Week Twenty-Seven Newsletter, Year-End Edition

Where did that season go?  That was 27 weeks done in a huge hurry, wasn't it?

The 2019 regular season is now in the books and we turn the page towards the playoffs and just to reiterate, there won't be any playoff pool this year.  Lack of time and a lack of interest added up to the decision not to put the sheet together.  That's not to say the blog won't be active in this off-season, things will still be going on here, but it will be more for the preparation for the 2020 regular season.

So, we'll go through the Week Twenty-Seven honours and then we'll move right into the annual nods, including our prize winners and such.



It was an outright win for Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues, who finished atop the weekly scoring ranks among all the players, finishing with 7 points in the final week of the season.  He helped guide the Blues back into the playoff picture after a dismal first half of the regular season and the Blues almost topped the Central Division in the end, falling just a couple of points short in the end.

Tarasenko and the Blues played in four games in the final week of the season and the Russian winger was able to post points in each of them.  He kicked off his week on Monday with a goal against the Avalanche, followed by a goal and an assist against the Blackhawks on Wednesday, a pair of assists against the Flyers on Thursday and then a goal and an assist against the Canucks in the Saturday matinee.  With 3 goals and 4 assists, he edged four other players for the top spot in the weekly scoring ranks and the Blues will now open the playoffs in Winnipeg in the middle of the week.

Overall, the Blues forward, with his 2nd Player of the Week nod of the season, finished 67th overall in hockey pool scoring, tallying 33 goals and 68 points in 76 games with the Blues.  Eric took him with the 41st pick in the draft this year, so it turned out that he was a bit of a disappointment in that regard, falling 26 spots below his draft position, a whole round worse, which is a tough pill to swallow.

My overall projection for Tarasenko at the beginning of the season was 70 points and in my 5-point segments, that's pretty much a win.  I probably wouldn't have taken him as high as Eric did, but it wasn't a terrible bet at the same time.

Well, even at the end of the regular season, the top two teams were still running away with the tallies and Stuart topped the ranks in the weekly standings again, finishing with 32 points, a strong finish to what was a pretty dominating season all the way around, but we'll have more on that a little bit later on in the Newsletter.

There was literally no worries, when Stuart saw three of his key players hit the news/injury page for being a healthy scratch, not only for the overall title, but his team was just that deep all season long, it didn't seem to matter if there were any players on a cold streak, his team just picked up those players in that week and it was very much the same in this last week of the season.

Stuart's team, despite the scratches, only had two players to fail to pick up points in the week and his team was led by Dylan Strome of the Blackhawks, who didn't have anything to play for in the regular season standings in the last week, but still posted 6 points.  Strome was one of the best pickups in the Waiver Draft this season, posting 48 points since being picked up in the Week Nine swap, 2nd to teammate Erik Gustafsson, who was taken by Tony.

Stuart's other strong performers in the week were Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks, who had 5 points, and then Jeff Skinner of the Sabres, Brady Tkachuk of the Senators and Mikhail Sergachev of the Lightning, each posting 3 points.

In total, Stuart finished with four Mover & Shakers this season and he didn't post his first one until Week Sixteen, so it was just a massive push at the end of the season. 

The Basement Dweller race was a bit of a tight one, coming right down to the wire on the final day of the season, but as apt as Stuart's team taking the Mover & Shaker in the final week of the season, it seems equally apt that Scott's team ended up in the Basement Dweller nod for the last week, finishing in last place in the overall standings, unable to climb out of the spot, thanks to a 12-point week.

Scott's team finished the regular season with back-to-back Basement Dweller nods, only posting 23 points in those two weeks and it was just bad luck, right from the get-go this season.  In the last week of the season, Jake Guentzel of the Penguins tried to rally his troops, finishing with 4 points to lead the way, but the rest of the bodies were not listening, as six of his active players were not posting any points, thanks mostly to injury and healthy scratches, but just ice-cold play was to blame for the better part of the weeks and the season.

In total this season, Scott's team finished with six Basement Dweller nods and finished 16 out of 27 weeks in the 25th position in the standings.  His team was out of the basement for Weeks Twenty-Four and Twenty-Five, but fell back in, thanks to these weekly nods and that was about it for his team.  It had to be a long year for his team, but next year will be a different story, right Scott?



It was a record-setting season for Nikita Kucherov, as he set the all-time season scoring record for a Russian-born player, registering a goal and an assist against the Bruins on Sunday, bringing his overall total up to 128 points and he takes home the MVP nod for the hockey pool season, far and away the best player in the scoring ranks this season.  Connor McDavid of the Oilers was 2nd place in the list, finishing with 116 points, hardly causing any grief to the Lightning forward.

Kucherov was only a mild bargain pick, as Grant took him with the 5th overall selection at the draft, a good heads up pick at the time.  The Lightning forward really came up trumps this season and dominated for the better part of the year, earning the nod by a fair margin.

Top spot among all goaltenders was Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning, he finished with 93 points and was ranked 12th among all players in the hockey pool this year.  Dale C. took him with the 2nd overall pick in the draft this year and didn't quite get the return he was probably hoping for, but he was still ranked among 1st round picks, which isn't too bad.

The top defenseman in scoring was Brent Burns of the Sharks, he was the clear winner of this mention, finishing with 83 points in all 82 games this season, good enough for 25th overall in pool scoring, which would equate to the last pick in the 1st round in the draft.  Brenda & Seward took a shot with him in the 2nd round, 36th overall and it turned out in their favour, for sure.  It's a shame their team couldn't pick it up around him though.

Back-to-back titles... the sound of it is terrible at the very root of it all, but it's the sad truth.  Stuart will now his name on the trophy, coming this week, for a 3rd time, which is a hockey pool best and it has never happened in back-to-back seasons.  I hope that everyone has paid attention to his strategy or at the very least, found out which store he buys his horseshoes from.

The final tally sees Stuart's team finishing with 783 points, which was 40 points better than Stacey M., who finished in 2nd place and 44 points better than Kristy & Don, who finished in 3rd place.  These are your three money winners for the overall standings, Stuart's team wins $700 for top spot in the pool, while Stacey will take home $300 and the duo will win twice their money back, $120.

The mini-games were instituted to keep some of the teams out of the overall race still interested in the pool and the website and it worked pretty well with the rookie pool, as Derek B. took the rookies to the limit, making good use of the Waiver Draft, adding youthful bodies to his team and he ended up running away with the mini-game.  Surprisingly, he was the only one that took to the rookie pool in the Waiver Draft, no one else really did.  Nevertheless, his team finished with 131 points from the freshmen and has won the $60 entry fee back (or he could put it towards next year). 

Rasmus Dahlin of the Sabres led the way for his team in the rookie pool, finishing with 44 points in all 82 games this season, followed by Week Nine pickup Dominik Kahun of the Blackhawks, who collected 26 points in 54 games after being activated.  A pretty good pickup in the end, indeed.

Mini-game #2 was the shootout goals game and I thought this one would have been a little bit more exciting in the season, but it was kind of a drag, as there wasn't a ton of excitement this season.  In the NHL, there were only 639 attempts in the shootout this season, where the pool collected 499 of them.  Out of those 639 attempts, only 188 goals were scored, 151 of them were collected by the pool, so we did really well in the overall sense, collecting 80% of the goals out of 78% of the shots.

In the end, Grant's team won his money back in the draft, collecting 13 goals through the season, Jack Eichel of the Sabres and Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning each posted 4 shootout goals this season to lead the way.  It's a small consolation for a team, however, which was in the running for the top three spots in the overall standings, as Grant's team was in a money spot at the end of 14 weeks this season, only to drop down to 5th in the last couple of weeks.

Maybe the game-winning goals had too much of a correlation with the overall standings, as a team that saw goals being scored was getting points in the overall standings and there was always a good chance that these goals could stand up to being winners on a nightly basis.  Mini-game #3 belonged to our overall leader, Stuart, who finished tops in the overall goal scoring with 269 goals this season, 50 of them ended up being game-winners to take an extra $60 out of the kitty.

Brad Marchand of the Bruins led the way for Stuart's team this season, posting 9 winners this season, followed by three others with 7 winners as well.  Having clutch players is pretty key to the hockey pool in the overall sense, but it paid off in a mini-game as well this season.

In the grand scheme of things, there were 1,185 game-winning goals posted this season in the NHL and the hockey pool collected on 825 of them, reeling in 69.6% of them, which isn't a bad total.

Moving on quickly to the mini-games that didn't make the cut from the wheel, Stuart would have won another one, if the PIM pool was still working and no one made any swaps for it in the Waiver Draft.  Stuart's team topped Scott's team, 522-507, thanks to a big final week for the point total winner.  Scott's team just couldn't catch a break in any of the statistics this season, I guess.

Troy's pairing of goalies, Marc-Andre Fleury of the Golden Knights and Aaron Dell of the Sharks, lasted 16 weeks with registering a win in each week, which would have been good enough for the goalie survivor pool, if there was money involved.  Troy later swapped Dell for Brian Elliott of the Flyers for the overall points race, but it didn't really pan out for his team in the end. 

At the end of the year, Troy's goalies ranked 6th in scoring overall, finishing with 114 points, 34 points back of Kristy & Don, who won the category and some money overall.

Neil's team was a dynamo in the plus/minus department, especially in the final third of the season, where it was a combined +69 in the last nine weeks, bringing his overall total up to a rating of +137.  That was 56 points better than Dale C.'s team, but it was really good for nothing in the end.  Neil's team did finish 7th overall in the standings, but there's no money in that.

Teuvo Teravainen of the Hurricanes and Ron Hainsey of the Maple Leafs were each a +30 this season, helping to guide the way for Neil's team to the title.

Clayton and Stuart would have split the money in the All-Star Game competition, if there was one, as they both collected 9 points each in the 3-on-3 tournament that they held in San Jose this past year.  That's all that Stuart needed, was another thing to win or at the very least, split.

There were only a couple of outdoor games this season, the Winter Classic in Notre Dame and the Stadium Series game in Philadelphia and if we collected the points from those two games to hand out some money, Troy's team would have taken this one as well, leading the pool with 7 points from those two games combined.  The Flyers were his key to victory in this one, having three of them with a couple of points each and walking away with the title.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Looking at last year's Newsletter for the end of the season, the pool collected a total of 15,985 points from the 22,893 points that were registered from 985 players that touched the ice in the season.  That's a collection rate of 69.8% of points, which isn't too bad.

This season, the pool collected 16,089 points, up 104 points from last season, and the league posted a total of 23,216 points, up 323 points from last season.  This gives us a collection rate of 69.3% of the total points, which obviously is slightly down, but only slightly.  We're taking a good cut out of those points and that's pretty impressive.  In total, 999 players took to the ice this season, which is also up and we certainly were not going to get to them all, even with Waiver Drafts and such.

Two years ago, we had a collection rate of 70.9%... so are we collectively getting worse?  Let's do better next year, yeah?

Week Twenty-One Newsletter

Well, I better hurry today... it's trade deadline day and there is already move in the books from the overnight chatting sessions.  It sounds like it could be a busy day, so let's hop to what last week looked like.



It was a big goalie battle for the Player of the Week, as all the major skaters finished with 7 points, instead of the 8 points required to earn the honour.  It came down to the tie-breaking process and by a 3-2 margin in the win column, Semyon Varlamov of the Avalanche topped Sergei Bobrovsky of the Blue Jackets to take home the crown this week.

Varlamov did register 1 shutout, a 40-save effort against Vegas on Monday, which he followed up by winning against Winnipeg on Wednesday and Chicago on Friday.  He's starting to turn the Avalanche back around, but is it too little, too late?  No, it's coming at the perfect time, the Avalanche are now only 1 point out of the last wild card spot in the west.

It hasn't been a great year for the Russian number one in Colorado, as the whole team fell into a major slide after such a good start and it really brought down his overall numbers.  After this really good week, the 30-year old still ranks 144th overall in hockey pool scoring, 23rd among all goalies, with 38 points in 41 appearances.  Certainly, you'd prefer to have your goalie well above the point-per-game mark.

Wilton, however, has had an okay return, not picking up Varlamov until the 3rd round, 75th overall, a ranking that the keeper could still reach, if the Avalanche continue on this hot streak of theirs, but it would have to be white-hot!

His first season in the pool already has a Basement Dweller nod, but now he can add a Mover & Shaker to the list, as Jesse's team has really been stepping it up of late and it swooped in on Sunday and snatched the title away from Stacey M., who almost ran a wire-to-wire campaign on it.  Jesse's team finished at the 40-point mark and shook his way up to 6th place in the process.

Jesse's team added a little bit of separation from itself to move closer to the aspirations of money group, now 3 points back of Wes for 5th place, but still 31 points back of the money, 12 points up on 7th.

Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks and Gabriel Landeskog of the Avalanche led the way for his side this week, each picking up 6 points, Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals had 5 points, while Matt Duchene picked up 4 points between Ottawa and Columbus and Philipp Grubauer had a shutout for the Avalanche this week.  Only one player on his active roster failed to pick up points, but not for a lack of trying.

In terms of goal scoring, Jesse's team has been among the top three all season long, currently ranking 2nd in the pool with 201 goals, but still ranks 3rd in forward scoring with 373 points, 16th among defense at 89 points and 14th in goalie points with 67.  Having a top 10 defense and keeper combo would have probably seen him lift up to the money teams and it was something he couldn't quite fix at the Waiver Draft.

31 points is still quite a bit to make up, but we still have six more full weeks of action left and if his team gets hot right now, it might just work.

It wasn't Mike's week to shine in Week Twenty-One, as he couldn't quite find any traction in the final week before the NHL trade deadline, but he has seen one of his players move teams, so maybe that will kick the rest of his team in butt (as if they would know that it really mattered in this little ol' hockey pool).

Mike's team could only muster up 15 points and fell from 18th to 20th in the overall standings, 29 points away from the equator of 13th place, which does feel like a little bit of a stretch, but it's a good goal to try to attain.

Sam Reinhart of the Sabres was his best player in the week, finishing with 4 points, but seven of his players were not able to pick up points, only one of them due to injury, which is a bad sign.  Injuries, everyone can feel for, just plain ice cold though, that's a tough pill to swallow.  Mike's team was tied for 9th in skater games played this past week with 36 and had 164 minutes of playing time from his goalies to his name, so he certainly had his chances.

Mike's team is still in the running for his money back or at least some of it in the mini-games, but we'll save that for later!

We had lots of positive movement in the money/trophy race in Week Twenty-One, as the teams just below Stuart's all made up some ground on his team with big weeks.  Stacey M. and the duo of Kristy & Don each had 37 points to Stuart's 29 and even Grant's team came up with 33 points to shave off some.  Unfortunately for Grant, his team lost out on their spot in 3rd, giving it up to the duo.  The gap between 2nd and 3rd now just slightly increased to 11 points, which still makes it interesting.

Wes lost a bunch more ground on the money group, now 28 points back, but here comes our Mover & Shaker from the week, Jesse, who is 31 points back and coming like a bat out of Hell.

Derek B.'s stable of rookies are still putting up the numbers for his side, posting another 8 points and increasing the overall lead in the rookie pool to 15 points this week and there appears to be no stopping this group.  Oskar Lindblom of the Flyers and Rasmus Dahlin of the Sabres each posting 2 points led the way for his team this week.

Grant's team was among seven teams to register a shootout goal this week and his team moved up into a tie for the lead with Mike at 8 shootout goals this season.  Mike does have the tie-breaker of doing it in less shots, a better success ratio, 8-for-19, instead of Grant's 8-for-26.  Ryan, Wes and Clayton each had a goal to move up to 5 shootout markers this season, looking at outside shots for the money, but there is a pretty good logjam of teams there.

Stacey M. not only had a good week overall, but her team led the pool in game-winners this week, notching 5 of them, which is tied for the 3rd-best week in the pool this season.  That only brings her total up to 25 however, still 14 back of the lead.

Stuart still holds a 6-goal lead over Clayton's team, both teams posting a winner in the week, but no real movement up at the top this week.

The goon team of the week belonged to Steve's team, but only by a couple of minors, as his team finished with 30 minutes in penalties to lift his overall total up to 379, which ranks him 4th.

Stuart's team still leads all teams with 412 minutes, still followed closely by Scott's team, which is at 405 minutes.  Only a fighting major and roughing penalty away, that's pretty close.

Scott's team now also holds the dubious record of the worst week, plus/minus-wise, as his team was a combined -28 in Week Twenty-One, there was no attention to detail during 5-on-5 play for his side at all.  That means his team sunk like a stone to the bottom of the standings here, now a combined -60 this season, where our leader, Neil, picked up a few more positive points and now sits at +84.

Well, just in case you missed it on Sunday morning, Troy ended up taking this mini-game with a huge haul of points from the Flyers and Penguins at the Stadium Series game, the clear winner with 7 points between the two outdoor games this year, although he only had participation in one.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

It was not a good week in the scoring department, as the pool dropped a whole point per NHL game in the scoring average, only taking 656 points from 52 games in Week Twenty-One, where last week, in 50 games, we saw 683 points.  Skater games were down, but goalie minutes were up slightly, there is just no consistency here.  What should we expect though?  The NHL schedule is all over the place at the best of times.

NEWS AND NOTES

The Detroit Red Wings were without Thomas Vanek for their Sunday afternoon tilt against the San Jose Sharks, as the flu bug that has/had Jimmy Howard in its grips got to him as well. Both players actually were out of the lineup for the game against the Sharks, but there was a feeling about Howard, as mentioned in yesterday's goalie post. Both Vanek and Howard are candidates for trades out of Detroit today, so keep an eye out for that too.

That's a missed skater game for Stacey C. and another missed start for Tony yesterday, but the Red Wings are sellers today, so I don't think they are worried about that too much now.

Well, the day was looking promising for the Dallas Stars, they welcomed Mats Zuccarello into their lineup, Alex Radulov came back from illness, their new acquisition picked up a goal and an assist, but then the wheels came off a bit. First, Jamie Benn left the game with an upper-body injury, not to return. No update right after the game. Then, Zuccarello ended up blocking a shot in the 2nd period, also suffering a lower-body injury, not to return, no update. The good news, however, they still managed to pull out a 4-3 win over the Blackhawks, but it could be a costly one.

Radulov's return was good for Benson, Benn's injury now puts a hole in Chelsea's team and the same goes for John P., when it comes to Zuccarello.  John's team is the only one with any hope of hitting the top half of the standings, so he'll have the most to lose with this injury.

The Ottawa Senators are probably not done dealing yet, as they are still protecting assets or at least they were last night, when they took on the Calgary Flames.  Mark Stone was joined by both Mikkel Boedker and Cody Ceci, both have been rumoured to be on the market.  Today will be the last day that the Senators will have any interest in doing this, they'll have to move these guys or play them down the stretch.

Stone has already cost Wes a few games, waiting on a deal, while Boedker is Chelsea's and Ceci belongs to Ryan in this final segment.  The waiting game is never fun and Wes is having the worst time, since he still has his eyes on the money and he needs that deal done right away.

2019 Stadium Series Review

Well, this was anything but a pretty game to watch, but the action on the ice did somewhat make up for the lack of good, okay or even moderate conditions, due to rainfall during the game.  The players, they persevered and got the job done, the Flyers tying the game up with seconds to go on the clock, forcing an overtime period, where Claude Giroux did the job and netted the winner to get everyone home and out of the rain.  Flyers took this game, 4-3, in what was a pretty high scoring game, everything considered.

Early on, the animosity that you know that resides between both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia really reared its ugly head and made this game interesting, Wayne Simmonds knocking Brian Dumoulin from the game with a high, heavy hit, really set the tone for the first couple of periods and then the drive for those crucial points in the standings took over.

All in all, it could have been a better spectacle, the conditions could have been much, much better, which probably would have amped up the intensity on the ice and could have really taken this game to another level.  Sadly, it wasn't the case.

A 4-3 overtime win made the outdoor games pool somewhat interesting, even if it doesn't pay out.  There were plenty of points to be had, but who did the best?

Jesse went into this contest with a small lead, up at 3 points, but didn't have any participation in this game.  Troy's immense amount of participation was inevitably the difference, as he had all the right players in all the right places, including the fortune of Brian Elliott getting the start and the win for the Flyers, not to mention having both Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier, each posting a couple of points and rounding it off with a Justin Schultz goal and he takes the outdoor games competition with 7 points, thanks to this one game.

Oh, the season it could have been for Troy, if the wheel spun his way at the draft, as his team has now captured both the goalie survivor and the outdoor games, both were money games last year, but it didn't end up going his way.  That would be money back and more for him.

2019 Stadium Series Preview

We've got one more outdoor game going on this season and it will take place this weekend, when the Penguins and the Flyers get together at the Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The rivalry has been strong in recent years and with some playoff implications on the line, we might get to see some real heat in this one.  The Penguins go into tonight's game holding the last wild card spot in the east, but they haven't been their sharpest lately, 4-5-1 in their last 10, while the Flyers have been coming on, 6-3-1 in their last 10, but are still 8 points back in the standings.  Still, this is a swing game in the Eastern Conference, so it should add up to one on the ice, one would think.

Both teams will be donning some new duds for this game and it would be understandable how anyone feels about the new jerseys, pants and even helmets, as they are out there.  Some will like them, others, not so much, but kudos to everyone for giving it a go.

We'll have more on the whole game tomorrow, in all likelihood, finishing up the Outdoor Pool details, which we have outlined below.

Pool Team	Pittsburgh	Philadelphia
Benson	Casey DeSmith
Chelsea	Patric Hornqvist
Derek B.		Jakub Voracek
		Oscar Lindblom
Eric	Sidney Crosby	Travis Konecny
		Ivan Provorov
		James Van Riemsdyk
Jeremy	Kris Letang	Carter Hart
	Tanner Pearson
John P.	Phil Kessel
Mike		Cam Talbot
Neil	Brian Dumoulin
Scott	Jake Guentzel	Shayne Gostisbehere
	Olli Maatta	Nolan Patrick
	Matt Murray	Wayne Simmonds
Stacey C.	Bryan Rust
Steve	Evgeni Malkin
Tony		Travis Sanheim
Troy	Justin Schultz	Sean Couturier
		Brian Elliott
		Claude Giroux

We head into the last outdoor game with Jesse carrying a 1-point lead out of the Winter Classic game on New Year's but his team has nothing to defend that lead with and there are a number of these pool teams in the hunt.

Eric's team is one to keep an eye on, since it has four players set to play in this game on the weekend and they are all of the point-producing variety.  Sidney Crosby was huge last week for the Penguins and if the home side has their way, Eric has the Flyers do hit the scoresheet.

Scott's team is also very strong coming into this one, carrying six players between both sides, but one is on the IR to start, so five active players.  Scott had a skater game played in the Winter Classic, but no points out of it, but he'll have enough firepower to pick up some points on the weekend.

Maybe what this game should be about is penalty minutes, more than points, because that would probably be the better game tonight!

2019 Winter Classic Review

Well, I don't know about you, but I thought that today's edition of the Winter Classic was certainly one of the better games in their 11-year history.  The ice didn't prove to be an issue, the boards were lively and somewhat unpredictable and the weather looked pretty good for the players and all the fans in the stands.  The atmosphere looked fantastic and it led into a very good game.

The Bruins and the Blackhawks battled well on the grounds of Notre Dame, both teams skated well, played a physical brand of hockey and drove the net effectively.  It was a very evenly contested game, with scoring going back and forth through the first two periods, but the 3rd period belonged to the Bruins, who had that extra little bit of finish when it counted and it came from the team's 4th line. 

Sean Kuraly, a non-hockey pool player from the Bruins' grind line, was able to bury a fat rebound off of his own player, in behind Cam Ward, midway through the final frame and that ended up being enough to give the Bruins another outdoor victory.  The Bruins top line and power play were most effective in this game, carrying much of the load, as David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron each finished with a goal and an assist, while Tuukka Rask held down the fort at the defensive end, making 36 saves for the win.

Well, after the first of two outdoor games to be played, Jesse's team has the early lead in the outdoor games pool, which sadly doesn't pay.  Jesse had Rask's win and another point from Jonathan Toews on the Chicago side to give his team 3 points, better than Stacey M. and Eric's teams, which finished with 2 points each. 

Next up, the Stadium Series game between the Penguins and the Flyers, going in February.  That could be one hell of a contest and possibly one that could generate a fair bit of offense... and penalty minutes.

Goalie Announcements (Jan 1)

Happy New Year!  The calendar has officially flipped and we're ready to get this year started.

Three games on tap for New Year's Day and that includes the Winter Classic, which is going in Indiana, of all places this year, Notre Dame Stadium.  But you already knew that, reading the Winter Classic Preview yesterday, right?

It's pretty quiet for a Tuesday, but it is also a holiday, so there you have it!  The outdoor gets going shortly, so let's press publish on this one and get going.

Cam Ward (Scott) versus Tuukka Rask (Jesse)
Both coaches were nice enough to offer up their starting goalies yesterday after their respective practices, so we know that both Scott and Jesse will have their respective legs up this morning/afternoon for the Winter Classic today.  Both teams haven't been doing so well of late, Jesse's team is 20th in the second segment of the season, while Scott's is 24th and this would be a great scenario for the outdoor games pool, if there was one, since these two aren't close to the overall money and would have that leg up on the mini-game, thus far.

Michal Neuvirth (Stuart) versus Juuse Saros (Eric)
The first of two evening games will see the Flyers in Nashville to take on the Predators.  Neither one of the evening games have seen confirmed goalies, but three of the four teams played last night, including both of these teams, so we're going with the opposite starters from last night as the projected starters for tonight.  Stuart did get some minutes out of Neuvirth in relief last night, but that could mean just about anything.  Eric's keeper hasn't seen much action of late and will likely be a refreshing change to the Predators' lineup.

Jack Campbell (N/A) versus Marc-Andre Fleury (Troy)
The Golden Knights are the only one of the four late teams to not have played last night, which says to me that Fleury will get another start, since he's been the workhorse for the club and has been given just about all of the opportunity this season, only relenting for the odd back-to-back situation.  The Kings, on the other hand, welcomed Jack Campbell back from injury and I would have to believe that he will take the second half of Los Angeles' back-to-backs on the schedule, auditioning for a spot on a hockey pool roster for Week Eighteen.