More Figures from the First Segment

Now that we're into the second segment of the hockey pool year, with another jersey up for grabs, I thought I would go over some of the numbers from the first segment of the season. I think this is more for my own curiosity than anything, but I thought I'd share at the same time, just in case someone else thought it was interesting.

So, Allan S. won the first segment with 199 points and his breakdown of points went down like so... 120 points from his forwards (5th in the pool), 37 points from his defense (8th in the pool) and 42 points from his goalies (4th in the pool).  It's a pretty even keeled team across the board, which doesn't excel in any one position, but is pretty decent in all of them.

Brenda's team led the pool in points from the forward group with 139, which was 13 points better than 2nd place in the list, Dale B..  Down at the bottom, both Leo and Doug each sat with 77 points, which led to them being at the bottom of the pool, quite clearly.

On defense, Grant's team took the first segment crown with 55 points, followed closely by Kristy & Don and Scott with 53 points.  All three of these teams are definitely in the top half of the pool, some doing better than others.  Down at the bottom, Wes' team only managed to pick up 14 points from the blueline, but his team sits in the middle of the pack.

A big reason why Wes' team was in the middle of the pack, his goaltending.  At 55 points from two goalies, he put a lot of eggs in this basket and they are buoyant enough to keep him afloat.  He was also followed rather closely by Chris M., who was also kept afloat by his goalies at 54 points.  The bottom of these ranks was Derek Wyllie, who only managed 9 points from Michal Neuvirth and Viktor Fasth.

At the Waiver Draft, Leo swapped a pair of forwards to improve his shortcoming, while Doug swapped a goalie and a forward to help his cause.  Wes swapped a defenseman and a forward, hoping to help his team get into the top 10, while Wyllie swapped one goalie and a forward.  Needs were somewhat addressed by the teams in dire need of some help.

I found that goal scoring was also a good sign of teams doing well in the pool from year to year and the Week Eight leader in goals was Brenda F. with 78, who was 4th after the first segment.  Allan, who was tops in the pool finished 2nd in goals in the segment with 74.  Wes was down at the bottom of the list with only 35 goals for, but obviously had more than enough wins to help his cause there.

Another key to successful teams... staying healthy.  Four teams, all within three skater games played, led the way in the healthy team discussion.  Kristy & Don led the way after Week Eight with 277 games collected, followed by Allan at 276, Grant at 275 and Stacey C. at 274.  All four teams are either in the prizes or making their way in.  Down at the bottom, Wes only collected 200, thanks to a lot of injury and minor-league problems, followed by Ryan M., who had 208 and Chris M., who had 220.

Goalies, measured in minutes played, since appearances could be slightly skewed, thanks to relief appearances and pulls, seems to be about right.  Chris M. saw the most minutes at 2,448 (Marc-Andre Fleury and Roberto Luongo), while the goalie points leader, Wes, wasn't too far behind at 2,358 (Tuukka Rask and Mike Smith).  Both teams had their goalies going constantly, making them into exceptionally good picks and helped to keep their numbers so high.  On the other end of the spectrum, Cindy only managed 659 minutes collected (Dan Ellis and Ray Emery), followed by Wyllie at 706, Wilton at 850 (Craig Anderson and Tomas Vokoun) and Mike S. at 878 (Jonathan Bernier and Jake Allen).

When you're talking about skater games to goalie minutes, your skaters are going to have the greater impact, since you have 12 skaters to your two goalies, so staying healthy with your skaters is way more important in the long run.  Goalie minutes have kept Chris and Wes in the running, so if they have improved their teams in the skater area at the Waiver Draft, which they tried to do, they should be better in the running for prizes in the second segment.

I think I'll likely have another look at these same numbers after the second segment, as they should give us good indicators of why teams moved up and down from the first segment and why teams are in the money.