I have a bit of a dilemma
Scenario: League has a requirement for a minimum of 2 goalie appearances per week and 1 goalie spot available per night. Cats are not a concern as I have had trouble meeting the 2 game minimum recently. My current goalies (DeSmith, Talbot, Elliot and Brossoit) do not have any B2B's this week so there is no requirement by the NHL team to rest the starter unless they want to. I should be ok by the end of the week but I'm pretty proactive and would rather reduce the possibility of not meeting the minimum, if I can. To do that my only hope is that a starter gets bombed and the back-up is forced into the game. The league is on Fantrax and utilizes IRR.
Note that this is only for tonights games as Elliot will be activated from my IR tomorrow morning if not for tonight.
- I currently have Elliot on IR and I have 48 hours to move him to my active roster. Earlier today, I returned Elliots IRR replacement to the farm in order to pick up a skater to fill in my roster. I have since found out that because Talbots Visa paperwork hasn't been completed, Elliot is now confirmed as the back-up to Hart for tonight.
- I also have DeSmith available as he will be backing up Murray.
Question is, which starter will most likely be replaced by the back-up?
My thoughts are:
a) Murray got bombed last game and DeSmith cleaned up for him in that one. Pit plays NJ tonight and NJ is 3-0 this season against Pit to date. NJ doesn't really score a lot in bunches (although they've scored 15 goals in 3 games against Pit) and even though NJ can win this game, I think it'll take 3 early 1st period goals or 5 before the 2nd intermission to get Murray out of there.
b) Hart's in tough against TB tonight even though Philly has been playing better of late. The problem here is I believe that Elliot is on the trade bolck and will get moved this week. Does Philly even want to take the chance of Elliot getting hurt before they can flog him, even though it may mean leaving Hart in the net to be abused by Kucherov, Stamkos and company? What is more important to Philly, the long term good for Hart (getting pulled) or the short importance of keeping Elliot healthy for the week. Philly didn't really have much choice but to insert Elliot s the back-up today.
And while writing this, it raised another question with regards to these players once the TDL has come and gone. What if Elliot can't be moved? Does Philly send Hart back to the AHL because he's the only one exempt and they ride Elliot/Talbot for the rest of the season? Or does Philly just put Elliot on waivers in order to keep the "dressing room"?
So who do you like tonight? DeSmith or Elliot?
14 team H2H Dynasty: 4C, 4LW, 4RW, 6D, 2G, 6Bench
G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, PPP, HITS, BLK,
W, L, GA, GAA, SA, SV, Sv%, SO
Center: Kuznetzov, Johansen, Glass(RW), Hayton
LW: T. Johnson(C/RW), Gurianov(RW), Labanc(RW), Zucker(RW),
RW: Kucherov, Vorocek, Atkinson, Konecny,
Defence: Josi, Trouba , Klingberg, Morrissey, Zadorov, Gudas,
G: Fleury, Rittich
Bench: Steel(C), Watson(LW/RW), Comtois(LW), Blais (LW/RW), Zaitsev(D), Saros(G)