Another exciting week is in the books! That makes six weeks now completed, as we draw closer and closer to the season's first Waiver Draft of the year. That will kick off two weeks from today. Scott is already getting his homework done for the first pick in the draft, as his team can't seem to get any traction these days. We'll have a longer look at that a bit later on in the Newsletter. Anyways, let's hop to the week that was.
In the end, however, it was Giroux, taking his first Player of the Week nod... ever! Believe it or not, we have not seen Giroux's name in this spot on the Newsletter previously and we hadn't seen Domi's either, so either way it was going to be a first time winner this week. That's something.
This week started off with 2 goals and an assist against the Coyotes on Monday, a pair of assists against those same Coyotes on Thursday and then a goal and a pair of assists against the Blackhawks on Saturday. This started a new 3-game points streak for the Philadelphia captain and also brings his overall totals up to 7 goals and 22 points in 17 games with the Flyers, good enough for 7th overall in hockey pool scoring.
You won't hear any complaints from Troy about his production, taking him 23rd overall in the draft is now looking like a pretty good steal, so far.
The good week did indeed mean that Wes' team was moving up the standings, going from 12th place after Week Five to 7th place after his team's fine performance. Wes' side is recovering from a bit of a slow start to the season, when they found themselves in 21st place after Week Two, things were not looking so rosy right away. Nevertheless, his team has done well since then, consistently moving up, thanks to getting bodies back from injury and having them produce.
Historically, this is Wes' 11th appearance in the Mover & Shaker spot in the Newsletter, he hasn't missed many years in playing in this competition, unable to get a nod in the 2012 season and the 2016 season. Otherwise, he'll generally find himself one nod in the season.
Scott needed a couple of points on Sunday, just to make things close, but his team was unable to nick a point here or there and 16 points was where his team was destined to finish. Shayne Gostisbehere of the Flyers was his biggest bright spot, finishing with 4 points in the week, Jake Guentzel of the Penguins tried to help out with 3 points, but as much as they led, not many followed. Six of his players finished the week with 0 points, highlighted by a suspension, a long-term injury, a backup goalie, some healthy scratches and slow goes. That all adds up very quickly.
Not all hope is lost quite yet. Scott's team is only 10 points back of 24th place, but 56 points back of 1st place. The Waiver Draft is still two weeks away with players not going live for another week after that. Somehow or some way, his team will have to try and find some of that offense that will make up for these weeks.
In each of the last four Newsletters, the lead has changed hands and we're now quickly approaching the point in the season, where someone takes that lead and runs with it for the rest of the year. It's happened a good number of times before, but this year is too close to call and let's hope the race stays fresh all season long.
Ryan's team was tops in the week in rookie scoring, thanks to a 4-point effort from David Rittich of the Flames this week. A shutout on Saturday night may have done enough for him to take the cage for the next little bit for Calgary, something we'll have to keep a close eye on.
John P.'s team collected another goal this week and his team is now 4-for-8 in the shootout and carrying the overall lead in the mini-game. John and Clayton each lead the pool in attempts with 8 shots, while Brenda & Seward and Scott still hasn't seen a sniff of action in the skills competition this season.
This competition could swing either way in the remaining three-quarters of the season, it's just a really good run that has given these four teams an early lead. It's certainly best to see your team out in the lead, because you can't count on scoring these kinds of goals at any time. It really puts the pressure on the other teams to try and catch you.
Neil has the overall lead at this point, surviving with a combined +36 total, while Dale C.'s team is a combined +28. At the bottom, Jeremy sits there at -32 and Wilton isn't too far away at -31.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Things have leveled off for the hockey pool, as we're still getting a decent amount of the scoring that's out there these days, but we're certainly not getting all of what we want. We want all kinds of goals and points... and wins! Week Six saw the average collection rate in an NHL game up to 12.9 points for the hockey pool and that was with dwindling participation numbers, both for our skaters and our goalies. Once we swap out all of those players stuck in the minors or juniors, get a long-term injury or two out of the way, we'll see those numbers turn around for another week or two, before the cycle starts all over again.
NEWS AND NOTES
Kristy & Don can ill afford to have Hischier down for any significant amount of time, as they saw their team fall out of the money spots this week and an injury like this could see them fall even further. Hischier has 12 points in 15 games this season, still scoring at quite the pace.
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