There's no such thing as a shutout jinx.

In my view it is still way too early to tell whether goalies are worth too much in this league, but here's a quick overview of what the standings would look like if we eliminated points for shut outs all together, counting only the two points for the win. I'm not advocating such a change, but its a handy way to tell at a glance who is relying too heavily on shutout points from goaltenders:

New Pos	Old Pos	Change	Name	Pts	S/Os	Total SO pts	New total w/o SOs
1	1	0	St. Jewish Blues	142	3	21	127
2	3	1	Powder Rangers	127	1	7	122
3	4	1	Carmada	126	1	7	121
3	4	1	Mackhawks	126	1	7	121
5	7	2	Fylanders	120	0	0	120
6	2	-4	Winter Claassics	128	2	14	118
7	6	-1	Wittman's Hitmen	125	2	14	115
8	8	0	Schizzarks	116	1	7	111
9	10	1	J-kru's A-crew	110	0	0	110
10	11	1	Fightin' Irish	108	0	0	108
11	8	-3	G-Phil's Flyers	116	2	14	106
12	11	-1	Dicklas Lidstroms	108	1	7	103
13	13	0	Preydators	106	1	7	101
13	13	0	Moilers	106	1	7	101
15	15	0	Manitoba Roos	97	0	0	97

A few things jump out:

1. K-Blat is still leading the way, though his current 14 point lead is brought down to a more reasonable 5 points.
2. Dave Claassen takes the biggest hit, dropping from 2nd place to 6th place and losing 10 points - though with 3 points currently separating 2nd and 6th, thats not awfully suprising.
3. I take the second biggest hit in the standings, dropping three spaces and 10 points.
   
4. The biggest beneficiary is Fy, who actually gains 2 positions. As one of only four GMs with zero current shutouts - and the only one in the top 8 - he is in perhaps the best position overall to make a big November push if Turco puts together a few shutouts, or Fleury remembers what, exactly, he's in the league for.

In any event, with 7 point shutouts, a good goalie can potentially win it all for a mediocre team, but there is no substitute for a well-rounded roster. K-Blat is in first place because he is getting excellent production from his whole roster, not just big SO victories from Halak.

In any event, this is still awfully early, and this has been a weird year with obscenely hot starts from okay players, and no production at all from previously consistent stars. I, for one, dig the idea that Nittymaki could string together 4 shutouts in a couple of weeks and propel Roos, however artificially, to the top of the league. With so many points coming from a single position, any hold at the top is tenuous and no one at the bottom is every truly out of it.