So Tuesday night consisted of the following, 11 games, 52 goals, roughly 90-100 assists and the following outcomes. 5 games ended in regulation, 3 in overtime and the other 3 in a shoot-out. What does that mean from a fantasy perspective? Well clearly the idea of two “5 minute extra periods” or one continuous 10 minute overtime pleases me. The other bonus is that there were 8 Game-Winning-Goals. If your league counts those, you can thank these guys.
Brad Stuart, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Matt Read, Brad Boyes, Patrick Dwyer, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Danius Zubrus and the Great 8 himself , Alex Ovechkin.

And now, the Studs and Duds …

STUDS

Welcome back to the NHL, Philadelphia Flyers!
Watch out, the 5-0 win over the Sens could just be the beginning of what’s to come!
The Flyers were lead by Voracek who had 2 goals, +1, 3 shots on goal and was 3 for 3 in face-offs. Giroux continued where he left off last time with 2 assists, +1, 4 shots on goal, 1 block, 1 hit but pathetic in face-offs. Lecavalier and Brayden Schenn each had 1 goal, 1 assist, +1, 1 shot on goal and at least 1 hit. Steve Mason closed it with a 24 save shut-out, his 1st of the season.

Carolina Champions, Conquer Colorado!
The Jordan Staal, Patrick Dwyer and Nathan Gerbe show was on full display last night. Put it this way, if you have any other Carolina skater you didn’t factor at all in the Canes 2-1 win over the Avs.
Dwyer had 1 goal, 1 assist, +2, 2 shots on goal, 2 blocked shots and 2 hits for a very nice fantasy stat line. The other two were equally impressive with Staal getting the other goal, 1 assist, +2, 1 shot, 1 block and 1 hit. Gerbe’s difference with Staal is 2 assists and 5 shots on goal.
Colorado did attempt a come-back with Stastny’s 7th goal of the season, scored on the power-play and assisted by MacKinnon and Landeskog.

Pavel Datsyuk
The man that needs no fancy title or introduction, a player who mesmerizes fans and opposing goalies alike, a skater like no other … oh wait, that’s a different thread.
Pavel scored 2 power-play goals, fired 4 shots on goal, blocked 2 shots and then spoiled it with a -1 rating. He didn’t score in the shoot-out though, shame on you!

~~~~~

DUDS

Frederik Andersen is human afterall.
And it would also appear that he developed an allergy to cats in the 2nd period. Andersen lost his 1st game of the season, and subsequently his 1st NHL game as well, to a 1 minute and 10 second melt-down. He stopped 22 of 25 shots but was bested by Thomas who stopped 32 of 34.

Backstrom caught doing the backstroke?
The Washington center put many a fantasy owner into a frustrating despair last night. After riding an above point per game pace with 20 in 18 games played he then proceeds to go -2 AND lose 12 of 15 face-offs.

Do the Sens have an internal golf competition going?
There were 15 Ottawa players with a rating of -1 and 3 with a zero rating in a 5 – 0 thrashing by the Flyers. I’ve heard of “scoring by committee” but could a case be made for a “letting them in by committee” theory as well.

But really, 5 goals against and the worst any player got was -1.

I challenge anyone to show me that that has happened before.

Cheers

Six