Afternoon Playoff Notes (May 7)

There was no staying alive on Sunday, as the 8-ball ran over a couple of teams, starting with the Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon.

The Bruins had a small glimmer of hope, being up 1-0 after the 1st period, but two goals in the middle frame by the Lightning, saw to it that all hope didn't last for very long.  The Lightning buckled down and Andrei Vasilevskiy stood tall, making 14 saves in the 3rd period, 27 saves in total, Anton Stralman scored an empty-netter late and the Lightning move onto the Eastern Conference Finals after a 3-1 win at home in Game 5.

J.T. Miller scored the eventual winner in the 2nd period, his first bonus point of these playoffs and it was only Miller and Vasilevskiy with multiple-point games in Game 5.

43 selections have now been taken off the Eastern Conference side, as the Bruins were fairly popular among the 23 teams in the pool.  David Krejci was the most popular pick dropped, he was selected seven times, while the most productive player was David Pastrnak in Box 14, he finished with 6 goals, no game-winners and 20 points.

The San Jose Sharks were returning home for Game 6 of their series against the Vegas Golden Knights, hoping that the friendly confines of the Shark Tank would give them the boost they needed to overcome this ridiculously good Golden Knights team.  Unfortunately, instead of a boost, they got the boot!

A 2nd period goal by Jonathan Marchessault opened the scoring and broke the deadlock and another by Nate Schmidt likely broke their spirits.  The Golden Knights held the Sharks to only 10 shots on goal in the 3rd period and Marc-Andre Fleury had to make 28 saves for his 4th shutout of these playoffs.

Fleury finished with 4 points in Game 6, Schmidt added an assist to have a 2-point game and Marchessault got the bonus point and those three are your notables in the elimination game.

As for the departing Sharks, they only had 35 selections in the hockey pool this year, Brent Burns leading the way with eight picks among the 12 players.  Martin Jones was the best Sharks player, taken once, leaves the pool with 16 points, 6 wins and 2 shutouts.

So, now the evil twins are at least 10 points clear of 3rd place, Tony and Antonio are still running away with the pool.  Tony has 224 points to Antonio's 218 points.  The maximum amount of players a team can have is now is 18 and we currently have four teams with the maximum... Tony, Brenda, Thor and Chris.  All four teams are in the top 10, but only Tony's really has a shot at the money... you know, since it's already in top spot.