
Wow, we're almost done for another season! These years are going way too fast for me, I can't imagine how fast they're going for you. We've only got one week left to go in the regular season and yes, there will be a playoff pool, if you haven't yet figured out. We're not quite done with the hockey pools until the summer. Let's get right at it, I'm sure you're all dying to know who the award winners are for this past week.


Boy, where do we begin with Karlsson? Well, that's start with this week. The 25-year old Swede and the Golden Knights played in four games this week and it turned out to be a 4-game point streak at the same time. A goal and a pair of assists against the Avalanche on Monday, an assist on Wednesday against the Coyotes, another goal and 2 assists against the Blues on Friday and finally, a goal and an assist on Saturday against the Sharks. He's running red-hot these days and he has quietly strung together a great season.
Karlsson has now collected 42 goals and 75 points in 79 games this season for Vegas, which currently has him ranked as the 31st overall scorer in the hockey pool this season, which would be good enough for the 2nd round of the draft if we were to redo it with today's numbers. That's not bad for a player that was let go in the expansion draft by Columbus and then taken by Scott, as the 1st pick in the Week Nine Waiver Draft. Unfortunately for Scott, that hasn't helped his season overall, as his team had only moved up one spot since then.


Benson's team was led by a couple of players with 6 points each, as Jonathan Marchessault of the Golden Knights and Filip Forsberg of the Predators were very good in the week, even with Forsberg missing a game for a rest this week too. Auston Matthews of the Maple Leafs and Thomas Vanek of the Blue Jackets each chimed in with 5 points, while Rasmus Ristolainen of the Sabres rounded out the top scorers with 4 points.
Injuries were the better part of Benson's two players that failed to pick up points on his active roster, missing one forward and one of his goalies from the score sheet this week.
Benson's team was tied with Chris' for the pool lead in goal scoring in the week, both teams finished with 14 tallies each, while Jaroslav Halak did chime in with a win this week, before also getting hurt.
It has been mostly forward points that has carried Benson's team this season, as his team ranks 2nd in forward points with 503, 19th in defense points with 109 and 20th in goalie points with 78. His team is in the money conversation, so take that strategy for what it's worth. We'll talk more about the money spots here in a second.

Connor McDavid of the Oilers and T.J. Oshie of the Capitals finished with 4 points each to lead the way for his team, but after that, it didn't look very good. Five more players picked up a point, at least and there was nothing coming from his goaltending tandem, so it was a rough one, to say the least.
Steve's team will open the final week of the season with an 18-point deficit to Scott's team, which just had the Player of the Week nod attached to it, so I'm not going to be the one stressing hope at this time. Hopefully, Steve has found a new strategy to take to next year's draft, even though he did have the first pick and is now likely going to have the pool MVP as well.

2nd and 3rd place finishes are all but done, even though Benson jumped over Dale B. to take the meat spot in the money sandwich. The difference between the two teams is now only 4 points. Dale's spot is all but secure as well, as Clayton and Tony have continued to hang around, sitting only 11 and 13 points back, respectively. A Mover & Shaker week from either of those two could really make things interesting.

Dale B.'s team now currently leads the mini-game with a +90 rating overall and there are four more teams that are within that 30-point range, that could possibly do the deed. It's highly improbable, but not impossible. Brian, Steve, Clayton and Stacey M. all have a shot, some more improbable than others, but a shot. The volatile nature of this statistic is what really makes it interesting, especially for the last mini-game to decide for the year.

Wes' team has a 58-minute lead over Neil's in the PIM pool, thanks to a stunning 545-minute season. It seems even more unlikely that Neil is going to find an hour's worth of minutes in penalties, especially with two players on the shelf. There's a title of goon team of the year, but no money in for this cake walk to the finish for Wes.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Scoring-wise, the second-to-last week of the season was above average, thanks to a good number of games in the NHL, a season-high of 55 games in the week. The pool finished with a combined 678 points, which was kind of mediocre, a 12.3 points per game clip, so that's disappointing. We've been losing a lot of goalie starts lately, which hasn't helped and injuries have been piling up against the skaters, so there are significant reasons for these drops.
Let's hope for one good last hurrah in Week Twenty-Seven, right?!?
NEWS AND NOTES

Heading into the final week of the regular season, Cam doesn't have a whole lot to play for and the young Finn doesn't have any stock in the playoff pool, so this doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on play going forward.

Bratt's return was good for Ryan's team, while Johansson coming "this close" to returning was a good sign for Scott's 24th place team, while the two other scratches certainly didn't benefit Steve and Eric at all. All of these pool teams are down at the bottom of the pile.

This injury won't have much of an effect on the overall money standings though, as Derek B.'s team is not quite there. His goal of 13th place, however, could be challenged, as his team now sits 1 point back in 15th place, after Sunday's action.

This injury, if significant, could have an effect on the money, as Gibson has been one of Tony's best players this year. If he wants to slide into 3rd place, he'll need points out of each of the Ducks' three remaining games this week.

No comments:
Post a Comment