This season our scouting department will be giving an update prior to the start of each game week to give you all the information you need to get your team top of the standings.
Roster Moves
No new signings this week, however we had news that Maxim Golod has left Sheffield to return home to Canada this week. A mid-season signing for the Steelers, Maxim quickly settled in and was averaging 26 points a week until the last two weeks. We will see soon if Sheffield bring in a replacement but we currently have 23 GM’s with him currently on their roster.
In terms of selections it is Manchester’s Alexis D’Aoust who gained another 8 selections over the last week. He is now up to 48 overall and has increased by 30 over the last five weeks. There are two defenceman behind him with Nottingham’s Cooper Zech and Sheffield’s Dominic Cormier both gaining an additional four selections last week. Those new GM’s will be pleased with Cormier’s top score of the week with 59 points. Matt Greenfield continues to build on his overall selection lead. He is now in 117 teams which is 12 ahead of Joe Morrow.
Our injured goalie duo of Evan Weninger and Ryan Bednard continue to top the list in terms of players traded away.
Who’s Hot?
As we are starting to count down the number of weeks remaining in the season it might be time to finally ditch those high value players in your team to go in search of the cheaper players who have hit form. Lets look at all those players at 10.0M or above –
Scott Conway – 11.5M – is a huge price and even being the fourth highest scorer might not be giving you the best value. Has scored consistently during the year without any large weekly scores. Expectation was for more based on last season with Belfast.
Mitchell Balmas – 10.5M – Sheffield’s amazing standards last year meant a lot of their returning players are valued on the high side. Balmas is still their highest scoring forward but that is only 22nd across the league. Better value out there unless the team return to last year’s form.
Gleason Fournier – 10.5M – in prior seasons was the highest valued player we ever had but hasn’t hit those same levels this year. Is the 43rd highest scorer, so trade away.
Marc-Olivier Vallerand – 10.5M – as per Balmas comments but additional injury issues has meant his overall scores are less.
Cole Sanford – 10.0M – has been a streaky scorer this year with three occasions of over 50 points in a week but also plenty of blank scores. Good enough for 12th overall. Might be worth keeping and hoping for the good form last week to continue.
JJ Piccinich – 10.0M – previously build up a good relationship with Scott Conway but they haven’t clicked in the same way this year. Solid year but better options out there.
Patrick Watling – 10.0M – as per Balmas/Vallerand comments…..
Zach O’Brien – 10.0M – expectation was that O’Brien would be Cardiff’s top scorer this year. He has had a good year but Josh MacDonald has been the top pick for the Devils.
Gabe Bast – 10.0M – much was expected after his last spell with Belfast but in a common theme with others returning players from a few seasons ago he just hasn’t hit those same levels. However, he is averaging 32.5 points over the last four weeks so is worth sticking with if you already have him.
Sacha Guimond – 10.0M – expectation was that he would be the top scorer on the Sheffield blueline but has been outscored by Kevin Tansey and Dominic Cormier. The later is the one to have at the moment.
Daniel Ciampini – 10.0M – as per Balmas comments……
We called out Glasgow as being the go-to team last week with having three games overall and two of those at home to Fife. We went for Mitchell Heard in the end who gave us a solid 27 points, however Liam Finley (51 points), Deven Sideroff (51 points) and Rylan Schwartz (48 points) all had better weeks. For our tip this week we need to look at one of the teams playing three times. Cardiff have a home game against Sheffield but then play the bottom two teams in the league over the weekend, so lets go for Cole Sanford after his 53 points last week.
Player Scores – Fantasy hockey league UK
Upcoming Schedule
Elite League Challenge Cup semi-finals continue this week with all four teams (Cardiff, Sheffield, Belfast, Nottingham) playing on Wednesday. After that everyone else has two games from Friday to Sunday with one home and one away game for each. On Friday Belfast host Fife, Manchester welcome Dundee and Guildford travel up to Glasgow.
Guildford then travel back home to face Sheffield on Saturday, while the Clan stay in Scotland and play Dundee. Cardiff host Manchester before Nottingham and Coventry open up their home and home over the weekend. To round out the week Sheffield host Belfast and Fife welcome Cardiff.
