When The Price is Right launched five weeks ago, two-time last-place finishers Top of the Rock started out as they always do, near the bottom. After trading victories and defeats to the tune of a 2-2 record, the team found themselves slowly climbing the standings, where a week five victory put them in the top spot.
As The Rock head into their week six matchup, they find themselves in an unfamiliar spot as the top team in the league. For once, we are no longer doing the chasing, but others are chasing us.
Top of the Rock were the benefactors of another victory, thanks to their opponent failing to play their goalies.
This matchup should have ended in a 4-4-2 tie, with each team gaining some points in the standings. However, No Ice in Ireland didn’t meet their three-game minimum, thus tipping the scale in our favour.
We outscored them 6-4 with three extra power-play points (7-4) and a better plus/minus rating of five, -8 to -13. Our goalies collected an extra win (2-1). We were awarded the goals-against average category despite having a higher number, 2.30 to 2.03. The same occurred with save percentage, 0.918 to 0.922.
Both teams split the shutouts 0-0, although we got the point. Each team collected eight assists, while our opponents took three extra penalties (12-6) and outshot us by 14 (74-60).
No Ice in Ireland jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after Monday and didn’t hold another lead until Saturday when they closed out the night ahead 5-4.
We were concerned when Sunday started because we were not sure we’d be able to reverse the score and secure a win.
In the four days between our opponent’s leads, we held one, two, and three-point leads, setting us up for success heading into the weekend.
When someone sits down to look at the history of this season, they will be puzzled when they break down our team statistics. As the first-place team after five weeks, we are one of the worse teams statically. Even though we won our third matchup of the season, our numbers went down across the board.
Our best numbers are shots on goals, goals-against average, and save percentage, all ranking 5th overall. After that, we rank 7th in penalty minutes, 8th in assists, 9th in power-play points, and 10th in goals. We are the worse team in the league regarding plus/minus rating, goalie wins, and shutouts.
It has turned into a real dog fight at the top of the league standings. Top of the Rock currently holds a one-point lead (63-62) over B Galli. The next closest threats are defending league champion Benn Tallon Sens’ Won, who have 56 points.
All the teams have more than 15 wins and 40 points. Only five teams have losing records, while six teams have been busy in the free-agent market with double-digit adjustments.
It was a busy week on the bench as Erik Gustafsson (Philadelphia), Mika Zibanejad (New York) and Joel Eriksson Ek (Minnesota) put up some decent numbers in the eight games they played. Their combined 17 shots on goal would have won us another category, giving us an 8-1-1 matchup advantage.
Their combined +5 rating would have helped our overall numbers, though it had no effect on this week’s matchup outcome. Even when you add in the additional four penalty minutes these guys accumulated, we would have still lost that category, coming up two points short.
 27 points |
 1 point |
Patric Hornqvist (Florida) had to find a new home over the off-season and helped jump-start the Panthers to an impressive record out of the game. In week five, he led all Rock point-getters with 19 points. The right-winger had two goals, two assists with one power-play point. He had a plus-three rating with 11 shots.
Filip Forsberg (Nashville) has been the lone bright spot on a horrible Predators team, struggling to collect wins and score goals. Although he may be the team’s best player, he was off his game in week five, collecting a single goal with three shots on goal. His minus two rating hurt his overall point total for the week.
Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog returned from the IR, and we needed to open up a spot on the main roster. We decided to cut ties with Erik Gustafsson for the second time this season.
Weekly Move Total: 0/4
Season Move Total: 7/50
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