The Top of the Rock lost another contest in week 13, dropping below .500 again. The team’s three-game winning streak came to an abrupt end at the hands of Steve’s Great Team, who easily depose the Rock to improve to 10-3 on the season.
Yahoo experts initially projected Steve’s team to win by 46.05 points, but that wasn’t good enough as they finished off the Rock by an astounding 129 points, almost tripling their original projections. A lot went wrong for the boys in this matchup, even though both teams had the same amount of opportunities to collect points.
This matchup opened with just 1.50 points separating the two teams. Steve’s team turned the slight difference into a blowout on Tuesday by collecting 93.50 points compared to the Rock’s 17.00. The matchup seemed out of reach at that point, but the boys didn’t give up chipping into their opponents’ lead, getting it down to 42.00 by Saturday night. On the last day, Steve’s team came to play, scoring a single day best 107.00 points, burying any hope the Rock had staging a comeback.
Steve’s team was the first to reach 100, 200, and 300 points, while the Rock barely got 100 and 200 before the end of the matchup. The deficit was at its highest on Sunday with 12900, but Steve’s team held a 96.00 and 99.50 point lead at one point. It wasn’t a complete shutout, though, as the Rock managed to keep a lead on Monday.
Top of the Rock continues to be an outstanding team in shots on goals, hits, and blocks. Their best statistics with goalies are shutouts and losses, which both rank third-best in the league. The other three categories rank fourth overall, which isn’t bad considering that assists are the only ones with the same ranking in the offensive categories.
The team ranks dead last in shorthanded points and just ahead of the bottom in goals, plus/minus rating, and powerplay points.
Week 13 proved to be one of the most competitive weeks of the season, with everyone putting up solid scores. The highest-scoring team was Steve’s team, who piled up 357.50 points compared to the Manager-less team, who were the only other ones to gather more than three hundred with 308.50. The Rock was the second-lowest scoring team in the league with 236.00, while Icing finished the week with 210.00.
Dirty Sanchez and Steve’s team continue to battle it out for the top spot in the standings with identical 10-3 records. The Rock now find themselves tied with the Manager-less Team, who have bounced back to a 6-7 record after taking a few weeks to gather their first win. Icing along with Stoned Assassins continue to fight each other to stay out of the basement.
For the first time this season, there was a tie between the team’s best players. Mika Zibanejad (New York) was awarded this week’s trophy because he registered a point in every category. In contrast, Adrian Kempe (Los Angeles) did not collect special team points or record a hit. Zibanejad’s stat line included two goals, one assist, one powerplay point, one shorthanded point, one hit, and one block. He finished with a plus-three rating and had 11 shots on goal.
Linus Ullmark (Boston) earned his second straight best goalie of the week award by achieving a team-high 46.50 points. It was an impressive week for the Swedish netminder, who had three wins compared to zero losses with 77 saves and seven goals against.
In Calgary, where the Flames have cooled off after starting the season firing on cylinders, the Rock found two of their worse players. Elias Lindholm finished the week with -3.50 points because he only had two shots on goal and was minus-two. His teammate Ramus Andersson (-1.50) was the only other player who failed to stay on the positive side of the scoresheet.
As the NHL returned to normal, players who were once in protocols or dealing with minor injuries were ready to come back into the fold. Team management was extremely busy adjusting the roster to make room for everyone.
On Monday, Isac Lunderstrom (Anaheim) returned to the waiver wire after playing just one game for the team. In his place, the team signed Andre Burakovsky (Colorado). Then a few days later, the following players were all returned to the free agency pool, Johan Larsson (Arizona), Andreas Johnsson (New Jersey), and Oliver Kylington (Calgary).
Weekly Move Total: 1/4
Season Move Total: 18/50
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Keeping the Stats 