
It's a work trip kind of week, so the updates may be few and far between, but they already sort of have been on the blog... maybe I was just preparing you for the inevitable. Nevertheless, the scoring may find itself being a little slow as well, but I am up bright and early to get this Newsletter done, so you can at least count on that.


The top pick in the draft, took top spot in the pool scoring race with his monster week, by virtue of the tie-breaking formula, as his 39 goals and 99 points in 76 games actually has some goals, compared to Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning, who also has 99 points, but no goals.
McDavid and the Oilers played in four games this week and he had points in all four. An assist against Carolina on Tuesday, 2 goals and 2 assists against Ottawa on Thursday, another pair of goals against Los Angeles on Saturday and then he capped it off with another 3-point effort (goal and 2 assists) against Anaheim on Sunday night.
With two weeks to go in the regular season, garbage time for the Oilers, McDavid now has a 4-point lead over the next skater, Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning, for the Art Ross Trophy, but more importantly, he does have that leg up on the hockey pool MVP nod.
I'm not sure that the saviour of the Oilers will be enough to be the saviour of Steve's hockey pool team though. Steve's team did make up some ground on Scott's team, trying to move out of last place in the standings, but there is still a 9-point gap to make up in the next two weeks. If McDavid can continue this clinic over the last six games of the season, then maybe.


This season, Clayton's team has been one of the healthiest, in terms of skater games, ranking 2nd in the pool with 876 games played by his forwards and defense and his team also ranks 10th in minutes played by his goaltending tandem as well. This has certainly helped his team stay within arm's length of the money ranks for the better part of the season, even if his team really fell off the map in the scoring department.
After the big week in Week Twenty-Five, Clayton's team now sits tied for 3rd in the final segment of the season, tied with his standings rival, Tony, at 218 points, since the start of Week Nineteen, still 11 points behind 2nd place, Chris.

It has been a long season for Jeremy's team, which really suffered through without much goaltending this year, as Corey Crawford has been out since December and Schneider also seeing some time on the IR and also losing minutes to a red-hot Keith Kinkaid as well. His only bright spot this week was Elias Lindholm of the Hurricanes, who had 4 points, while only four other players were able to pick up points in the week.
Jeremy's team still has some room to fall in the last two weeks of the season, finishing this past week in 20th place, Wes only sits 5 points back and Stacey C. is 9 points back, both of those teams having significantly better weeks that Jeremy and have had better runs of late.

The real race is now for 2nd and 3rd place, which has remarkably turned into a 4-horse race, now with Tony and Clayton in the mix, making up significant ground on Dale B. and Benson. Dale has a 10-point lead on Benson today, while Tony sits 7 points back of Benson and Clayton is only 8 points back. There isn't a lot of time left to make the move, but if one of these teams can hit a Mover & Shaker in the current week, things could really shift in the prize money dynamic.

Grant's team had a notable week in Week Twenty-Five, taking home the 2nd-worst week of the season, with a -18 rating. His team dropped down to 12th in the pool and is now a combined +16 for the season.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
The pool finished with a combined 660 points in the week, which wasn't terrible, by our season standards. It was just slightly above-average in scoring per NHL game, but with injuries the way they were dropping in the league, we lost about half a game of participation from the week previous, which does seem to add up, when it's all said and done.
NEWS AND NOTES

Wilton's hopes of a top 10 finish are now hanging in the balance with this injury, as his team is in the mix for the top 10, holding strong with a mild lead after Week Twenty-Five. Can his team stick around in the last couple weeks without his second-best forward?

Speaking earlier in the Player of the Week nod, about Scott's team possibly heading back down to last place, it remains a possibility, with another injury to his blueline.

Well, Steve is also down a defenseman now, so the race for last place in the hockey pool standings, remains in his stead and it looks to be pretty safe at the moment.
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