Player Scores
The player scores have now been updated after week 17, unless there are changes to the game sheets prior to the week change on Tuesday night.
We have just one player who reached the 50 point mark this week, and it is Ben O’Connor who claims the player of the week honours with his two goals and one assist from the Guildford blueline. Ryan Valentini and Daniel Ciampini are second with two goals and two assists in the week which is good for 41 points. Marc-Olivier Vallerand’s return to form continues with 40 points on the week, and he has now averaged 42.8 points over the last four weeks. The previous four weeks before that he averaged just five points per week. In goal we had three players all scoring just over 25 points. Tyler Beskorowany (26.2 points) and Matt Greenfield (25.8 points) both had two wins in the week but Kevin Carr had 27.7 points with one win and a rare goalie assist on the overtime winner against the Clan on Saturday.
In the overall scoring a week off for Cardiff gave the chasing pack of Sheffield players a chance to catch up to Marcus Crawford. Greenfield closes to within 33 points of Crawford now after scoring at least 25 points for five consecutive weeks. Patrick Watling and Mitchell Balmas close slightly in third and fourth place.
The link below has the updated scores.
League Standings
With less games than usual this week we only had the one team scoring over 300 points, and the clear weekly winners this week are Simon Wareham’s “The Zambronies” who scored 325.8 points. This was well clear of Sarah Eastwood’s “Haaralalalala” and Ann Rutter’s “Happy Valentini Day” in second and third on 296.8 and 291.2 points respectively. “The Zambronies” move up to 32nd in the league thanks to some solid scoring from their forward lines. Captain Vallerand scored 80 points himself, while Ara Nazarian (34 points), Spencer Naas (33 points) and Ryan Tait (32 points) all provided good support. Drydn Dow led the blueline with 33 points and Matt Greenfield continued to put up solid points in goal with 25.8.
We’ve had some changes in the overall standings as Brexit Hockey move up from third to first with 289.8 points in the week, good for fourth overall. The Kessel Run remain in second but are now 58 points behind. The Maple Flames poor week sees them drop from first to fourth as “Ulett The Dogs Out” move into the top three and are now just over 100 points off top. Our double champ Jon Newbould and his team “Sick as a Parrottino” have had a poor run of form and now drop to tenth. Is the dream of three in a row now over?
Roster Moves
Only the Belfast giants made some roster moves this week. We initially heard the surprising news that Quinn Preston had left the team and has since signed back in the ECHL. There are now 29 teams who need to trade him from their roster. As a replacement Belfast have brought back former captain David Goodwin who led the treble winning team last year. He, along with Scott Conway, had formed one of the most dangerous lines in the Elite League over the last few years. However with no Conway is he going to exceed his 9.5M value?
Matt Greenfield continues to gather support from our GM’s and is now in 138 teams, an extra 7 from the previous week. Brady Norrish is now second in selections with 89 and Daniel Tedesco is third with 82. Other players who continue to be traded for are Spencer Naas (increase of six to 60 teams), Alessio Luciani (increase of six to 46 teams) and Ryan Valentini (increase of five to 36 teams).
On the other side Mitchell Martan’s poor form for Manchester has seen him traded away by five teams. He is averaging just 6.6 points over the last nine weeks. Injuries to Shane Owen and Cody Donaghey sees their ownership continue to fall after both being in at least 50 teams during the season. Surprisingly we had two teams trade away leading scorer Marcus Crawford with Cardiff having a week playing in Europe. Surely we will see his ownership increase again this week.
Upcoming Fixtures
We are back in Challenge Cup action this week with Glasgow hosting Guildford on Saturday in their first leg. This means that Guildford are in for a busy week as they play three times starting with hosting our other three game team on Wednesday night, the Coventry Blaze. Guildford finish the week at home again to the Cardiff Devils. Coventry travel to Manchester on Saturday before welcoming the Belfast Giants on Sunday.
Nottingham and Belfast play for the third time in a row on Saturday but this time it is at Nottingham after the double header in Belfast last week. The Panthers travel up to Dundee on Sunday to take on the in-form Stars. The Steelers and Flyers have a home-and-home series over the weekend starting in Fife, while the Clan play the only league game of the week in Manchester on Sunday.
Don’t forget you can make trades for week 18 up until the trade deadline at midnight on Tuesday night.
