Week 9

The week of Ties proved to be uneventful yet discerning. Three games ended in a tie this week; of which, minor notable mention to Elm and Lantz, as their tie was not enough for Elm to leap in the standings, but was hindering enough to drop Lantz out of the bubble by 1 point.

Draper seized his opportunity to loot credits from Wes, snagging a cool 17 points and 12.8 Elo (highest of the week, 3rd highest of the season) spitting on Shitty Predictor during the Post Game Scrum. The boost was not enough for Jon to catch Elm in the standings on his uneventful week, but lessened the gap to 7 for first blood. Draper still sits 17 points out of a playoff spot.
Surely the only notable match this week, Jim held his breath to a 6-3 victory over Evan, taking Blocks by 1 and tying at 9 PPP a piece. Jim extends his winning streak to 7, decisively taking 2nd place chair – 1 point out of first, playing a hollow third to TK as he sits in the Evens Conference.

TK, Zander, and Evan all dropped one spot in the rankings this week, only by breaking their standings ties from last week.

Shout out to Zapf for posting the #1 spot in the power rankings this week. Zarg likes to point out that anytime he has a positive accolade I seemingly throw in more context to show why it ain’t-no-thang-doe. Znarf’s First Place Flex came with a 78 index, not a score to scoff at, and yet, it’s the second lowest power ranking to take the first place spot this season. The first: Zekiel with an index of 77 in Week 3. He is surely a volcanic rock in a sea of coal. Praise Be: Jaromiracle. You should all pander to his accomplishments.

Week 10
The battle for mediocrity continues as Barbs and Caruso lock arms on the bubble. Caruso is looking to set a foothold beneath the juggernauts, while Barbs hopes to cushion himself from danger. SP favoring Tom 6-4 could spell danger for the Barbarian hordes.

Speaking of raping and looting, Radical is scouting for some major pointage this week as he sets his sights on Wes. Rad sits 7 points out of a playoff spot and could make up a large margin of that this week. SP of 8-2 could socket him securely in bubble conversation pending a natural disaster.

Draper’s Cinderella story exposition meets its first real conflict in Turd Furg. Although he should be happy with his take from last week, Jon did so only with an index of 45 over Wes’s 0, the worst performance of the year. Although Lantz sits securely on the bubble, he boasts a season Index of 83, the #1 spot. Draper will surely need some puck luck this week. If Draper can’t hold him off, it could be an extended denouement for Draper’s season.

Matchup Spotlight on the Sako Her Pitties duel. The two square off, both sitting atop their respective conferences. A TK loss could jeopardize his standings, with only a 4 point buffer over Caruso, while a Jay loss would almost certainly precipitate Jim to king of the castle, only one point off his heels. SP spells disaster for TK, with Jason a 7-2 favorite.

Jim presses on his Croatian Inquisition to our resident engineer in Professor Elm. While passive at a glance, I want to point out that Elmathan is silently Power Ranked 3rd this season, seemingly unable to capitalize as he runs into teams on their strong weeks. Will Elm catch Jimbob off guard? SP thinks so with a marginal 5-4 favorite.

Week 8

This week shaped up to be the week of blowouts with large wins and large upsets.

Lantz decided to flip the script on Jason to take back top spot in Elo, however Jason continues to hold on to his first place seat in the league.

Evan, after feigning stress over the weekend that he might lose to an afk Wes, finished the week 9-1; picking up 18 points and the 3rd highest performance of the week. Evan's victory was enough to propel him 2 spots in the rankings to 7th, tied with Rad and 6 points out of a playoff spot. It's safe to say he's not only salvaged his season but is on the borderline of serious conention. Not to be ommited, Evan's victory came with a 10.2 Elo swing, the largest of the week.

Sound victories for Barbs and Caruso both pulling out 7-3 victories with Barbs stealing a cool 8.1 elo from Doebler in a moderate yet effective upset yielding him two upticks in the standings to tie lantz in the bubble position.

Speaking of upsets, Draper's 6-3-1 victory over Rad was enough to heist 8.7 Elo but is it enough to shake Rad's confidence? Rad's season started promising, winning 2 out of the first 3 weeks with 8 wins each, but has fallen from sorts as he's lost 4 out of the last 5 weeks by material margins.

Last but not least, I'd like to highlight Jim's 7-3 victory over TK; 14 points enough to leap 2 spots in the standings to tie TK for 2nd place, 4 points shy of Jason's hotseat and seizing the 5th Elo spot leapfrogging both Rad and Doebler.

Week 9:

With 50% of the league within 6 points of the bubble, the midseason stretch is underway.

Draper's take from Rad could be the spark his team needed. There's no two ways about it, Draper's in a bad spot at 24 points out of a wildcard spot. Maintaining a 2 point pickup average per week for the remainder of the season doesn't seem out of reach however. He tees-up against Wes this week for the first time this season and could take a healthy chunk out of his deficit. Shitty Predictor projects a 4-4-2 tie for this matchup. We'll see if Draper can outperform his average in a must win.

After being wounded in the prior week, Jason is looking to bounce back against an ambitious Doeb. Deobler's been hot and cold thus far this season, but seems to be landing big weeks at the right time. Sako's consistency comes amidst the toughest schedule in the league thus far. Doebler's got quite the climb to punch up, but a Shitty Predictor of 5-5 may give him some confidence in his search for some puck luck.

All eyes should be directed at the matchup of the week where Jim meets Evan and the pun never stops. Jim is on an absolute tear, furthering his win streak to 6 straight, the longest streak this season. Jim's luck may be running out however as throughout the season he's managed to beat his opponents consistently by a slim margin averaging just 1.1 Power Ranking each week over his opponents. Evan...jesus christ you should see his power chart, it's all over the place, yet still, the past 3 weeks has had 2 top weekly performances and posted a cool 3rd last week and shows no signs of slowing. Can Jim's 3rd ranked skating lineup compensate for his 11th ranked goaltending corp? Shitty Predictor believes so favoring Baric 5-3-2 to push his winning streak to 7. (Shitty Predictor is based off full season average with no recency bias becuase I'm putting it off for taking too long to put together fuck yinz).

GL;HF

Week 7

First, I want to highlight Evan's 94 Index on the week, 24 points over second place, to put up the second best performance of the year with a league high accolade in Hits; furthering the mystery of what Evan is putting in the water down in Charlotte. Although sitting in 10th place, his consecutive 7-3 victories have pushed him within 8 points of 9th, and 12 points of the bubble.

Don't let the glare of Evan's glasses distract you from Jason's 8-2 win over Draper. That 16 point pickup was enough for him to nudge past a consistent TK. Not only did he take first chair, but his 5 point Elo pickup was enough to push him over top Lantz marking the first time in 17 weeks that Lantz has not been King Shit.

Both Jason and Jim are currently on a 5 game win streak. Aside from big news, Elo movement was mild with largest swap of the week: Lantz yielding 5.4 points to Barbs. And Zaj Doebchacha is a fukis.

Week 8:
The league is falling into form as Jason and TK are clear front runners nearly 20 points out of danger.

Doebler and Jim are jousting for security, about 10 points from danger.

Caruso, Lantz, Rad, Barbs, and Elm form the pack, all within 5 points of the bubble.

Evan, out on an island by his lonesome, had a rough few weeks to start the season, but has had the number 1 performance of the week 3 out the last 4 weeks. If he can string together a couple wins, he may be able to fully salvage his season.

Draper and Wes are struggling to stay above water. If something big doesn't happen in the near future, it may be time to consider doing something drastic as we're now over 1/3 of the way through the season, injuries are going up, and viable free agents are dwindling.

Matchups to Watch:
Jim looks to take a strike at TK to become apart of the frontrunning conversation.

Shitty Predictor is projecting an 8-1-1 victory for Rad over Draper, which could put Rad on the right side of the Mendoza line.

Jason and Lantz go head to head; the winner could solidy their footing on top of the charts.

Evan with the wind at his back veers toward Wes for the kill. A large win this week could salvage Evan's season and a large loss could end it. Shitty Predictor gives a 6-3-1 victory to the Quackmaster.

GLHF