DHL Week In Review - Week 6
Mar 1, 2021 9:41:31 GMT -5
Moscow Red Army, St. Roch Hawks, and 4 more like this
Post by Morweena Reimnoceri on Mar 1, 2021 9:41:31 GMT -5
DHL Weekly Review - Week 6
First and foremost - I would like to extend a very hearty congratulations to the 2019/20 Wuest Memorial Playoff Champions - the Simi Valley Kings. With their 9-3 marathon victory over the Nebraska Buffalo, the Kings claim their second league championship (their first coming in 2014). Despite it being a very weird year(s) I hope that it doesn’t lessen the sweet sweet taste of victory.
Matchups:
Tampa Bay (3-2-0) v. Morweena (0-5-0) - Tampa Bay wins 8 - 4
Vegas (2-3-0) v. St. Roch (3-2-0) - St. Roch wins 7.5 - 4.5
Minnesota (0-5-0) v. Haukiputaan (1-4-0) - Haukiputaan wins 8.5 - 3.5
Nebraska (4-1-0) v. Melbourne (4-1-0) - Melbourne wins 8 - 4
Portland (0-5-0) v. Oslo (3-2-0) - Oslo wins 10 - 2
Moscow (5-0-0) v. Simi Valley (5-0-0) - Simi Valley wins 9 - 3
Matchup of the Week: Moscow v. Simi Valley
In a clash of the titans this past week, the Kings retained the crown. Leading the way for Simi Valley were Drake Batherson, Mikko Rantanen, and Matthew Tkachuk who each scored 5 points and combined for 8 STP. Not bad. Perhaps this is the week that Moscow finally gets around to that rebuild that they’ve been promising us all year. In either case, it was good to be Simi Valley last week. Kudos.
Performance of the Week (skaters): Nebraska Buffalo (23 goals, 16 assists, -19, 169 shots (1nice), 12 STP, 114 hits, 69 blocks (nice), 20:03 TOI)
Okay, so there are a few ugly numbers here, but overall, Nebraska was the best team in terms of skaters this week on average. I won’t hear anything bad about my rating system so don’t come at me. Leading the way (as per usual) in hits and blocks, Nebraska has a solid week despite taking the L to Melbourne. What did him in? Goaltending. But I don’t want to dwell on the negatives. So, shoutouts to Pavelski, Hornqvist and Letang who all had solid performances for the Buffalo.
Performance of the Week (goalies): St. Roch Hawks (5 wins, 1.99 GAA, 162 saves, .931 SV%)
Heck of a week out of St. Roch for the protectors of the puck pockets this week. As I made note of below, 5 wins in a week is kind of a huge accomplishment, but to add peripheral stats that are that good on top of it is very impressive. The Hawks’ custodians of the crocheted cages were all so impressive that I can’t even single one out for being the best. Can the bouncers of the big bad baskets stay this hot for St. Roch moving forward? For their sake, let’s hope so as the Hawks are in a dog-fight for a playoff position at the moment.
Player of the Week: Andrei Vasilevsky (3 GP, 3 wins, 0.67 GAA, 79 saves, .975 SV%)
Big time flex here for Vasilevsky as he had back-to-back shutouts to close out his week. This wasn’t one of those weeks where he got to play the Red Wing three times either, he did it against Carolina and Dallas, two pretty solid teams. Looks as though the defending champs and their giant Russian goalie are rolling again this year which is likely a huge factor in Melbourne being 5-1 to start the year.
3 Stars:
1) Patrick Kane (4 GP, 3 goals (including his 400th career goal), 5 assists, +4, 13 shots, 2 STP, 1 block, 21:19 TOI)
2) Marc-Andre Fleury (2 GP, 2 wins (including his 100th as a Golden Knight), 0.97 GAA, 62 saves, .969 SV%)
3) Alex Debrincat (4 GP, 2 goals, 5 assists, +2, 12 shots, 2 STP, 4 hits, 2 blocks, 20:56 TOI)
Other Notes:
Fun Fact - This week St. Roch recorded 5 goaltender wins in their matchup against Vegas. Why is this a fun fact though? Well...in a single week the Hawks recorded the same amount of goalie wins as Haukiputaan has all season and one MORE than Nebraska. Now, that shouldn’t be confused with saying that the goalies on those teams haven’t combined to win 4 or 5 games all year - that is to say that the Ahmat and Buffalo are just having some terrible luck with whom they chose to occupy their G spot this year.*
*this stat was sent to me, I didn't notice this on my own.
Good Times Roll in Simi Valley - The reigning champions keep rolling. The Kings are just rolling in the W’s this week as they both remain undefeated and claim their crown from last season. Are they too powerful? Can anyone stop them? What’s the deal?
Vegas Shuffles the Deck - Vegas makes a huge roster overhaul this past week cutting ties with 5 players (including two goaltenders) before signing 4 more players and drafting 2. What was the cause for this change of direction for the Aces Wild? That’s anyone’s guess. Will it pay off? Also who knows. But at least it looks like they’re having fun!
Morweena’s Mailbag:
Q: With Simi remaining undefeated and Morweena, Minnesota, and Portland all looking for their first win, what's the best and worst starts we've ever had?*
*this questions was slightly modified, but I believe it's in the same vein of the original.
A: Normally, I might go back and sift through things to see who was actually the best/worst, but I gotta be honest with you guys...that seems like a lot of work for very little payoff. I’m sure that a team has started 0-6 before, maybe even worse. If you were that manager, please pipe up so we may openly mock your incompetence (kidding). Now, have we had three teams all start the season 0-6 before? I’m less sure that we have. This level of bad could be a new one for the DHL.
Now, the best start I believe we can hand to Vegas from two year ago. Seeing as they only lost like 1 matchup all year I’ll go out on a limb and say that they started off better than 6-0. What makes this an interesting wrinkle, is that in the last 8 matchups (maybe more) Simi Valley has had, they are undefeated. I say this because, of the last two playoff matches Simi won in order to claim the Wuest Memorial Trophy from last year.
Now, what’s interesting here is that, barring a tie, there will for certain be a team after this week that is 0-7. That hurts.