Game Seven Hocus Pocus, No One Was Safe

The mantra of the series between the Flyers and the Rangers was that there was no momentum gained after any win, as the pattern was win one, lose one and that pattern rung true for Game Seven, as the Broadway Blueshirts eliminated the Broad Street Bullies after a 2-1 win on Wednesday night.

Despite Steve Mason's best effort, 31 saves, the Flyers just were not able to capitalize in Madison Square Gardens, where the Rangers were able to make good on a couple of 2nd period chances, keeping sticks on the ice and redirecting solid passes across the crease, giving Mason little chance to make stops.  Henrik Lundqvist made 26 stops for the win, staying solid and composed throughout.

Lundqvist was the only pool player in this Game Seven that had multiple points, as he was able to take 2 points from the win.  Lundqvist also took the title of top scoring player in this series, as he finished with 4 wins and 8 points, good news for the four teams that picked him in the pool.

As it was foretold in the number of selections in the pool, the Rangers were the favourites and they go through, as 54 Flyers selections goes down the tubes.  Vincent Lecavalier was the most popular Flyers player taken, registering 15 selections in Box 19.  Claude Giroux, taken three times, led the pool players in points with 2 goals and 4 assists.

The New York Rangers will now go on to face the Pittsburgh Penguins, series starting on Friday night.  More about this series in a 2nd round preview (hopefully!) later on in the day on Thursday.

Major upset alert! Major upset alert!

In what was the best game of the evening, the Minnesota Wild came up with one hell of a finish and in their Game Seven match-up against the Colorado Avalanche, there was no better way to boil it all down then to say... "last goal wins!"

It was tit for tat all night between the two Central (former Northwest) Division rivals on Wednesday night, as the home team would go up a goal and the visitors would respond to tie it up, as the Wild tied up the game at 4-4 with less than three minutes to go in the 3rd period.  The first overtime period saw the tides turn, as the Avalanche, who held four leads in the game, were not able to get that fifth lead, as Nino Niederreiter was able to step up and blast one past Semyon Varlamov, shocking the Pepsi Center (among others) crowd and vaulting the Wild to a second round date with the Chicago Blackhawks.

In another twist in this hockey game, Minnesota's starting goalie for Game Seven, the non-pool goalie Darcy Kuemper, had to leave the game with an undisclosed injury, as he was seen labouring in the 3rd period, slow to get up from some routine stops and whistled down plays.  With just over eight minutes left in the final regulation frame, Ilya Bryzgalov appeared in the game and ended up being the goalie on record for the overtime win, picking up the 2 points in the pool, much to the joy of Scott G., who's second team is the only team in the pool to have him.

With all of that being said, it was Niederreiter's coming out party in the pool, as he finished with a pair of goals, including the winner and he added a helper for a 4-point night, leading the way for the Wild.  Bryzgalov was the only other pool player for the Wild to be notable, with the win.  In a losing cause, Matt Duchene and PA Parenteau were the only two pool players for the Avalanche with 2 points, as they both had a couple helpers.

How big of an upset was this?  Well, as it was outlined in yesterday's post, the Wild only had 12 picks to their names on the sheet, compared to the Avalanche's 83 selections.  Paul Stastny was taken 16 times, Jan Hejda was taken 14 times and Ryan O'Reilly was taken 13 times as the three most popular players eliminated in this game.  In terms of scoring, Nathan MacKinnon and Stastny led the pool players with 11 points each, both picking up bonus points on top of their normal 10 points.

This upset stung a lot of teams, which was the leading factor for leaving no team perfect in the remaining players category, which I'll feature a little further down in the post.

How about some history?  The Los Angeles Kings became the fourth team in NHL playoff history, the second team in the last four years, to come back from a 3-0 series deficit.  Toronto in 1942, Long Island in 1975, Philadelphia in 2010 and now the Kings, it makes for quite the list.

I've also got to think that the membership for the "San Jose Never Again Club" has increased by a great number of poolies this year.

Yes, not only did the Kings win Game Seven to earn the right to face the Anaheim Ducks in the second round, they did it in a dominating fashion, which has likely put some heads on the chopping block in San Jose.  The 5-1 win on Wednesday night was a destructive display of rivalry, especially when those five goals were unanswered after an early 2nd period goal from the Sharks to spark whatever hope the home team had left.

The Kings, in Game Seven, were led by Anze Kopitar, who scored the winner and added an assist for a 3-point night, followed only by Jonathan Quick, for pool players, who had made 39 saves for the win and his 2 points.  Los Angeles was able to spread around the scoring in the series finale, which was likely the hardest thing for the Sharks to handle defensively.

It was also Kopitar and Quick, respectively, who led the pool players in scoring in this first round series, as they had 11 and 10 points each against the Sharks.  Kopitar finished 2nd in pool scoring in the opening round of the playoffs, after all the tie-breakers, as five players finished with 11 points.

For the, now-eliminated, San Jose Sharks, Patrick Marleau led the team in points in the first round with 3 goals, 4 assists and a bonus point.  As for picks, the Sharks were not the favourite in this series, but only by a narrow margin, as 83 selections were scratched from active duty.  Joe Pavelski had 18 of those picks and he finished second in team scoring with 6 points in the pool.  Logan Couture & Marc-Edouard Vlasic each had 11 picks and Brent Burns was taken 10 times, as the more notable Sharks eliminated from the pool.

And with that, we move on in the West.

Game-Winning Goals
The series winners on Wednesday night came from Benoit Pouliot of the Rangers, Nino Niederreiter of the Wild and Anze Kopitar of the Kings, keeping two out of the three winners within in the pool.

Our 1st round leaders in the GWG department were Don D.'s second team and Sheldon M.'s team, which each had 10.  Don D.'s first team had nine, while Dorthea C. picked up eight.

Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks led all players in the opening round with three winners, followed by Jussi Jokinen of the Penguins, who had a pair.  32 players in the pool each had one winner to their name, which means they were spread around quite well.

This brings us to the recap of the first round, but not before talking money.

The prizes have been listed on the top of the standings page for the last few days, but we'll outline it here for the record.  1st place will walk away with $300, followed by $100 for 2nd, $50 for 3rd and doubling your money ($20) for 4th place, given the odd number of teams in the pool.  Four payouts... that's pretty good, right?

With all that being said, Don D.'s second team has the lead out of the opening round gate with 123 points, a solid 11-point lead on Brady J., who has two more players than Don.  In 3rd spot, pool-newcomer Seward F. has 111 points, 1 point back of Brady, but only has 15 players, three less than Brady and one less than Don.  In 4th place, we have Chris J. at 110 points and 18 players left.

Outside of the money, we have Ryan M., Tom H. and Wes M., all with 109 points, but in terms of players left, it is 14, 17 & 21, respectively.  Wes, losing the GWG tie-breaker, has the most players left and can certainly make the jump very soon.

24 teams finished the opening round with 100 or more points, which means there are 20 teams inside of 10 points of the money to start the second round.

Thor was the team that was hurt the least by the eliminations, as his team will go into the second round with 22 active players, while seven teams have 21 players, two teams have 20 players and another 32 teams have just over half of their players left.  Five teams have half or less left, which should be considered a write-off now, unfortunately.

The opening round of the playoffs will make it or break it, as we've seen again this year.  At least we still have solid race for the money going forward.

On to round number two!!