Week 3: Tkachuk goes nuclear and the IceCaps cash again
Week 3 asked for a belt and Brady Tkachuk threw two hats at it. Then Bill Blackburn cashed the five-dollar pot for the second straight Monday, which is starting to look less like a hot streak and more like a business. Welcome back to We The Hockey People.
Player of the Week — Brady Tkachuk, 49.60
The honor this week goes to Brady Tkachuk, who put up 49.60 fantasy points and lapped the building. Natural hat trick in Columbus. Natural hat trick in overtime against Vancouver, tying goal with 13 seconds left, winner at 2:23 of OT. First Star of the NHL week. Bouchard's 33.96 from Week 1 just became a footnote.
He did this for James Reynolds and The Cat, The Rat and Sloth, which is a lot of animals for one Panther to feed. Reinhart was second at 34.61. McDavid at 33.98. The other Tkachuk — Matthew, on the Ducks — checked in at 32.64, which is a perfectly loud week unless your last name is already on the trophy. Brady took the belt, both hats, and the family group chat.
$5 to the high score — Raleigh IceCaps, 185.02
The weekly win, and the $5 that comes with it, goes to Bill Blackburn and Raleigh IceCaps. 185.02 points. First in the room. Again. McDavid, Seth Jones, the eight-center pile we already apologized to once. Bill is going to need a bigger Venmo. That is @Paul-Stojanovski if you are keeping score at home, which Bill clearly is.
Return of the Mac finished at 175.83, a Week 1 encore that still did not get paid. District 5 Ducks beat last year's champ, Eagle Fang, 172.49 to 157.35, which is a very polite way to remind Josh Davidson that the parade floats have been recycled. Keep My Puck OuchYo Mouth edged Patrnak Attack 163.29 to 157.92 in the week's closest grown-up game. Nobody but Bill got the envelope. Two Mondays, two fives. The Front Office is considering a frequent-flyer program.
Around the League
Florida did something the NHL had never seen. Natural hat trick on Tuesday. Natural hat trick on Thursday. Then Sam Bennett threw a third one at Seattle on Saturday, and the Panthers became the first team in league history with a natural hat trick in three straight games. Tkachuk tying it with 13 seconds left and winning it in overtime was the middle chapter. The history book got the whole weekend. Watch the clip and read the NHL write-up.
The draft board is live
The Front Office hung a new board on the wall. Draft Central now has a round-by-round value view that paints every pick green, yellow, or red based on how they're actually scoring versus where you took them. If your first-rounder is glowing red three weeks in, that is not a lighting issue. Go look: the draft board.
— The Front Office