Have you ever had one of those days where they expect you to do work in work? Man. This may be a short one.

Standings, 2018-02-04

The lead changed hands twice over the weekend, but we ended with the same top three as last week — except this week, first and second place are separated by 0.05 points out of 541, which is literally as tight as it could possibly be. Congratulations to Moose for hanging on, and to 1.21 GigaWatts for making it tight.

These aren’t the final standings for the week, because it’s Beanpot week! We have BC v Harvard as the late game and Northeastern v BU as the early game on Tuesday, with a rare weekday WCHA game between Minnesota State and St. Cloud to keep things interesting. So I’ll try to do an update post on Thursday morning with final standings.

What happened this weekend?

It was CHAOS among the top teams, though the CHAOS was so EVENLY SPREAD that it had VIRTUALLY NO EFFECT on the standings or polls.

Related

SB Nation’s Women’s College Hockey Division I Poll:

Wisconsin lost 2-1 to Bemidji, then came back for a solid 4-0 win. Wisconsin got 30 shots or fewer in both games. Maybe Bemidji have rediscovered the stifling defense that got them to the WCHA Championship Game in 2015. Maybe we’re seeing the drop-off in offense at the end of the season that seems to have happened to Wisconsin every year since I can remember, i.e. 2014.

Minnesota lost to Minnesota-Duluth 3-2 in overtime, and then came back to win the second game 5-3, though, with the go-ahead goal scored with less than four minutes to go and the final scored on an empty net, that was clearly a game that could have gone the other way too. Although Maddie Rooney let in six goals, she made 81 saves and got an assist and ended the weekend on 5.7 points. That’s the second most points scored by a goalie in any week this season, behind Lovisa Selander’s 6.7 last week and ahead of Maddie Rooney (again!) with 5.45 in week 4. Sarah Potomak amazingly had her first three-game points streak of the season, including an amazing goal scored off Rooney’s pads from behind the goal line.

How about that @sarahpotomak9! pic.twitter.com/XYjnTrViQx

— Minnesota Women’s Hockey (@GopherWHockey) February 3, 2019

Northeastern trailed Connecticut 1-0 from 16:40 of the first period to 18:24 of the third, when Chloé Aurard got the tying goal. Skylar Fontaine put the game away for Northeastern, 2-1 in overtime.

Princeton outshot Clarkson 38-20 but lost 3-1, in probably the first game this year that Kassidy Sauvé has really saved for Clarkson. Clarkson’s top line got all the goals, but they can’t play all sixty minutes in the postseason. The previous day, Princeton needed overtime to beat St. Lawrence 4-3. Princeton’s travel partner Qunnipiac also hosted Clarkson and St. Lawrence, losing to Clarkson 3-2 and to St. Lawrence 5-4. If I’m a Quinnipiac fan I look at that and see the offense finally, finally waking up after that morale-boosting win over UMD last weekend. Not only did Qunnipiac play it close, they outshot St. Lawrence 44-20 and Clarkson 34-25. Likewise, if I’m a St. Lawrence fan, I look at eight goals scored in a weekend against two good teams — or one good team and one good defensive team — and I think things might be turning the corner. Meanwhile, Loren Gabel motors on and is now on 106 career goals, a school record.

Two goals for @lgabel9 and a good show of hand eye coordination from @MichellePejzl for a 3-1 lead after 2 periods! #LetsGoTech pic.twitter.com/KjFwWaBGtd

— Clarkson Womens Hockey (@CUknights) February 2, 2019

So Clarkson was the highest-ranked team to win two games, but below that in the standing there was dominance by the higher-ranked team. Cornell beat Union 7-0 and RPI 5-0, with a 5.7 fantasy point weekend for Kristin O’Neill. Colgate beat Union 5-2 and RPI 4-1. Ohio State got their groove back, and Andrea Brändli got both starts, in a 4-0 5-0 sweep of St. Cloud. BC played one of their best games to beat Holy Cross 6-0, a step forward from their 5-1 and 5-0 wins earlier in the season. BU turned on the jets to beat Vermont 7-2. Even Harvard, who aren’t ranked but have good goaltending, blew past Yale 5-2 and Brown 4-0. Managers holding Lindsay Reed will be sad to hear that Beth Larcom got the start, and the shutout, in the Brown game, but I think we can expect to see Reed in net for the BC game in the Beanpot.

(Also: Dartmouth 5 Brown 2, Providence 2 Merrimack 2, Mercyhurst 3 RIT 2, UConn 1 Providence 3, Vermont 2 Holy Cross 1, UNH beat Maine 5-2 and 3-2, I think that’s it).

Team of the week

A four-way tie for first place! And a second great performance in two weeks for Boston Pride draft pick Jenna Rheault of New Hampshire, who has leapt from 2.8 fantasy points for the season two weeks ago to 12.4 today. I wonder what the Pride scouts saw that the stats were missing.

Related

Rounds 3-5 of the 2018 NWHL Draft

Roster: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, F, 5.7), Kristin O’Neill (Cornell, F, 5.7), Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, G, 5.7), Jenna Rheault (UNH, D, 5.7), Lexie Laing (Harvard, F, 5.3), Jessie Eldridge (Colgate, F, 5.1), Maryna Macdonald (Harvard, D, 5.1), Kayla Nielsen (SLU, F, 5.1), Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, F, 5), Maddie Mills (Cornell, F, 4.8), Shae Labbe (Colgate, F, 4.1), Andrea Brändli (OSU, G, 4), Emma Maltais (OSU, F, 4), Serena Sommerfield (BC, D, 3.9), Tera Hofmann (Yale, G, 3.6),

Score: 72.8

Cost: 583.80

Individual awards

Most points: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 5.7 points this week (WP), 53.7 points this season (SP)), from Kristin O’Neill (5.7 WP) and Maddie Rooney (5.7 WP)

Most overlooked (highest scoring player that no-one picked): Jenna Rheault (UNH, 5.7 WP, 12.4 SP)

Biggest boost (highest scoring player that only one manager picked): Lexie Laing (Harvard, 5.3 WP, 17.2 SP)

Biggest contribution (highest value of points this week * number of teams they’re on): Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 5.7 points * 18 picks = 102.6 total contribution)

Best Freshman: Maryna Macdonald (Harvard, 5.1 WP, 7.6 SP)

Best Sophomore: Elizabeth Giguère (Clarkson, 5 WP, 57 SP)

Best Junior: Kristin O’Neill (Cornell, 5.7 WP, 26.3 SP)

Best Senior: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 5.7 WP, 53.7 SP)

Best D: Jenna Rheault (UNH, 5.7 WP, 12.4 SP)

Best F: Loren Gabel (Clarkson, 5.7 WP, 53.7 SP)

Best Goalie: Maddie Rooney (Minnesota-Duluth, 5.7 WP, 36.95 SP)

That’s it!

Thin post today, sorry, but will try to get more up later this week. Player costs are here, though costs for players from BC, BU, Harvard, Minnesota State, Northeastern, and St. Cloud will change before the trade deadline. Trades to tigFantasyHockey@gmail.com by 11:59 on Thursday February 7th please. Have a good week, everyone!