
Long weekend Monday! With any luck, I'm hoping to have long weekends through until the end of the calendar year, which should mean some pretty good Newsletters, in theory. Try not to get your hopes up too far, but maybe a little bit more than normal.


Another impressive statistic, one that I don't believe that I have seen before in writing the Player of the Week nods for this Newsletter, is a goalie that started the week 0-2-0, allowing 7 goals against in the first part of the week and then turning around and posting back-to-back shutouts for his 8 points.
Yes, after dropping games against Boston and Toronto earlier in the week, traveling through Montreal and Philadelphia was much easier for him, posting the shutouts on Thursday and Saturday. The Wild have not been shy, playing their number one goalie, even on back-to-back nights, but that could be more because their regular back-up was away from the team as well.
Nevertheless, the 8 points from 2 wins and 2 shutouts brings his overall total up to 6 wins, 2 shutouts and an assist for 17 points, now good for 50th overall in pool scoring, worthy of being right at the end of the 2nd round today. It's still fairly early in the season and this is the sign of bouncing back, but Dubnyk was taken 9th overall in the draft, sitting as a slight bust for Brenda & Seward, but again, the bounce back seems to be coming along.
Thanks to Dubnyk's big week, the duo continue to be moving in the right direction in the standings, moving up again from 18th to 14th.


Holtby and Winnipeg Jets forward Blake Wheeler were his two best players in Week Six, both finishing with 6 points a piece, exactly what two of his top three picks of the season should be doing. Nazem Kadri of the Maple Leafs also chipped in with 5 points, while Patrik Laine of the Jets had 4 points.
Grant's team had three naughts on his team, two thanks to players being on the Injured Reserve, while the other one couldn't get a win out of his only start this week. Everyone else seemed to be contributing at a pretty good clip and he could be getting one of those injured players back before too long, as Travis Hamonic has started skating with the Flames again this past weekend.
It has been three years to the week, since Grant's last Mover & Shaker nod, as he was last glorified in Week Six of the 2015 season, where he finished back-to-back weeks in the top spot in weekly scoring. The last season he saw a Mover & Shaker nod, he finished in 2nd place in that pool, but he was also in 1st place when he had that Mover & Shaker. Being in 16th place with the award means that there is much more of a climb, but it is a positive sign.

To Wes' team's credit, that is now the highest total of points that has been collected by a Basement Dweller team, but at the same time, that took it down from 13th to 19th in the standings. Sure, that has likely improved his Waiver Draft pick selection in a few weeks, but that's not really what you want. Wes' team is only 24 points back of the money, so it's not a devastating blow, but they'll just need to work harder is all.
Cam Talbot of the Oilers was his team's best player, finishing with 4 points in the week, while Derick Brassard of the Senators and Jacob Markstrom of the Canucks each had 2 points, so there was some production in there. His team did have the best Basement Dweller week of the year, after all. There were five naughts on his team though, one due to a long-term injury, the other four were just cold as ice.

Nevertheless, Brian still holds the current tie-breaker in goals scored, leading Dale C. by 10 in that category, which makes them 1st and 2nd, respectively. Jeremy was dethroned this week, his first week outside of 1st place this season, thanks to being one of those four teams that just narrowly avoided the Basement Dweller nod. Benson fell out of the money this week too, dropping from 2nd to 6th, being in the same boat as Jeremy this week. Dale B. made a big leap, from 10th to 4th, proving the point about a big week doing great things, as the reigning champ is ready to let go yet.

The last team to be eliminated was Brian in Week Four and since then, he has had more than enough wins, but that's not the whole point of the survivor pool now is it?
Grant, Mike, Cam, Stacey M., Chris, Wilton, Benson, Stacey C., Tony and Jeremy remain as the ten teams still in the pool.

Unfortunately for our Basement Dweller, Wes, his team set a new weekly record for the worst plus/minus in the week, dropping a -16 on the last seven days, dropping his team to 21st in the standings.

It wasn't a record-setting week, by any means, as Wes' team has found that record, back in Week Four, picking up 42 minutes in penalties, which has helped his team to the overall lead in the category, out-pacing his rivals, Brenda & Seward, by 22 minutes, through six weeks.

There are quite a few good rookies that will be taken in the Waiver Draft, early on as well. If you're shopping for some scoring help, you'll trip over some freshmen, like Alexander Kerfoot of the Avalanche, Jesper Bratt of the Devils and Yanni Gourde of the Lightning, so this race could get a little more exciting, as the season moves on.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Scoring was disgustingly down this week, as the pool dropped down to a season-worst, 11.2 points collected per NHL game, giving us our worst total of the season since Week One, 537 points among all 25 teams. This was the second time we had 48 NHL games in the week this season and the first time was Week Two, when we finished with 627 points, the season-high total.
We have seen some participation levels drop from Week Two to Week Six, thanks to injuries, demotions and retirements, so there certainly is a reason, but the trend line is going the wrong way. Arguably, this is almost better for the bottom teams, as usually when there are a lot of points, the top teams are running away with the lead, but as we've seen in the Trophy Talk, things are still pretty close.
The schedule is down to 45 games this week, so if the scoring trends are continuing to go down, we might see some ugly lows this week. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that our players use some extra rest to boost their scoring numbers.
NEWS AND NOTES

The return of Gibson offers hope to Tony's team, which is still in the survivor pool, but takes hope away from Cam, also in the pool, but also trying to keep his team within reaching distance of the money as well. He's hoping that day-to-day is exactly that and his goalie can get back into a proper rotation.

Brenda & Seward's team will likely be looking to drop the lack of production from the Finnish vet, but we've still got three more weeks of these kind of guys in our roster, so we'll all have to be patient, because we all have one or two.

It would be crazy to think where Derek B. would see his team, if Niemi was a hit in either Florida or Pittsburgh this season. His team only sits 6 points out of 1st place today, 4 points to the money. Of course, the hope would be that Niemi finds a home and finds his form again, but it does seem more likely that he'll be a Waiver Draft casualty as well.

Surely, that has to excite Stacey C.'s proxy team, as it took a bit of hit in the past week, dropping from 15th to 18th. Getting a pretty good scorer back, inserting him into a pretty hot team at the moment and getting a new partner to play with, could make someone awfully giddy. Let's see how that improves his team, shall we?
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