Goalie Announcements (Nov 3)

Well, the workload has picked up at the office, hence the lack of blog posts over the last couple of days, so we'll play a little bit of catch-up with the goalie survivor pool, just ahead of another busy night in the NHL schedule.

Seven teams have already qualified for Week Five in the survivor pool, with Wilton, Grant, Dale C., Mike, Troy, Jeremy and Stacey M. all qualifying either on Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Marcie, Cam, John, Stuart, Brenda & Seward and Ryan are all still in need of a W and I would imagine that most will get their shot tonight with 12 more games on the docket.

The Edmonton Oilers are taking their fast-paced show to the Big Apple, taking on the New York Rangers tonight. Marcie will get a start from Cam Talbot to try and qualify for next week and it will be a good test against Henrik Lundqvist, who helped qualify Grant already.  Talbot is the top player in the pool rankings still today, already posting 18 points to start the year, so the Rangers will be in tough as well.

Cam and Stuart will go head-to-head for a win tonight in the Sunshine State, as Roberto Luongo and the Florida Panthers will welcome Cory Schneider and the New Jersey Devils.  The ex-Canucks teammates will meet again this season, the first time going the way of the teacher in the swamp.  The first game was a 2-1 overtime win, so really, it's anyone's game when they play against each other.

Ryan will indeed get a shot at a win tonight, with one of his two supporting keepers, as Andrei Vasilevskiy will get the call for the Tampa Bay Lightning.  The Boston Bruins are the visiting team on the night and they will go with their number one, Tuukka Rask, giving Troy a second start on the night, as his team continues to try and work itself out of the dregs of the standings.

In the shark tank tonight, the Calgary Flames will throw Chad Johnson in to see if he can swim with the Sharks, giving John are rare start from the Flames back-up.  He'll get a tough test from Wes' Martin Jones at the other end, who is still playing exceptionally well to start the season.  There's nothing easy here for the Flames, as they travel through the divisional minefield that is California.

A second start for Cam on the evening, as he sees Marc-Andre Fleury go for the Pittsburgh Penguins, taking on the Los Angeles Kings, who will continue to ride Peter Budaj until he cannot play no more.  Fleury finally relinquished the net to Matt Murray last night, so now he has to step up his game even more to make sure he can keep that number one job, although we still have the feeling that Murray will have to lose the job.

It will be Robin Lehner and the Buffalo Sabres playing host to Frederik Andersen and the Toronto Maple Leafs at the First Niagara Center tonight, Jeremy's goalie against Brian's goalie in the pool match-up.  The injury-burdened Sabres will certainly have their hands full with this young Leafs lineup, that's for sure.

The Winnipeg Jets are in Washington tonight to take on the Capitals and it is an all-qualified goalie match-up there tonight, as Michael Hutchinson will meet Braden Holtby, giving extra starts to Grant and Jeremy tonight.  This will mean that Grant has both of his goalies going tonight, giving him a good shot to move up into the money tonight.

The Philadelphia Flyers are playing on back-to-back nights tonight in Brooklyn, so they will send the goalie that won last night, Tony's Michal Neuvirth.  Jaroslav Halak might be on the trade block, but the Islanders are not going to sit him while they look for a deal, likely to help showcase his talents, which is also good news for Troy, who could still use the starts and the potential points.

The Vancouver Canucks are on back-to-back nights, so they will send their second goalie out tonight, giving Clayton a start with Jacob Markstrom, while the Senators will have the newly-acquired, non-pool goalie, Mike Condon in net.  One would hope that the pool goalie would be the favourite, but...

Two eliminated teams, Marcin and Kristy & Don, will have their number one keepers going for points in Chicago tonight, with Corey Crawford playing host to Semyon Varlamov.  Both pool teams had high expectations on these two, but they were not able to keep them in the survivor pool.

Two teams still in the survivor pool, but not in need of wins, will see their goalies go in Dallas tonight, as Mike's Jake Allen will line up against Wilton's Antti Niemi and this one should be a decent divisional match-up game.  Niemi is trying to string a couple wins together and keep the number one job for a little while.

The Nashville Predators are really trying to get Pekka Rinne going, not losing faith in him, despite some shaky starts, which is good for Stacey M.. She gets another start from her qualified goalie, while Wes is finally starting to see the odd point or two from Louis Domingue, who goes again for the Coyotes at home tonight.