Player Scores
The player scores have now been updated after week 16, unless there are changes to the game sheets prior to the week change on Tuesday night.
After last week’s huge scores we are back to normal this week with just four players scoring 50 or more points. Top of the pile is Marc-Olivier Vallerand for the red hot Steelers, as he had three goals and three assists for 64 points on the week. Behind him are team mates Josh Nicholls with 57 points and Colton Saucerman with 54 points. Patrick Watling (46 points) and Mitchell Balmas (35 points) are also in the top ten for Sheffield, with another three players in the top fifteen. Charlie Combs’ return from injury has been good news for Clan fans and his 50 points in the week are good for fourth overall. Top goalie this week is Matt Greenfield as his two wins was good for 25.9 points. Kevin Carr was next best with 19.4 points with his 94 saves in one week worth a mention.
In the overall scoring Marcus Crawford had another good week with 33 points even with Sunday’s game against Belfast being postponed. This means he continues at the top but has a lot of orange looming behind with Greenfield, Watling and Balmas filling out the next three positions. Lewis Hook’s blank week drops him down to fifth overall.
If we look to see who’s currently in form from lower down the standings, then Dominic Cormier (27.3 points), Charlie Combs (27 points), Bradley Lalonde (26.8 points), Brien Diffley (20 points) and Sean Giles (21 points) could be worth trading for based on their average over the last four weeks.
The link below has the updated scores.
League Standings
Despite a fairly low scoring week we had one team crack the 400 point barrier and that was Baz and his team “The Bazinators”. Their 401.1 points was well clear of second on 364.9. They did it thanks to captain Marc-Olivier Vallerand scoring 128 points on his own and he was helped up front by Troy Lajeunesse (37 points), Mitchell Balmas (35 points) and Mathieu Lemay (35 points). In defence Jake Ryczek, Brady Norrish and Michael Caruso all scored at least 20 points. Despite their two goalies picking up just 2.1 points for the week they had plenty of points in hand to take the team of the week honours and a FHL UK branded puck at the end of the season.
In the overall standings it is tight between the top three of Maple Flames (4600.7 points), The Kessel Run (4593.4 points) and Brexit Hockey (4580.1 points). Ulett The Dogs Out are now making this a four way battle for the league title after scoring over 300 points for the week. It is then a 200 point gap down to fifth and would be a big jump for anyone to join our breakaway group.
Roster Moves
After all the goalie movements last week it has been a lot quieter this week between the pipes. However we have had some new signings with some familiar to us and some not.
First up is the news that Will Cullen has signed for Belfast. Will had a really good season with Belfast last year where he had 32 points in 52 games, and he should slot straight back in on a powerplay unit for the Giants. His value last year was 7.0M which was exactly right for his points production, so he is therefore added back into the game at the same number. Next we have a new name for us in Nottingham with Félix Paré joining from the Wheeling Nailers in the ECHL which he had made his home for the previous two seasons. We can therefore get a good read on what he is likely to do in Nottingham. With a 0.29 points per game he isn’t going to bring the high powered scoring as some signings but with the right line mates he could be productive for just 5.5M.
We initially heard news during last week that Johnny Curran had left the Belfast Giants were he had picked up just five points this season. The chances were that he would be a good signing for another team in the league and he’s now returned back to Coventry where he had two really good seasons at just under a point per game, which resulted in him playing for Team GB at the World Championships. In his first weekend back in Coventry he has scored twice including an overtime winner. He is available at the same 7.0M. The final signing of the week is the most intriguing as Fife have signed veteran defenceman and former Hungary International Kevin Wehrs. Kevin is now 35 so there is the potential for him slowing down but he has previously put up some excellent offensive numbers across Europe over the last ten years. A 0.7 points per game in the DEL2 is better than a number of recent signings (River Rymsha, Kelly Summers) and he has backed this up across a number of the central European leagues over recent seasons. Can he continue that production for Fife? If so then the 6.0M is good value.
We have had a lot of trading activity over the last week with the ownership of Spencer Naas and Lewis Hook increasing by 9 after their continuing good form. Matt Greenfield has been brought in by an extra three teams as well to take his league leading ownership up to 131 teams now. On the other side there will be GM’s not too pleased to see the return of Storm’s Evan Weninger over the weekend, after he was traded away by 8 teams. With Storm bringing in another goalie we initially thought he would be out for longer. Shane Owen hasn’t returned though and he has been let go by 6 teams over the week.
Upcoming Fixtures
This week the Cardiff Devils are in Continental Cup final action so don’t have any games counting towards the league standings. This will potentially cause problems for those with a full quota of Devils players in their team. As a result of this the Glasgow Clan and Coventry Blaze are only playing once with Glasgow travelling to Dundee on Saturday and Coventry hosting Fife on Sunday.
Elsewhere Nottingham travel over to Belfast for games on Friday and Saturday while the league leading Steelers travel to Manchester on Saturday before hosting Dundee on Sunday. To round off the fixtures Guildford make the long journey to Fife and on Saturday before hosting the Storm on Sunday.
Don’t forget you can make trades for week 16 up until the trade deadline at midnight on Tuesday night.
