Noon Playoff Notes (May 24)

The Washington Capitals are off to the Stanley Cup Finals!

Leading by example and guiding the way was Alex Ovechkin, who got the Capitals on the board in 1:02 of the 1st period and his team never looked back.  Andre Burakovsky scored his first couple goals of the playoffs in the 2nd period and Nicklas Backstrom added one more in the 3rd period to add salt to the wounds of the Lightning, as the Capitals came away with a 4-0 victory to move on. 

Braden Holtby continued his run of hot goaltending with a 29-save shutout, leading all Capitals players in pool points on the night, while Ovechkin got the bonus point for the game-winner. 

The Lightning were the favourite of the two teams in the East Final, which means 66 more selections are eliminated from active duty in the hockey pool, leaving only 48 picks on the other side.  Andrei Vasilevskiy was one of the more popular players in the pool, taken 13 times, he'll finish the playoffs with 22 points, the best player on the team in the pool.

With the Conference Finals now complete, the players have been audited and we see that Tony continues to lead, but he's being chased down by Buddy the Dog, who rode that huge effort from the Capitals, all the way into 3rd place.  Our top three looks like Tony in 1st with 275 points, Neil in at 255 points and then Buddy at 251 points, so there is a fair sized gap, too big to really overcome with only six players left on your hockey pool teams... unless you're Neil and you have five.

It could be worse though... you could be like Clayton and have no players in the Finals.

We'll preview the Cup Finals on the blog in the next couple of days, as the Golden Knights and Capitals begin on Monday night.