Busy Sunday for me. Not only were there five games but the Blues also made a huge move firing head coach Davis Payne and bringing in Ken Hitchcock. Expect to hear a bigger breakdown from me later in the week but until then here are your Studs & Duds.

Studs

Rollie the Goalie

I hope all you poolies were patient. Rollie is way too hard-working and Tampa Bay is way too good for him to be completely awful. Those of you who stayed the course were rewarded on Sunday. Rollie came on in relief part way into the second after Mathieu Garon spotted the Florida Panthers a 3-0 lead. Rollie stopped all 29 shots he faced, including a massive toe save on Weiss in the final minute. Before the puck even made it to Weiss I thought the game was over. He was so open and had no one between him and the goal but Rollie. He deked Rollie out of his pants but the desperation toe save saved many a poolie last night. Rollie completed the comeback by stopping all four shooters he faced in the shootout giving him the win and a pseudo-shutout. You may not get that little tick in your shutout column but suck it up. Rollie didn't even start and yet rewarded his owners with a surprise performance to close out the week. Can you tell I own this guy?

Canucks Power Play

The 'Nucks went 5/6 with the man advantage helping them dispatch their hated rivals the Chicago Blackhawks by a score of 6-2. It was a dominant performance that saw some great numbers from several Canucks. Henrik notched a goal and three assists, including three PPP. Daniel had a goal and two assist with two PP. Hodgson played a great game and registered two power play assists, so did Edler. Hamhuis had a goal and an assist, so did Booth.

Maid Marian

Gaborik may have the fragility of an old maid but he is one of only a few game breakers in the NHL. Gaborik provided a little bit of everything on Sunday. He scored two goals, one assist, was plus-two, with one PPP, two PIM and six SOG. Just a fantastic roto-performance. Enjoy it while you can.

Honourable Mentions

Marty B

No not that Marty B! I mean Marty Biron. You know, that guy you completely forgot about like three years ago. (Oh, okay I guess you forgot about Brodeur like three years ago as well.) It's unlikely many poolies got to reap the rewards of Biron's shutout against the happless Jets on Sunday but for those of you clever enough to snap him up for that final day start in your H2H pools I tip my cap to you.

The Stars Stars

Jamie Benn continues his ascent to superstar status. The thing that impresses me most about Benn is his hockey sense. He knows where to go to get goals and works his butt off to get to those spots. He had two goals on Sunday. Meanwhile, Loui Eriksson registered three assists and continues to make me look stupid for predicting him to regress this season. He and Benn have good chemistry and Eriksson is a brilliant player in his own right. The Stars clearly aren't missing Brad Richards. While Eriksson's 22.9% shooting is unsustainable he is a career 14.9% shooter so it's not like he's way overachieving with his eight goals so far this season. He will trend towards more assists because that's how he plays but a third straight 70+ point season looks like it is in the cards. Finally, Sheldon Souray continued his renaissance with two assists on Sunday.

Duds

Carolina's (Blind?) Scorekeepers

For not doing Eric Staal or his owners any favours. Staal had what should have been an assist on the Hurricanes' first goal of the game. By not awarding Staal with the point they perpetuated his struggles and reduced his roto-line to a pointless minus-two with two PIM and six SOG. We expect the shots though and that assist, which would have been a power play tally, would have balanced out his awful plus/minus.

No Reward

Cam Ward laid an absolute egg on Sunday. I mean, Dallas is good but allowing four goals on 14 shots in just over a period of work is not the way to reward your fantasy owners.

The Crawdad Man

What is a crawdad? It's like evil shrimp. Every day is a hard day for the Crawdad Man, Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford, and Sunday was particularly hard. While it's hard to blame him for the final score, that's little consolation for poolies who own Crawford. The Blackhawks really hung Crawford out to dry with their terrible penalty killing and in the end Crawford allowed six goals on 38 shots. It's safe to say that neither the Blackhawks nor Crawford could keep their crawdads separated. On Sunday night, they most certainly ate themselves.

Dis-Honourable Mentions

You Give Me Nothing!

Kyle Wellwood was coming in hot but he put up goose eggs across the board, except of course for his minus-two rating. Just brutal.

Whatever fat camp you were thinking of sending Wellwood to, purchase another ticket for Keith Ballard. Somehow he registered nothing but a minus-two rating in the Canucks 6-2 win.

Remember that power play assist the Hurricanes scorekeepers robbed from Staal? Well that ended up getting credited to Tomas Kaberle who otherwise would have registered a big pile of **** all to go along with his team low minus-three rating. Even if his owners did benefit from the assist, it's a total phantom and will haunt you forever. That minus-three rating is only the beginning.

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Also on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw

I love the bitterness in this post in regards to Staal!

Good shout out to Benn & Eriksson...those two are absolutely rolling right now.

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8 Team Roto League (1-year)
Cats: G A +/- PIMs PPP SHP SOG SH% HIT BLK GAA SV% SVS W SO
F: Ovechkin, Stamkos, Giroux, Perry, Tavares, Eriksson, Benn, Jagr, Heatley, Alfredsson, Roy, Hanzal
D: Phaneuf, Del Zotto, Kulikov, I. White, Goligoski, Niskanen
G: M. Smith, Emery
BN: C. Stewart, J. Staal, Read, Brouwer, Ward, Hedberg, Pavelec, Bachman
IR: Letang, Giordano

great write-up dude, only thing I'll criticize is the Eriksson thing, the guy is a freakin lock man, he really is, trust me. He's one of the hardest working players in the league IMO, he literally just works hard all the time and wills things to happen, he is the main reason Richards was so successful in Dallas, and he's the main reason Benn has had such success. He's not flashy though and I think that's why he's been underestimated but I've owned him for 4 years (and thus watched more Stars games than I cared to) and trust me, he's the guy that makes that machine run. He'll always be 70-80 pt range but the bonus with him is that he'll hit that mark over and over again

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Thats me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish.





P=1 DPts=1.2 +/-=.32 PIM=.08 PPP=.4 SHP=.6 S=.015 Blk=.2 Hit=.08
W=2 OTL=.8 GA=-.64 SV=.08 SO=3

Pro (23 keep 17)
C- Filppula,Turris,Stastny,Backstrom
D-Boyle,MDZ,Karlsson,Robidas,Goligoski,Schenn,Seiden berg
G-Anderson,Hiller,Rinne
LW-Malone,Parise,Rolston,Eriksson,Ruutu
RW-Alfredsson,Callahan,Setoguchi,Brown,Ryder,Vrbata

Farm (9 keep all, max 200 GP, 100 Goalies)
Colborne,Leblanc,Loktionov,Perreault,Tangradi,Blum ,Poulin,Markstrom

This almost made me spit out soda all over my keyboard...

Kaberle owners prepare to be haunted by the dreaded "Phantom Assist".

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mounD: 2011-12 Champs // 2012-13 Champs
12 Team H2H Keeper (Keep 18)
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 3F, 6D, 2G, 5BN (IR)
G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, SOG, FoW // W, Sv%, GAA, SHO

C: Getzlaf, Backes(RW),B. Richards,
LW: Parise, Hall, Kunitz, Ladd, Marchand(C,LW)
RW: Kessel, Neal(LW) Hossa, Burrows(Lw)
D: Karlsson, Chara, Burns, Boyle
G: Rinne, M. Smith
Bn: Jussi Jokinen(C,LW), Cammalleri(C,LW), Weiss(C), Timonen, Visnosky

Farm: Kadri, Coyle, Gallagher, Järnkrok - Barrie, Trouba, Vatanen - Khudobin

Love "The League" crawdads reference Steve! Awesome!

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Pretty sure that's what I alluded to in this post. I have been converted.

__________________
Dig my Cage Match articles? Follow my blog! The Laws of Sport

Also on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw

ok fair enough just wanted to make sure you were FULLY on board now Sorry if I'm gushing, he's just one of my favorite players in H2H because hes so consistent

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Thats me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish.





P=1 DPts=1.2 +/-=.32 PIM=.08 PPP=.4 SHP=.6 S=.015 Blk=.2 Hit=.08
W=2 OTL=.8 GA=-.64 SV=.08 SO=3

Pro (23 keep 17)
C- Filppula,Turris,Stastny,Backstrom
D-Boyle,MDZ,Karlsson,Robidas,Goligoski,Schenn,Seiden berg
G-Anderson,Hiller,Rinne
LW-Malone,Parise,Rolston,Eriksson,Ruutu
RW-Alfredsson,Callahan,Setoguchi,Brown,Ryder,Vrbata

Farm (9 keep all, max 200 GP, 100 Goalies)
Colborne,Leblanc,Loktionov,Perreault,Tangradi,Blum ,Poulin,Markstrom

I know the players of Dallas deserve a ton of credit for playing great, and there are a few great stories going on there, but what about GM JOE? Not sure if he deserves any respect as I do not follow the Stars closely. It does seem like with all their success thus far this season he has been forgotten or looked past because well, I never hear his name. I most definitely heard his name a lot last year when he didn't resign Richards though.

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" You said you don't give a f*ck about hockey. I've never heard anyone say that before."

Absolutely. Great job by Nieuwendyk. Spending at the league min to boot! He is a guy you want running your business.

An excellent point. It took balls to identify this team would be fine without Richards and adjust accordingly. Good judge of talent seeing that Eriksson was the cog that drove the offense. Dallas is looking very impressive, not just in the standings but dominating games for long periods of time...

__________________
8 Team Roto League (1-year)
Cats: G A +/- PIMs PPP SHP SOG SH% HIT BLK GAA SV% SVS W SO
F: Ovechkin, Stamkos, Giroux, Perry, Tavares, Eriksson, Benn, Jagr, Heatley, Alfredsson, Roy, Hanzal
D: Phaneuf, Del Zotto, Kulikov, I. White, Goligoski, Niskanen
G: M. Smith, Emery
BN: C. Stewart, J. Staal, Read, Brouwer, Ward, Hedberg, Pavelec, Bachman
IR: Letang, Giordano