overtimes this season and not won any of them. There are plenty of teams who are in this position, but Harvard is the only one who has lost more than they’ve tied — three ties, four losses, including the Beanpot final. Meanwhile, BU has played in nine overtimes this season and every single one of them was a tie EXCEPT the Beanpot final (and, of course, the Beanpot final overtime was still scoreless after five minutes, when most overtimes end). The highest ranked team to have tied every single overtime game is Cornell, which is 0-0-6 in overtime games.

Weekly Awards

Individual awards

Most points: Shae Labbe (Colgate, 6 points this week (WP), 39.5 points this season (SP)), from Katelyn Rae (6 WP) and Skylar Fontaine (5.4 WP)

Most overlooked (highest scoring player that no-one picked): MacKenzie Lancaster (Quinnipiac, 4.2 WP, 21.9 SP)

Biggest boost (highest scoring player that only one manager picked): Shae Labbe (Colgate, 6 WP, 39.5 SP)

Biggest contribution (highest value of points this week * number of teams they’re on): Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, 3.6 points * 15 picks = 54.0 total contribution) — note that despite this, Giguère didn’t make the team of the week for cost reasons.

Best Freshman: Lindsay Reed (Harvard, 4.4 WP, 38.85 SP)

Best Sophomore: Skylar Fontaine (Northeastern, 5.4 WP, 40.4 SP)

Best Junior: Terra Lanteigne (RIT, 4.8 WP, 48.2 SP)

Best Senior: Shae Labbe (Colgate, 6 WP, 39.5 SP)

Best D: Skylar Fontaine (Northeastern, 5.4 WP, 40.4 SP)

Best F: Shae Labbe (Colgate, 6 WP, 39.5 SP)

Best Goalie: Terra Lanteigne (RIT, 4.8 WP, 48.2 SP)

Here’s Shae Labbe doing Shae Labbe.

PING!! Labbe goes off the post and in to give the Raiders the early lead!#WePlayFree #GoGate pic.twitter.com/2nUgiQQ7PK

— Colgate Women’s Hockey (@ColgateWIH) February 16, 2019

Team of the week

It was a week of great goaltending, and also a week of terrible goaltending. This was the first time that we had three goalies in the top six of the the team of the week — often the goalies are below the best skaters, but in this case there were eight goalies who scored more than the bottom TOTW skater did. It was also a week where, of the seven skaters who cost over $50 (Elizabeth Giguère, Loren Gabel, Megan Keller, Jesse Compher, Michaela Pejzlová, Jessie Eldridge, Emma Maltais), only Compher showed up in the team of the week, but a lot of scoring came from players in the $40-$50 range which meant the average cost of this week’s high-scoring players was, well, above average. So I ended up having to go down to 22rd place in the rankings to complete the TOTW, which I believe is a record.

To give full props to this week’s goalies, in addition to Lanteigne, Selander and Reed, we saw great performances from:

• Kennedy Blair (Mercyhurst, $20.30, 14.4 SP, 4.1 WP, 1 pick)
• Christine Honor (Dartmouth, $27.20, 27.2 SP, 4.05 WP, 0 picks)
• Amelia Murray (Union, $24.20, 23.75 SP, 3.95 WP, 0 picks)
• Sophie Wolf (Lindenwood, $21, 19.55 SP, 3.75 WP, 0 picks)
• Samantha Ridgewell (Merrimack, $42.80, 41. SP, 3.6 WP, 0 picks)/

Having said all that, the actual team of the week is:

• Roster: Shae Labbe (Colgate, F, 6), Katelyn Rae (Merrimack, F, 6), Skylar Fontaine (Northeastern, D, 5.4), Terra Lanteigne (RIT, G, 4.8), Lovisa Selander (RPI, G, 4.45), Lindsay Reed (Harvard, G, 4.4), Jesse Compher (BU, F, 4.2), MacKenzie Lancaster (Quinnipiac, F, 4.2), Kristin Della Rovere (Harvard, F, 4.1), Theresa Schafzahl (Vermont, F, 4.1), Maddie Mills (Cornell, F, 4), Sammy Davis (BU, F, 3.9), Jaime Bourbonnais (Cornell, D, 3.9), Micah Zandee-Hart (Cornell, D, 3.9), Olivia Konigson (Quinnipiac, D, 3.3)
• Score: 66.65
• Cost: 570.10/

This is the first time since November 13th last year that the TOTW hasn’t had anyone from Clarkson or Princeton.

What’s coming up?

Everyone has two games this coming weekend — even Ohio State! — except:

• The following teams only have one: BC, UConn, Holy Cross, Maine, UNH, Vermont
• St. Cloud has the weekend off./

The weekend has some great matchups:

• Providence at Holy Cross is a chance for Providence to continue the momentum it got against Northeastern and for Maureen Murphy (Providence, $47.20, 42.9 SP, 0.2 WP, 9 picks) to give one last present to the managers who picked her.
• Cornell and Colgate at Union would have seemed like likely goal fiestas, except for Amelia Murray’s amazing performance this weekend.
• Cornell and Colgate at RPI are two more chances for ranked teams to get Selandered.
• In Quinnipiac at Clarkson, Clarkson’s formerly fine-tuned but now stuttering scoring engine comes up against a Quinnipiac who has rediscovered its stifling defense and got its shooting groove back.
• Ohio State at Wisconsin is a pair of games with first place in the WCHA on the line for Wisconsin and an Ohio State team with fresh legs and something to prove.
• The two game series of Northeastern at Merrimack gives Merrimack a shot at home ice for the Hockey East playoffs, and two chances to add Northeastern to BC on the list of big names they’ve knocked off.
• Maine and Vermont play a single game where the loser’s season ends and the winner gets to go to Northeastern for the playoffs. (In the event of a tie Vermont takes it.)
• And OH BOY PRINCETON AT CLARKSON./

You have one trade this week. I’ve updated the cost tab already so you can start planning it now. Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 pm Eastern on Thursday February 21st please. Let’s sport!