First Round Recap

I'll open with an apology, as time hasn't exactly been on my side over the past couple days, especially with the Canucks winning on Tuesday night and beer taking up a good portion of my time. I won't lie, I was pretty hungover on Wednesday morning. So, in light of these events, I'm going to run a quick recap of the eliminated teams and then hopefully get to a post where I can preview the second round series, which gets started right away on Thursday night.  I'm really hoping for the best here, so bear with me if it isn't great.

Oh yeah, I will have prizes posted this weekend, I'm looking to pay out four teams this year, which should make the finish far more exciting than previous years.

I have to give the Sabres a lot of credit, they really stuck in there and gave the Flyers a good run for their money.  Forcing the series to seven games was a huge credit to that team and Ryan Miller, yet again, for making it as far as they did.

Unfortunately for the Sabres, they were not the favourites in the pool going into this series, only picking up 20% of their possible 228 picks, which was pretty low overall.  I think for a number of teams that did bet on the upset here, they should be glad that the series went seven games, if it wasn't going to be much quicker.

The Sabres finished up with a leading point-getter of Ryan Miller, who had 11 points (3 wins, 2 shutouts and 1 assist), while their leading point-getting skater was Tyler Myers, who had 1 goal and 5 assists for 6 points.  Missing out on all the fun was Marc-Andre Gragnani, the defender finished with 1 goal and 6 assists for 7 points, but didn't make the cut for the pool.

Just as a side note, I will highlight the teams that made it through in the second round preview.

Talk about giving a favourite a run for their money, the Chicago Blackhawks did just that and a little bit more.  The Blackhawks played their hearts out and forced an overtime period in the seventh game, but were foiled in the end, by a Canucks team that really wanted it more in the 60+ minutes it took to get the job done.

Surprisingly, the Blackhawks were one of the lower picked teams in the pool this year, thinking that they may be worthy of an upset nod a few more times than they were, but in the end, they only finished up with 18% of their possible picks, so it wasn't really in the cards, if the pool was prognosticating this one.

I think the pool points really says it all when it comes to who shone the brightest for the Blackhawks, as Corey Crawford led the lot with 10 points (3 wins, 1 shutout and 2 assists) in the first round and he really was the player keeping the Hawks in it at during Game Seven.  Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith each finished with 7 points to finish second on the team.  If Dave Bolland was closer to being healthy when the sheet was done up, he would have been a great add to the pool, but his 6 points in the first round go unnoticed and we now move on.

The Canucks did not get away unscathed out of the first round, as Sami Salo did not dress for Game Seven, as he ended up blocking a shot in Game Six, suffering a lower-body injury and forcing him out of the deciding game.  He is considered to be day-to-day, with an updated likely coming on Thursday, when the Canucks open up the second round against Nashville.

The limited number of Canadian teams has now been taken down another peg with the elimination of the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night.  The Habs were able to take the Boston Bruins to overtime of Game Seven, but the goaltender battle was won by the Vezina Trophy candidate in this series, Tim Thomas, and the Montreal Summer has gotten started a little earlier than usual.

The Canadiens were pretty hefty underdogs in the pool, only picking up 23% of their possible selections this year, but the long lasting series did wonders for those who picked up some Canadiens players, hoping for the upset.

Mike Cammalleri finished the first round as the Box 14 points leader, as he finished with 10 points (3 goals and 7 assists) in the opening seven games, but that lead is likely to evaporate before too long.  Carey Price was next on the team with 8 points (3 wins and 1 shutout), followed closely bv Brian Gionta, who had 7 points (3 goals, 2 assists and 2 GWGs).

Despite not having some real fire power in their line-up, the Pittsburgh Penguins did surprise a lot of people with how well their defensive game was working for them and how many games they were able to win because of their defense.  Unfortunately, the Penguins found themselves in front of a team that had a lot of fire power and they finally decided to use it after going down 3-1.  The Tampa Bay Lightning edged past the Penguins in seven games, with Game Seven finishing as a 1-0 final, in regulation.

This series was the closest series between all of them, in terms of selections in the pool, but the Penguins were not the favourite in this series, only picking up 36% of their possible picks, compared to Tampa Bay's 54%.  Still, it was a very close decision, but the favourites did come away with the series win.

The Penguins, according to their pool scoring, were not a very offensive bunch, as Marc-Andre Fleury was the only Penguins player to go over 5 points in the opening round, picking up 8 points (3 wins and a shutout), while Kristopher Letang was second on the sheet with 4 points.  Even if you had picked up a Penguins player, there was a good chance he wasn't doing too much for you.

Game-Winning Goals
So, a quick recap of the winning goals over the past couple of nights... on Tuesday night, Brian Gionta forced Game Seven for the Canadiens, James Van Riemsdyk won the series for the Flyers and Alex Burrows clinched the series for the Canucks.  That's two out of three for the pool, as Van Riemsdyk was not able to squeeze his way through a deep Flyers squad this year.

On Wednesday night, it was Nathan Horton of the Bruins and Sean Bergenheim of the Lightning, each scoring series clinching goals in Game Seven of their respective series and only Horton's goal counts in the pool this year.

Now that is all said and done, the pool leaders through the first round are Flyers Fanatic #1 and Jersey 20, each finishing the opening round with 10 GWGs a piece.  In the 2010 pool, the pool leaders in the bonus points column only had 9 through the first round, so there is hope for some better numbers thus far.

Well, the upsets kept on coming this year and it's another year where no team has finished with all 24 of their players going onto the second round of the playoffs. In 2010, 21 was tops, as it was in 2009, but lo and behold, we have two teams that finished with 23 players, only losing one player in the first round.  Jack_Bit_Gary and Tony the Tiger finished 3rd and 8th, respectively, in the pool standings and both teams have the same number of players going into the second round, so things are looking up.  Jack_Bit_Gary lost Ryan Getzlaf of the Ducks, while Tony the Tiger lost P.K. Subban of the Habs, so there really could be some gamesmanship going on in the next round.

Our pool leader at 127 points, Stoopid Monkey, opened up a pretty good lead (4 points), but lost three Ducks, two Habs and a Penguin in the first round, so that will likely hurt him down the stretch.  2nd place, Superstar, sits at 123 points with 21 players left, has a better shot at a good finish at the moment, but will have to fight off a few more good teams below.

I think we'll be in for a decent second round now as well, which I will give a quick preview in the next blog post and the prizes post is still coming... I am expecting to have that done for everyone on Saturday morning.