Tonight was a loaded schedule but the outcome was unfortunately very bland for fantasy teams unless you own every goalie in the league.

STUDS

Goose eggs

On a night with so many stand-out goalie performances, let's start by highlighting the best of the best when it comes to giving a boost to their fantasy owners.

Tuukka Rask stopped all 41 shots to spoil John Stevens' debut as coach of the Los Angeles Kings. His shutout effort helped the Bruins win 3-0.

Richard Bachman shocked most hockey fans (myself included - he was on my bench tonight with Luongo in goal) as he stopped 34 shots to win 1-0 against a hot Rangers team. Bachman is making a strong case for more playing time once Kari Lehtonen returns from injury.

Connolly escapes injury, takes over game

I had to double-check the injury forum to make sure this is factually correct, but regardless Connolly had a great game. He scored both goals for the Maple Leafs in a 2-1 win over Carolina. He also had a +2 rating, four shots and two blocks. Now he's due for an injury.

No Pronger, no problem...

With Chris Pronger out a pair of defencemen stepped up their production in a big way tonight. Matt Carle had two assists, +3 and three blocked shots. Marc-Andre Bourdon scored his first career NHL goal and added a +3 rating, a minor penalty, two shots, three blocks and two hits.

Honourable mentions

Other goalie standouts (winners only):
Steve Mason (30/31, .968)
Ilya Bryzgalov (31/31, .969)
Pekka Rinne (35/36, .972)
Ondrej Pavelec (34/35, .971)

Top forwards:
Ilya Kovalchuk (2 assists, 5 shots, 6 hits)
Dan Cleary (2 goals, 6 shots)
Pavel Datsyuk (1 goal, 1 assist, 12/23 faceoffs)
Patrice Bergeron (2 assists, +2, 3 shots, 13/19 faceoffs)


DUDS

Semin doesn't care

Many people have jumped on Alex Semin's back for not putting in enough work on the ice to maximize his talents. Tonight's ugly outing adds fuel to that fire. The Capitals lost 5-1 to the Flyers. Semin was pointless and finished minus-3.

Pulling the goalie

Staying on the subject of the Capitals, Tomas Vokoun had an awful game and finihsed the night on the bench. In two periods Vokoun allowed four goals on 21 shots. That scales up to a 6.00 GAA and a .810 save percentage on the night.

Low scoring

I complained about this already but as of this writing there have been a grand total of 52 goals in 12 games. Basically each team scored an average of 2.17 goals per game. This is just terrible for fantasy hockey. Does anyone remember the last time the NHL's CBA was set to expire and scoring was down? Just saying...

Dishonourable mentions

Al Montoya did not have an awful game but allowed a pair of soft goals that helped put the Canadiens in position to clinch a 5-3 victory via empty-net goal. Montoya let a long shot from Mathieu Darche in the first period squeak through his body while the game-winner was scored by Petteri Nokelainen on a slap shot from the point which beat him top-corner. For both players this was just their second goals of the season.

Also a knock to the Carolina Hurricanes for only getting 19 shots on James Reimer.

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UHL Calgary Flames
24-team H2H (roto G, A, GWG, SHP, PPP, PIM, +/, SOG, Hits, Blks, FOW, W, SV, SV%, GAA, SO)

Capped article archive

Montreal Canadiens coverage

Twitter:@DH_EricDaoust.

Shout out to Cam Ward who has had a horrible start to the season, but stood on his head tonight to keep his team in the game. He deserved better.

I think there the worst team in the league.

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"My Name Is My Name" ~Marlo
"I'm just a Gangster I suppose and I want my fu***** corners"~ Barksdale

If it wasn't for every other goalie having a career night he would have been a stud. I saw the highlights and from everyone I talked to (including your post) Ward basically stole a point. Unfortunately for poolies they get good saves, GAA and save percentage but no W.

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UHL Calgary Flames
24-team H2H (roto G, A, GWG, SHP, PPP, PIM, +/, SOG, Hits, Blks, FOW, W, SV, SV%, GAA, SO)

Capped article archive

Montreal Canadiens coverage

Twitter:@DH_EricDaoust.

Agreed, but this is a small shining light in an otherwise very bleak season for Ward, and although the team in front of him has at times been downright atrocious, he is as much to blame as anyone with his very poor goaltending. He has a SV% of 0.898 despite last night's performance.

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"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

Twitter: @ross10019

CBS Sportsline 14 team H2H keeper (21-man roster, 14 keepers), weekly lineup changes
G, A, PPP, SOG, BS, +/-, GAA, W, SV%
Montreal Maulers - 2011/12 and 2012/13 League Champions
C: Zetterberg/Getzlaf/Granlund/Roy/Desharnais
W: Hossa/Gaborik/Moulson/Marleau/Fleischmann/Horton/Brown/Baertschi
D: Karlsson/Letang/Byfuglien/McDonagh/Markov/Tyutin/Spurgeon
G: Lundqvist/Hiller/Brodeur

Very upsetting night with all the low scoring games. With so many teams on was hoping for some action. But then again I probably should be happy and give a shout out and thanxs to my roster last night.

With only 52 goals scored as you said my team walked away with a good stat line. Team in sig

4g,7a,7+,8pim,5ppp,42sog

And brodeur and lundqvist. Sorry you all didn't need to know this but made me happy lol

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12 team H2H Keeper League
g/a/+-/PIM/PPP/SHP/SOG/W/GAA/SV%/SHO
play 4c/4lw/4rw/6d/2g (2min start)
Center: Getzlaf, Marleau, Ribiero, Pavelski
RW: Hossa, Horton, Downie, Franzen, vrbata
LW: Kovalchuk, D.Sedin, Semin, Fleischmann,
Defense : Enstrom, Myers, Goligoski, Wisniewski, Hamilton, Cowen
Goalies: Lundqvist, Brodeur, Pavelec S.Mason,

Farm noteables: Niederreiter, Greiss, Frazee, Kinkaid, Grigorenko

Glad that worked out. Nights like those are key because chances are you grossly outscored your opponent(s).

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UHL Calgary Flames
24-team H2H (roto G, A, GWG, SHP, PPP, PIM, +/, SOG, Hits, Blks, FOW, W, SV, SV%, GAA, SO)

Capped article archive

Montreal Canadiens coverage

Twitter:@DH_EricDaoust.

This is true, but unless his previous stats have already eliminated someone from their pool, it's all about the second half.

I drafted him in all three of my leagues. He has been horrible. But I think he's gonna help me win all three of my leagues when the stretch run comes.


Thanks for write up. Great stuff. I had on idea Kovie had 6 hits last night.

I said this in another thread, but as a Cam Ward owner, I found last night to be very disheartening and actually has me panicking a bit about Ward.

The fact that he can stand on his head, completely steal a game, yet still get hit with the L just says to me how bad Carolina is and I can't see them getting much better. I mean granted, Jeff Skinner wasn't in the lineup but geeze, this team seriously sucks. Giving up 30+ SOG and getting less than 20 of your own is embarrassing.

Carolina had 5 SOG after one period, 12 after two, and 19 total in the game. That's just brutal. Not to mention they gave up three shots on in 44 seconds of OT. This team just sucks and not even Cam Ward can make a difference.

This is gonna be a bad year for fantasy GMs (like myself) that drafted Ward to be our workhorse.

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@B0ndon

Goalies: If I'm pickin em you best be sittin em!

I outscored my opponent but got less points because his whole roster was playing and the Time on ice stat put him over the top of my roster.
I had 7 less players playing then him.

I can understand why some leagues use average scoring a week.

Average scoring usually is more fair with some teams that have more starts that week.
CBS uses that in their free leagues.

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oh he definitely did