Top of the Rock’s third-week matchup could be summed up with one phrase, “the hockey gods giveth and the hockey gods taketh away.”
Last week, the Rock were victorious in their matchup, which vaulted them up to the third seed in the standings. The real score of that matchup was 5-3-2 in our favour; however, because our opponents’ goalies didn’t play enough games, the fantasy gods awarded us a 9-1 victory.
Karma came back to bite us in the ass in week three, well that and COVID, which cost us our goaltending statistics. As Sunday came to a close, we were on pace for a 6-2-2 win, only our goalies didn’t play enough games, which cost us four categories and the matchup, 5-3-2.
Despite the second matchup loss of the season, the Rock remained in third place.
Glass of Marleau was a formidable opponent for the Rock, who kept the categories close, including tying us in goals (5) and power-play points (3). We collected seven extra assists and 10 more penalty minutes to take those categories before doubling Marleau in shots on goals 66-33. The only category they won, on their own, was the plus/minus one with a +3 rating compared to our -2 rating.
If you look at the numbers, you will notice that thanks to Igor Shesterkin’s (New York) two games, we had the superior goaltending numbers. Unfortunately, they didn’t count, which is a shame because they would have been the best on the season.
In the original box score, both teams would have tied shutouts (zero), and we would have taken wins, goals-against average, and save percentage.
Our week three matchup was never really in question until COVID postponed a handful of games towards the end of the week, forcing us to rip up our gameplan and take the hits as they came.
The matchup was close on Tuesday, 5-3, and we had our largest lead after Friday night, 7-2. Those seven categories were our season-high for any given day, while Marleau never led, scoring a matchup high of three points on Tuesday.
When we take a moment to analyze our overall statistics, it is quite puzzling to see how bad our numbers are and know that we are still in third place.
We currently have the worse numbers in the league when it comes to goalie wins and shutouts. In regards to the other categories, we have the seventh-best goals-against average and save percentage.
In the offensive categories, we currently sit in the top half in just two categories, assists (5th) and shots on goals (4th). In the remaining four categories, our best spot is goals, where we dropped a spot from the previous week down to 7th overall. After that, we rank as the ninth worse team in penalty minutes and the tenth worse in plus/minus ratings and power-play points.
B Galli sits at the top of the standings for the third week in a row, opening up a three-point lead on second place Marleau and then remain ahead of us by six points. The gap between first and last is only growing and currently sits at 16 points. In such a shortened season like this one, the bigger those numbers get, the harder it will be to overcome them.
Two teams currently have winning percentages over 0.600, and four teams are playing over 0.500 hockey. The remaining six teams currently have losing records, with Hanz&Franz picking up the rear with a 0.383 clip.
One of the most significant drawbacks of being a team in The Price is Right fantasy league is the inability to make roster adjustments. These numbers are usually much more meaningful and have substantial impacts on the matchup’s outcome; however, these numbers are low with so many postponements.
Tucked away in these bench numbers is another category win, power-play points. If we were able to dress Nylander, his one point would have broken the 3-3 tie in that category and given us another point, thus altering the final score 5-4-1. We would have still lost, but those extra points can go a long way when competing for a playoff spot.
 23 points |
 1 point |
Filip Forsberg (Nashville) became the first player to win best player awards in consecutive weeks with another impressive performance. The Swedish left-winger scored two goals to go along with three assists and one power-play point. He was +3 with 14 shots on goal.
Gabriel Landeskog (Colorado) was our worse player by not having any games to play, thanks to postponements. The Captain of the Avalanche managed only one point this past week by registering a shot on goal.
If you have followed our team so far this season, you will see that Jonas Brodin (Minnesota) filled in quite nicely during our week two matchup. Since we were able to activate Alex Edler (Vancouver) from the IR, we needed to make room in the lineup. We cut Brodin during the matchup, only to reacquire him for the start of week three.
We understand that our moves have been so confusing to date, but postponements and injuries have destroyed our defence so far this season. Most nights, we only roll out three defencemen, which don’t really help rack up points.
When you throw in the fact that we can’t make roster adjustments during the matchup, we have to keep an eye out for upcoming matchups and adjust accordingly. When someone gets hurt or finds out all their games have been postponed, it is complicated to modify mid-matchup and prepare for the upcoming week.
Weekly Move Total: 1/4
Season Move Total: 5/50
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Keeping the Stats 