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
We have had three incoming signings to the league over the last week, with two of those having played in the league before. First is David Goodwin returning to Belfast for the fourth time and he has racked up 185 games over the previous spells at a better than a point per game. The majority of his time over the last few years has been spent on Scott Conway’s line, so we can expect them to link up again. Goodwin is added at 9.5M. The other returnee to the league is James Shearer, who spent last year at Coventry but has now signed for Guildford after brief spells in Utah (ECHL) and in Hungary. With only four recognised defencemen available, Guildford coach Paul Dixon needed to bring in some help. We expected more scoring from him when at Coventry and initially valued him at 7.0M, but after a solid if not spectacular year with the Blaze he is now added at 6.0M. The final signing is Brad Schoonbaert joining the Cardiff Devils. This coincides with the news that Riley Brandt will be out for the next few months. Schoonbaert is in his second professional season but has spent all that time in Kansas City. With just two goals so far this season it isn’t likely that he will be scoring plenty of fantasy points, therefore he is added at 6.0M.
In terms of selections the most traded for player over the previous week was Alexis D’Aoust of the Manchester Storm. He gained another 9 selections to take him to 27 overall, which is still low for a top ten overall scorer in the league. Last weeks top scorer Maxim Golod had a further 8 selections to take him to 14 overall. Behind him were Josh MacDonald, Ryan Bednard and Brendan Harms with an additional 6 selections each.
Zach O’Brien is the most traded away player over the last week with a drop of 8 selections. He had 23 points last week but hadn’t scored much for a few weeks prior to that. The next two players are both for the struggling Fife Flyers who now just have two wins in 28 games and look destined to finish bottom of the league even at this early stage. Phelix Martineau and Lucas Chiodo, who are two of the more productive players, have seen drops of at least four selections in the last week.
Who’s Hot?
Goalies made a huge difference on the scoring last week with two huge scores and then a big drop to the other goalies in the league. Matt Greenfield had two shutout wins over the weekend for the Steelers over Coventry and Fife so scored 75.1 points overall. Belfast’s Jackson Whistle also picked up two wins, including one shutout, for a total of 50.2 points. After that we see a big drop off to 16.8 points. With that in mind lets take a look at who is playing for each team –
Belfast Giants – Generally Tom McCollum starts the majority of games with Jackson Whistle getting the rest. However Whistle started both games over the weekend so is this injury related or a change in playing time. McCollum did backup on Saturday.
Glasgow Clan – Majority of starts for Landon Bow with some spot starts for Lucas Brine.
Cardiff Devils – Mac Carruth and Taz Burman sharing time in goal with Ben Bowns out injured.
Coventry Blaze – All recent starts for Mat Robson.
Dundee Stars – Richard Sabol and Jarrett Fiske generally have a 60/40 split in favour of Sabol.
Fife Flyers – Majority of starts for Shane Owen with some spot starts for Janis Voris.
Guildford Flames – even split of time between Eamon McAdam and Jake Kupsky.
Manchester Storm – All recent starts for Evan Weninger.
Nottingham Panthers – Ryan Bednard previously was starting all games but appears to have picked up an injury over the last week. Jason Grande started both games in the last week.
Sheffield Steelers – All recent starts for Greenfield
A solid week for our tip last week with Maxim Golod picking up 31 points. Our tip for this week is for Scott Conway as Belfast have two home games and he also has the return of playmaker David Goodwin in his favour as well.
Upcoming Schedule
We have a shortened game week with Cardiff participating in Continental Cup final action. We therefore have no games for the Devils and just one game for the Clan and Stars. The Clan’s only game is on Friday night at home to the Steelers, who then travel to Belfast on Saturday. Belfast stay at home on Sunday to welcome Manchester who host Fife in a bottom of the table clash on Saturday.
Elsewhere Guildford host Dundee and Nottingham welcome Coventry on Saturday, while on Sunday Nottingham travel up to Fife and Guildford go to Coventry.
