Power Rankings: Week 7

Holy shit, we are a third of the way into the season.  Time sure does fly when you are having fun, huh?  Well, see you later.

But seriously, lets first take a moment to acknowledge a GM who departed the league this year; Scott Freeland (worth the watch, brings back lots of memories) of the Bizarrohawks.  One of the Original 3 in this league, he will be missed.  Perhaps he is best remember for his periodic rants, which include awesome thoughts such as this:

The league took on a whole new level of seriousness with the introduction of Joe McGrath writing opinions on the league and creating a weekly power ranking. What could be better than having some imaginary asshole critiquing your team on a weekly basis, all of your moves and trades dissected like pre-med student on a cadaver? Nothing! Thanks for wasting your time Joe, reporting on the greatest fantasy hockey league this season. I’ll miss your witty comments and your gift of pointing out the obvious.

We will miss you Scott, and I leave you with some poetry from the greatest rapper of all time (how is east coast west coast even a debate?).  This song and video are basically how Scott and I grew up on the streets of Richmond:

I will miss you.

Once you have wiped the tears away, please welcome our newest GM, taking over the Bizarrohawks (and keeping the team name out of respect, which is instant good karma), I introduce Luke MacKinnon.  Luke also became a man on the streets of Richmond, which was much harder to do back then before all the rub and tugs showed up on No. 3 road.  If anything, Luke has renewed a sense of passion and urgency in this league, even if it was through posting wildly inaccurate power rankings.  He is even trying to spread the good word on the league.  Here he is talking to two people, not realizing that fantasy hockey is like your golf game or your kids; nobody but you really cares.


Literally, in this picture you see Luke talking about his fantasy hockey team, two guys who could not care less about anything Luke is saying, and then the guy in the foreground trying to get Paymon to fuck him.

Without further adieu, I bring you the power rankings for this week.

1.  Pistol’s Hellcats – This team is on a blistering pace on offense, largely given to GM Pete Shpak’s amazing amount of free time because he is a realtor ability to quickly pick up players at the start of their hot streak.  Then having Filip Forsberg come out of nowhere, and the likes of Nick Bjugstad (wtf?) has helped keep this team’s offense roaring.  But probably the best thing to happen to this team is the absolute gift of Jeff Skinner and Matt Duchene acquired in a trade from the Kanucks.  What a mind-boggling trade, that gave this team two players who will fight for individual trophies for years to come for…I can’t even remember who the fuck they were traded for.  That kind of luck only comes once in a blue moon, and I can only assume it is to offset Pete’s recent bad luck (side note: “congratulations” on getting engaged and joining the dumbest club on the planet.).  The weakness on this team is goalies.  Lundqvist is overplayed, and Holtby really isn’t that good.  They will let this team down come playoff time.  Write that down.

2.  Anzoolander – After years of being fucked by Brian “The Wall” Elliot, GM Jesse Cook may have finally gotten his big break, as the Wall went down tonight and Jake Allen may be the starter for the forseeable future.  Ignore the fact his numbers have been awful as of late, this may be the goalie this team needs to get it back into the Anze Cup finals.  This team is fairly solid in its starting lineup, but quite shallow on offense given the stable of goalies being held by this team.  I think we might see a trade or two before the deadline from this team, as this team needs something to avoid getting booted early from the playoffs.

3.  Super Sperm – Once again this team sits at or near the top of the standings, and this team is solid again, but is it any better than the team the last couple of years that consistently falls short?  I think it might be worse, especially when I look at goalies.  Beyond Rinne, this is easily the worst group of goalies on any team (check out last 14 days on these clowns…awful).  Team management has always been an issue for this team, and you can usually tell when Sean Stock is managing the team versus Ryan Schauble (hint:  the team is winning), but some curious lineup changes tend to hurt this team.  Case in point, Reilly Smith, with no points and minus 5 in the last 14 days is starting while Alex Galchenyuk has 6 points in the same time frame.  Both are playing two games this week, but Galchenyuk is playing Buffalo, which is a terrible team.  Seems odd.  And dumb (yes I realize Galchenyuk is not RW eligible but just put Pavelski in at RW and Galchenyuk in at C).  Morale of the story:  Schauble will sabotage his own team somehow.

4.  Flowers in the Cage – Riding super hot goalies (finally, the Jets realized Pavelec is not a starting NHL goaltender and got someone in there with talent), this team could be a force, if it fixes its roster of benched goalies who look like the island of misfit toys.

Also, why Thornton is ever healthy and on the bench is a mystery to me.  But I am sure Cole knows what he is doing, given his track record.

5.  3rd and Luongo to Go – First, big hats off to GM Mike Gaunt, and being a cancer survivor for two years now.  You can donate to his Movember campaign here.   This team is under the radar, but a lot of these players are consistent, and consistent is great in the playoffs.  Also, it will be fun to watch Luongo put up stats just like the last time he was in Florida, and this team will win in starts, get crushed in wins and GAA, and win in save percentage as Luongo just gets shelled on a nightly basis.  Luckily, this team also has soon to be permanent starter for the Buffalo Sabres, Jonas Enroth, who is in an even worse situation than Luongo.  So there is that.

6.  Everett Silvertips – Some big moves by this team in an effort to shake things up and not repeat last season.  Dealing the best goalie in the league was a sign this team means business, but GM Court Watson made the fatal mistake of getting a goalie in return that is goddamn awful and plays for a shitty team.  A lot of moves haven’t paid off, with 3 of the 4 starting d-men starting the season on PP1 and being relegated to PP2 or off the powerplay entirely, and some of his keepers look like they might not pan out.  There is a ton of talent on this team still, the question is whether or not the streakiness will kill their chances of making the playoffs.

7.  Bizarrohawks – Current position in the standings is primarily driven by playing the bottom of the league the last four weeks.  Against top talent, this team wilted, and was crushed in one of the worst losses by any team this season.  This team has been led by the stellar performance of Vladimir Tarasenko and Mark Giordano, as well as solid goaltending play.  Tarasenko is quickly becoming known for his highlight real goals, like this one:

Real nice, Clark.

However, if highlight reel goals mattered, Linus Omark would be fought over.

So good, yet so bad.

The bigger concern should be regression to the mean.  Case in point, Tarasenko himself

May be time to sell high on that and shore up your team a bit.  Maybe ask the Everett Silvertips or Super Sperm what they want for him, since one drafted him his rookie season and the other held on to him for way to long while he did dick all season (but neither is bitter right now).

8.  Kanucks – I am sure GM Dave Kitchen received some sort of stupid medal from Yahoo! for “wheeling and dealing” or something moronic like that, but some his of trades have destroyed what initially started out as a very good team.   Looks like all that crossfitting has introduced Dave’s brain to Uncle Rhabdo.  Also, why are so many crossfitters fat?  What the hell is the point of working out if you are still fat?  Who the fuck needs functional strength in this day and age, are you carrying a moose out of the bush to put food on your table?  You wear a suit, you sit at a desk, shut the fuck up about your functional strength.

9.  Texans – Congrats to GM Chris Thomas on having a cool little kid (with a penis!  boys rule!) recently.  Expect this team to go to shit.  Also, Cory Schneider plays way too much and John Gibson doesn’t play enough (and when he does, he is a bandaid).  Goalies will plague this team, potentially for years to come.

10.  Halifax Highlanders – This team in theory has arguably the best player and arguably the best goalie in the NHL, but sits second to last.  Injury and lack of depth account for that.  Also, the hope that Semyon Varlamov could put up the absurd numbers he did last year with such horrible puck possession stats from the team in front of him was a reach, and it doesn’t look good so far this year.  There are some talented names on this roster and I don’t really know the answer.  When in doubt, tinker until you find something that works.

11.  Me So Vyborny – Has made some decent moves in the offseason and during the season, and currently has two players sitting in the top ten in scoring.  The issue is that after that, not much else is happening with this team on offense, and the goalies aren’t very good.  Considering what this team finished off with last year, they are improved for sure, but it will be a few years of solid drafting and trading before this team competes consistently.

12.  Jesse Loves Paymon – When you consistently over value your own players and refuse to sell high, you end up terrible.  Like this team!  Similar to not trading Cory Conacher when hot (is he even still in the league?) he now holds onto player who started out hot and is now dead cold in Andre Burakovsky.  Also drastically over values his goalies, two of whom replaced as starter in the next 3 years, and his old broken players (Ryan Kesler) because of unfounded biases deep with GM Steve McIntyre’s tiny brain.  Good luck this season.

13.  Not Poodle!!! – The players on the bench are outperforming the players in the starting lineup (Lucic is awful, btw).  Didn’t help this team was late to pay and had their roster locked for a few weeks.  Maybe set a calendar reminder to set your roster for the upcoming week each Friday afternoon?  Do that and I would guarantee a jump in the standings of at least 3 spots, this team is not that bad.  Except for Mike Smith.  He is really bad, and Double D is taking his starting job.

14.  ChingChong Bing Bong – The reason this team sits here is that they are last in scoring by a country mile.  Awful.  Though oddly, I think this team has some really good young talent, just not enough of it and not deep enough.  I do think this team will bounce back a bit going forward.
Best of luck going forward.  I have no idea when I will have time again to do this.  I love all of you.