The Pool Worthy Goon Squad

This is a fun blog post to write, I must admit.

The mini-game wheel didn't favour the PIM pool last season, which was too bad, because it is a really good mini-game in the hockey pool season, certainly for those teams that have a rough go of it early on in the year, they can goon it up and try to earn their money back.

This is the third time I've written this post, missing out on the 2016 season, mostly because of the hooplah around the World Cup of Hockey, it was somewhat overlooked.  So, only 2015 and 2017 were done before and that will be my frame of reference now looking back.

So, to qualify for the Pool Worthy Goon Squad, you needed to finish in the hockey pool worthy conversation in points, top 200 in forwards, top 100 defense and top 50 goalies, and then we take the top penalty minute getters.

Forwards	Team	Points	PIM
Tom Wilson	WAS	35	187
Evgeni Malkin	PIT	98	87
Miles Wood	NJD	32	84
Evander Kane	SAN	54	82
Milan Lucic	EDM	34	80
Ryan Johansen	NAS	54	78
Mikael Backlund	CAL	45	78
Defense	Team	Points	PIM
Dustin Byfuglien	WPG	45	112
Nikita Zadorov	COL	20	103
P.K. Subban	NAS	59	82
Ian Cole	COL	20	76
Goalies	Team	Points	PIM
John Gibson	ANA	71	16
Andrei Vasilevskiy	TAM	106	14
		673	1,079

So, here we go!  Dustin Byfuglien will wear the the "C" for this squad, as he has now appeared on all three teams and if I was to go back and look at the 2016 goon squad, I'm sure he would have been there as well.  Maybe one day, I will look at that team.

Evander Kane and Milan Lucic each make their second appearance on the team and then there are some surprises here and there.

Tom Wilson may be more of a surprise, given the number of points he had, rather than the penalty minutes, but Evgeni Malkin and Mikael Backlund do come as somewhat of a surprise.  There is a lot of top end talent on this team, so much so, that the team would have finished 7th in points, if you were to slot it in to last year's hockey pool standings.  That's a good finish.

With all of that being said, we should have a look at what the remaining goon squad would look like.  We won't use any of the already drafted players above and we'll see what they come in with.

Forwards	Team	Points	PIM
Michael Haley	FLA	9	212
Antoine Roussel	VAN	35	187
Austin Watson	NAS	19	123
Cody McLeod	NYR	4	111
Ryan Reaves	VGK	10	94
Zack Kassian	EDM	19	92
Garnet Hathaway	CAL	13	88
Defense	Team	Points	PIM
Alex Petrovic	FLA	13	98
Jamie Oleksiak	PIT	17	87
Radko Gudas	PHI	16	83
Kevin Bieksa	UFA	8	83
Goalies	Team	Points	PIM
Cam Ward	CHI	50	14
David Rittich	CAL	16	14
		229	1,286

Lots of familiar names on this list, especially in the forward department.  If you were going to just goon up this season from day one, without any hesitation about whether or not the PIM pool lands on the wheel, you could take most of these forwards and be very confident that you would win your money back.  Antoine Roussel, Cody McLeod and Ryan Reaves have appeared on all three lists now.  The defense and goalies are a good mix, but you might not want to draft Kevin Bieksa, as he has not been signed to a new deal on any NHL team yet and he could have been replaced by Travis Hamonic in Calgary, losing out on a few minutes in the process.

All in all, I do hope that the PIM pool makes its return to the hockey pool this year, but that's not for me to determine.  That's for the wheel to decide.