Week One Recap:
SHUTOUT!
Luc Bourdon begins the week with an emphatic 9-0-1 start to the season!
It wasn't supposed to happen this way for Team Balls Mahoney.
After making a huge trade to solidify his starting goaltending, and
making a
huge statement by trading first round picks with Luc Bourdon to start
the
season, Balls Mahoney expected to dominate rival Luc Bourdon and put
himself in
a great position to acquire a high draft pick. Instead, the opposite
happened
and his team experienced one of the worst weeks in history, managing
only a
single point.
Not the statement he was looking to make to start the season.
"Even though this was a devastating loss, I still love our team, and
love
my potential going forward." Balls said, shortly after realizing that
David Backes was going to be unable to clinch any wins for his squad on
Sunday's lone game.
Luc Bourdon on the other hand, was seen with his squad, screaming "U
MAD
BRO" at the top of his lungs while I was attempting to interview BM.
Always graceful in losing, BM accepted his loss and is now focused on
next
week's arguably tougher matchup against BrockH.
LB's systematic dismantling of BM's team was led by an opening night
shutout by
James Reimer. Being a savvy manager, LB recognized that the shutout was
not of
typical production of Reimer and he benched the young Leaf netminder
for the rest
of the year, which proved to seal the goaltending categories for Luc. Jon Quick was solid as well....
He was
led by Sheldon Souray who looked to create a new life in Dallas,
putting up 15
PIMs to go with two points and a +4 rating.
Wingers Ilya Kovalchuk and Martin St. Louis managed to put up 4 points
each in
order to off-set the explosion from Balls' John Tavares, who put up a
massive 8
point week and a half. Unfortunately, the rest of Balls' team could not
match
Tavares' production, only putting up another 16 points to go along with
JT's 8.
Tomas Kaberle was particularly crippling, putting up a single assist to
go with
a -5 on the ice.
Around the league, we had a rematch of last year's championship where
Liquid
Snake took on former champion CRDragon, in his first attempt at
defending his
title. Both juggernaut offenses put up a huge total in the extended
week but by
the end it solved nothing as the two teams played to a 5-5-0 draw.
Oddly
enough, LS' goaltending stats were enough to take him to the tie, a
position
that at the start of the season he was noted as being weak on. He was
led by a
spot start of Devan Dubnyk, who put up sparkling numbers and was
promptly
thrown onto the bench. CRD took the wins and shutouts though, not
really
surprising.
Phil Kessel led the offense for Liquid Snake, putting up 8 points much
like
John Tavares and a huge +7. To put that in perspective, CRD's star
centre Eric
Staal was at -8, which is a 15 goal swing for the two superstar
players. That
stat along cost CRD the victory.
The closest competition was in PIMs oddly, as CRD took it by a single
PIM. With
no apparent goons on his team, he managed to get there with minor
penalties
alone, while LS had the help of a stellar 19 PIMs from Steve Downie. If
only he
had managed just one more minor penalty, his team could've stole one
from the
defending champion.
In a matchup between two people who were deemed rivals because they
were both
not dramatic enough to create their own, SelKesler and Tiranis took on
each
other, in what could end up being a bottom feeder rematch in week 12.
In a rare
occurence, Tiranis took every single offensive category with ease
whereas
SelKesler on the heels of big weeks from Jimmy Howard and Kari Lehtonen
took
all four goaltending categories. SelKesler's offense was anemic with
his
highest scoring player putting up only five points. Granted, he made
some
costly decisions when it came to who he benched and he missed a RNH
"Hop-trick", but let's be honest, it wouldn't have made much of a
difference.
Rick Nash looked sharp throughout the week with his new centre Jeff
Carter,
putting up 5 points and Brandon Dubinsky gooned it up, providing 20
PIMs,
beating fellow gooner Pat Sharp who "only" managed 16. With that
said...oh, wait a minute...
BREAKING
NEWS!
We have a trade to announce!
The aforementioned SelKesler trades LW,RW Shane Doan and LW, C Patrick
Marleau
for CRDragon's RW Marian Hossa and C, LW Jordan Staal!
This trade seems pretty even on paper to be honest, as all four players
should
be regular contributers on their new respective teams. Having said
that, we are
forced to analysis it on a what have you done for me lately criteria.
Jordan
Staal has been hot, putting up 5 points the last week with Sidney
Crosby and
Evgeni Malkin suffering from injuries. But with news of Crosby's
impending
return being released before this trade was made, it seems like odd
timing to
go out of your way to acquire a centreman who is going to drop back
down to
third on the depth chart. Granted, Staal is a big time talent, but
Shane Doan
has been just as hot as Staal, and he is THE guy in Phoenix right now.
Patrick
Marleau is a former 40 goal scorer who plays with one of the premier
playmakers
in the game. He has started a little slow out of the gate, which might
explain
why SK wanted to move him, but Marian Hossa has not exactly lit the
world on
fire to start the year either, and he missed his last game with an
injury. To
make this trade now, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to this
writer.
I would have to give the margin to CRDragon to start, but re-evaluating
at the
end of the year could bring (obviously) some very different results.
OK, moving back to the recap of the first week of the season, we had
deja vu
when BrockH and ubiquitous met up in a rehash of the inaugural
championship
matchup. Last year Brock crushed ubiquitous 9-0-1, so ubiquitous was
quoted as
saying he just hoped to avoid a repeat of last year, as it most likely
cost him
a first round bye in the playoffs. Brock put up a huge number in PIMs,
putting
that category out of reach very early on, thanks to 23 PIMs from Chris
Stewart.
He received a clutch shutout in a 1-0 battle between two of his
starting
goalies, signaling to the rest of the league that Lady Luck was on his
side.
And after the second to last game gave him a tie in SVP going into the
final
night, he didn't get burned by his greed and managed to squeak out a
.001 SVP
victory, clinching his 6-4 win.
Newly acquired Anze Kopitar didn't waste any time getting into UBI's
good
graces, putting up 7 points to start the year and making the manager
say
"Stamkos who?" Craig Anderson did the opposite though, ruining any
chance of taking a goaltending category with two abysmal starts before
being
jettisoned for Al Montoya. Montoya looked sharp in his only game for
team
ubiquitous and proved at least to start, that it was the right decision.
In the end though, Jonas Hiller proved to be the MVP for Brock, giving
him the
lone shutout for both competitors this week as well as putting up 3
wins and
clinching the SVP category for Brock on the last night of the week.
Eddie Vedder, last season's second to last place finisher, took on Red
Light
Mosquito and in a shocking turn of events, EV's offense dominated,
putting up
an unexpected 35 total points. EV was led by a big week from Thomas
Vanek, who
put up 7 points and Dion Phaneuf's crazy +7. Seriously, Dion Phaneuf at
plus
seven? The odds of that happening would've been astronomical!
RLM got his money's worth with Semyon Varlamov, as the new Avalanche
played
great his first week. Of course, RLM benched a shutout this week which
cost him
squeaking out a much needed tie. Pat Kane led the Red Light's, putting
up 6
points on the week. Unfortunately for RLM, he was hit with an injury,
losing
Mike Cammalleri to a nasty skate laceration.
EV's goaltending could end up being a scary revelation, as Ondrej
Pavelec was
horrible this week and Carey Price definitely didn't provide the strong
starts
he was providing last season. If that doesn't turn around, it could be
another
long season for EV.
Finally, in the battle of MODS, CCF and parabola met up in a sad
display of
offensive production. CCF was led in production by Alex Tanguay who
only
managed 4 assists to go with a -3 rating, and parabola was led by Alex
Burrows.
Parabola continued to make poor judgement calls on who he was benching
which
may have contributed to his sad production on offense.
For a guy who claims to have the best goaltending tandem in the league,
parabola's team sure didn't play like it. One win, a sub-900 SVP and a
GAA
reaching almost 3.0, parabola's strength was the biggest reason why he
was
unable to pull out a first week victory in his debut as a manager.
Although it
seems likely that Luongo and Lundqvist turns it around, it's tough when
the two
players you depend on most are not producing in the way you expect.
Next week's
matchup against Luc Bourdon should be a good rebound test for parabola.
Week
One Standings:
Premier
League:
CCF23
7-2-1
15 Points
Tiranis
6-4-0
12 Points
CRDragon
5-5-0
10 Points
Liquid
Snake
5-5-0
10 Points
Red
Light Mosquito
4-5-1
9 Points
SelKesler
4-6-0
8 Points
Empire
League:
Luc
Bourdon
9-0-1
19 Points
BrockH
6-4-0
12 Points
EV’s
Allstars
5-4-1
11 Points
Ubiquitous
4-6-0
8 Points
Parabola
2-7-1
5 Points