Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Goalie Announcements (Mar 29)

Well, it hasn't been Ryan's goalies, but his team has made a charge back up the standings with the pool lead in weekly scoring, now sitting at 18 points and now in 4th place, 6 points out of the money. He doesn't have any goalie potential tonight, but there is likely potential elsewhere.

In a quick review of the four games that are set to be played tonight, only one game features a goalie that has the possibility of being in the money race on Wednesday,

Corey Crawford (Marcin) versus Marc-Andre Fleury (Cam)
It's goalies going for 10th and 13th placed teams in Pittsburgh tonight, as Cam tries to close the gap on Marcin's team, which currently sits at 7 points, in what could also be thought to be a preview of a Stanley Cup Final possibility.  I don't think the plan would be to have Fleury taking the Penguins all the way back, but you just never know how the cookie crumbles some time.

Ben Bishop (Dale C.) versus Brian Elliott (Derek B.)
The Los Angeles Kings are working back-to-back nights on their chase to a playoff spot, which isn't really going all that well.  The Flames could clinch their spot with a win tonight against the lowly Kings and they'll send their number one to the crease to get that win.  In the pool, it's 22nd versus 19th and these two teams are separated by only 2 points, which could be a swing game in the standings, for what its worth.

Philipp Grubauer (Tony) versus Calvin Pickard (Derek B.)
Tony gets a rare start from his Capitals back-up goalie, while Derek gets another start from the current number one in Colorado.  I think we have to lean towards the Capitals being the favourites in this one, since the Avalanche are quite terrible this year.

Among the 48 goalies that have appeared in the league average of games played (23 games), Pickard ranks 44th in points collected per 60 minutes, averaging .77 points.  The former Colorado number one, Semyon Varlamov, ranks 48th at .668 points per 60 minutes.

Carter Hutton (Stuart) versus Louis Domingue (N/A)
This was the only game with money potential to it, but even that has fallen to the wayside, as the Coyotes are going to go with dropped goalie Louis Domingue tonight, instead of Marcie's goalie, Mike Smith.  With the Kings nearly dead and the Blues relatively safe in the wild card, they can afford to give a start to Hutton, taking on the lesser dogs.

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