Race to the Sin Bin (Apr 1)

It's an early start to the day, so we have some early daily posts to wade through.

In the PIM pool on Friday night, Marcie found a couple minutes in the Sharks/Flames game, which was fairly well-contested, but didn't give us much to work with.  In the Washington/Arizona game, Marcie captured another pair of minutes, so her team was 4-0 up on Troy on the night, leaving the gap at 46 minutes, heading into Saturday night.

Troy's team is now sitting at 48 minutes this week, which is only 8 minutes shy of the weekly record this season, held by Marcie in Week Two.

Let's have a look and see what we have on tap today/tonight.

Troy's marquee game goes in the 'Peg tonight, as the Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets go head-to-head. I'm not sure how spirited this one will get, since it's not a divisional game and the Sens and Jets are in two different modes, heading towards the off-season, but Mark Borowiecki and Chris Thorburn will headline the PIM pool element, which could warrant some fisticuffs.

Now we're talking! A Central Division match-up, with the possibility of a first round series ahead, as the Wild are in Nashville to take on the Predators. This certainly has some potential for losing some love and Troy is right in the middle of this one as well, as Matt Dumba highlights the Wild players and Cody McLeod will be the big guns for the Preds tonight.

It isn't until the third game on the blog, before Marcie gets a taste of some action, as the Maple Leafs are in Detroit to take on the Red Wings. Troy has the biggest of all the muscle in this one in Matt Martin for the visitors, but Marcie's collection of Leafs, Jake Gardiner, Nikita Zaitsev and Connor Brown, could do enough to keep her lead intact in this one.

The Ducks and the Oilers became well-acquainted with one another on the 22nd, where there was lots of fireworks to be had and our two dueling goon teams managed to pick up a few minutes in penalties, here and there. With the Pacific Division title on the line in these last days of the season, I'm expecting another rough & tumble game tonight, which will be good for our goon sides. Marcie will defend her lead with Patrick Maroon and Ryan Kesler on either side, while Troy will look to gain ground with Jared Boll and Josh Manson for the Ducks.

I think it's fair to say that this is the marquee game in the race.

Marcie has a quiet PIM accumulator in Dallas' Radek Faksa, but the Stars are in Dallas to help play out the rest of the regular season and there isn't much in the PIM pool, other than the young Czech forward. Still, he has 65 minutes in penalties on the season, so he hasn't been a slouch, averaging just under a minute per game. Maybe he's due for a breakout performance or a major penalty/game misconduct combo.

And in the earliest of all the games today, Marcie has a little bit more representation with the Florida Panthers, as Vincent Trocheck also hasn't been too bad this year, picking up 41 minutes in 77 games with the Panthers this year. Obviously, she wants him to be scoring more for the bigger and better race, but a little help here could also go a long ways to keeping a smile on her face.