Morning Playoff Notes (May 11)

Game 7 between the Jets and the Predators was supposed to be one of the heavyweight bouts of the century and it lived up to the hype of the last few heavyweight bouts of the centuries... oh yes, they rarely do.

A couple of weak Winnipeg goals around the halfway mark of the 1st period had put the Predators down 2-0 and Pekka Rinne was already yanked and that really took the normally raucous crowd in Nashville right out of the game early.  P.K. Subban tried his best to get everyone back in it with a power play goal before the period was over, but it just wasn't enough.  Mark Scheifele really took the wind out of the sails, late in the 2nd period, putting the Jets up 3-1, knowing full well that the Predators didn't have much left in the tank.  The 3rd period played out quickly, a power play goal from Paul Stastny and an empty-netter from Scheifele and it was all over.  A stunning 5-1 win and the Jets will welcome Vegas to town on Saturday night to get the Conference Finals kicked off.

Stastny was the top dog among the pool players on Thursday night, scoring 2 goals, including the winner and adding an assist for a 4-point night.  Scheifele had a pair of goals, Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor each had a pair of assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 36 saves for the win.

With the Predators now out, that swept a lot of picks under the rug and out of the playoffs, 65 to be exact.  Rinne and Subban each had 10 selections a piece, as the most popular players, while Rinne led all Predators in the hockey pool with 18 points.

Four teams remain in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which means the most populated teams in the pool will have 12 players left and we have five teams out of 23 with 12 players and another four teams with 11 players.  That's a pretty good spot of picking between these pool teams.

This does now appear to be a race between Tony and Neil and as much as there are 11 points between the two teams, they are actually both very different and it does open the door for something to happen.  Tony's team has 12 players to Neil's 11, but Neil's team has some more higher end talent in the scoring department, but Tony has two active goalies still.  Very intriguing!