Both Wilton and Grant, both having starts last night, got their necessary wins to make it through to Week Fifteen, while Jeremy, shut out of a start last night, is still reeling from injuries and will be shut out of a start again tonight. Jeremy watch will continue on to Thursday night, when he should be able to finally get a start this week.Only two games on the docket for Wednesday night, which means that the weekend will be packed full of action, especially given that there were 51 games on this week, one game on Monday and two tonight. So, with that being said, we'll have a quick peek at both games set to go tonight, just for the sake of doing this post.
Craig Anderson (Tony) versus Jimmy Howard (Dale C.)It's a battle of the middle of the standings, as Tony's team opens up Wednesday night in 14th place, only 2 points behind Dale C.'s 12th place team, with Derek B. smack dab in the middle. The struggling Senators will head to Detroit to try and start the New Year off right, while the Red Wings try and build on back-to-back wins at the end of the 2017 calendar year. It's number one goalies for each team tonight, Craig Anderson versus Jimmy Howard, which should make for an interesting game.
Jeff Glass (N/A) versus Henrik Lundqvist (Brian)Fresh off an outdoor win at Citi Field, Henrik Lundqvist returns to the crease, when the Rangers host the Blackhawks tonight at MSG. Brian gets another start from the veteran keeper, as his team tries to keep pace with the top seven, where he's already fallen behind 7th place by 8 points. On the other side, Jeff Glass gets his third straight start for the Blackhawks, thanks to the injury to Corey Crawford earlier this season.
Before the Avalanche game against the Jets on Tuesday night, forward Sven Andrighetto was listed as a scratch, as a leg injury suffered over the weekend did not heal well enough for him to go right away. The 24-year old forward is currently believed to be day-to-day with the injury and will likely be questionable for Thursday's contest at home against the Blue Jackets.
Florida Panthers goalie James Reimer is likely under observation after a collision with Minnesota's Mikael Granlund on Tuesday night. Reimer is believed to have suffered a neck injury after the collision, briefly returning to the ice, but eventually giving way to backup Harri Sateri for the 3rd period, as the team was already down 4-1, heading into the final frame. The Panthers don't go again until Friday night, so they will get an extra day for evaluation, but if there is anything significant, this would put the Panthers in a big hole in the crease.
The New Jersey Devils were taking on the best in the west last night, the St. Louis Blues, and they felt the need to rotate a few of their defensemen around and it was Damon Severson that eventually drew the short straw for the game and was the healthy scratch for the game. The coaching staff hasn't been happy with Severson's defensive play of late, which was the the main reason for his removal from the lineup. The Devils pushed the Blues into the shootout on Tuesday, but eventually lost, 3-2, so that could mean just about anything for Severson moving forward.
The goaltending concerns in the hockey pool extended quite far on Tuesday night, as the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are no stranger to goalie injuries, lost the services of their backup Tristan Jarry on Tuesday night, after making a save in the 2nd period. Jarry was still credited for the win, as he was the goalie of record when the eventual winning goal was scored. The Penguins coaching staff had no immediate update on the status of their number two goalie, not to mention two other non-pool players, but the medical staff will get their examinations in today and the team hopes to have updates at some point on Wednesday.
The Vancouver Canucks saw the return of defenseman Chris Tanev on Tuesday night, while they hosted the Anaheim Ducks, which meant that one of their defensemen had to come out to make room and it was Ben Hutton who drew the short straw again and became the healthy scratch. The replacement didn't seem to help, as the Canucks were no match for their division rivals, losing 5-0 at home to their former number one goalie, Ryan Miller. There are plenty of questions being asked in Vancouver these days, but they were not expected to win too much this year, so it should come with the territory. No word on whether or not Hutton will be back in the lineup any time soon.
Andrei Vasilevskiy (Wilton) versus Frederik Andersen (Mike)
Braden Holtby (Grant) versus Cam Ward (Stacey M.)
Keith Kinkaid (Stuart) versus Carter Hutton (Benson)
Pekka Rinne (Dale B.) versus Marc-Andre Fleury (Scott)
During the Winter Classic on Monday, the USA Hockey program announced that they had released the roster for the 2018 Olympics, which will be played in South Korea next month.
Another New Year's Day, another Winter Classic, already come and gone. The 10-year anniversary game was a pretty good one, it saw the New York Rangers and Buffalo Sabres head to Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets.
The winning goalie, Henrik Lundqvist and the overtime goal scorer, Miller, also added an assist to lead the way for the Rangers in this game, each coming away with 2 points, while Rasmus Ristolainen and Kyle Okposo each had a couple of points each on the side for the Sabres. That's not too bad of a haul, considering some of the poor results we've seen from some of these outdoor games.
It sounds like Zach Parise is now officially good to go for the Minnesota Wild. The Wild placed forward Zack Mitchell on waivers for the purpose of reassignment on Monday and at Noon ET Tuesday, he'll either be cleared or claimed, which will make room for Parise to make his season debut, at home to the Florida Panthers later on that evening.
Believe it or not, even without any NHL participation in South Korea at the Olympics this year, I think we'll still do an Olympic hockey pool, just to keep things interesting.
Henrik Lundqvist (Brian) versus Robin Lehner (Kristy & Don)
The last week of 2017 was a good one for Connor Hellebuyck and the Winnipeg Jets, as they stormed the week with all guns a blazin' and walked out of there with a 3-0-0 record and Hellebuyck also recorded a shutout on Sunday night, giving him 8 points and the Player of the Week nod for Week Thirteen.
For the Mover & Shaker nod this week, we have to go to the tie-breakers, as both Benson and Grant were tops in Week Thirteen, both teams finishing with 32 points. First up, comes the goals scored, where Benson finished atop of the weekly rankings there as well, taking the tie-breaker with a 13-11 margin, Grant finishing 3rd in the race behind Troy's team. So, there you have it... Benson gets his first Mover & Shaker nod since the 2015 season as well, also Week Twenty-Four, with 33 points.
It was a fairly consistent effort throughout his lineup in Week Thirteen, as 12 of 14 players finished with points in the shortened week, all of them led by Thomas Vanek of the Canucks, who had 5 points, all of which coming against the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday night.
If it wasn't for Benson's team taking the tie-breaker above, we would have had ourselves a pair of swapping teams, trading first for worst between Weeks Twelve and Thirteen. Grant went from worst two weeks ago to tied for first this past week, while Cam, who was the Week Twelve Mover & Shaker, now finds his team as the Basement Dweller this week. What a strange coincidence... could it be that the schedules just worked out in this weird and mind-boggling way?
We've touched on the money once already, but we'll give it a good recap here in the Trophy Talk section. Dale B. continues to have the lead through Week Thirteen and technically, his lead did increase from last week, up from 6 points to 7 points, but the team now chasing him in 2nd place has now changed from Wilton to Benson, although Wilton isn't very far away either. Wilton dropped back to 10 points behind, but that's still manageable with a solid week.
Grant had himself a scare in Week Thirteen, but it was only temporary. His team was in on Thursday night, after the Capitals came back to beat the Bruins in a shootout, so we remain with three teams for yet another week. Week Fourteen is going to be a busy one again, 51 games on the schedule, which should provide ample opportunity for Grant, Jeremy and Wilton to get their wins, but Week Fifteen will hold some intrigue, as the schedule goes way down to 31 games. *cue ominous music*
Well, the hockey pool recovered somewhat from a disasterous Week Twelve, where the collective finished a total of -55, where in Week Thirteen, we were all +24 from Wednesday to Sunday. So, that's a positive.
Another week, again no change in the leaderboard for the All-Star Game captains. Steven Stamkos of the Lightning, Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals, P.K. Subban of the Predators and Connor McDavid of the Oilers remain as your four captains and voting actually ends today, so be sure to cast one more ballot (or 10) to see if your player gets the nod to lead their division in the 3-on-3 tournament. There will definitely be a post for captains being named and then another for the teams, when they are announced. Stay tuned!
Tony perhaps had one of the more notable weeks in the PIM Pool, as his team tied seven other entries in the weekly numbers for the least amount of penalties taken in the week, 4 minutes being the Lady Byng week of the season. His team is still ranked 7th overall in the non-existent mini-game with 233 minutes in penalties through 13 weeks, only 35 minutes back of Wes' goon squad. I thought it was worth mentioning in the Newsletter. No one has had less than 4 minutes in a week and the record-high still belongs to Grant's team, who finished with 43 minutes in Week Seven.
It was confirmed on Sunday, that Calgary Flames forward Michael Frolik underwent surgery to repair his broken jaw and it will now keep him out of the Flames lineup for at least four weeks, possibly even longer than that. With 15 points in 37 games this season, he may not have been the most effective scoring forward out there, but he was contributing from time-to-time.
Dallas Stars forward Alexander Radulov was pulled out of the game against the San Jose Sharks, due to an upper-body injury, but the team confirmed after the game, that given the lead over the Sharks at the time, there was no reason for Radulov to return and possibly make anything worse. He is expected to play in the team's next game, Tuesday night, at home to Columbus.