Week Twenty-Seven Newsletter, Year End Edition

Another NHL season has come and gone!  How did we all let 27 weeks fly by so quickly?  It just seems like a few weeks ago, we convened and drafted our teams.  I dare say, it was a pretty exciting year until just after the second Waiver Draft and then it sort of got a little bit out of control up at the top of the standings.  Nevertheless, we saw some good hockey this season, some great story lines and some that were flat out unbelievable.

Like most year end Newsletters, I'll finish off the week and then I will kick into the annual awards.



Two players finished up the last week of the season with 8 points each, Jamie Benn of the Stars and Ryan Miller of the Ducks, but as we have all grown to know and love... the first tie-breaker is goals scored.

Despite the Stars having been eliminated from playoff contention a while ago, that wasn't going to stop Benn and is ability to flat out score goals.  The 28-year old was absolutely dynamite in the final week of the season, scoring a hat trick against the Sharks on Tuesday, added a goal and an assist against the Ducks on Friday and then topped it all off with another hat trick on Saturday against the Kings.  He went through California and practically surfed his way to this final Player of the Week nod.

Overall, Benn's season was pretty good, finishing 29th among all players in pool scoring with 36 goals and 79 points in all 82 games for Dallas.  That would have had him as an early 2nd round pick in this year's draft.  Unfortunately, he wasn't one of 40 players in the top 100 in pool scoring that finished at over a point-per-game pace, but he was damn close.

For Eric, Benn was his 2nd round draft pick, 44th overall, so there was pretty good value in that pick, almost to the point of a bargain pick.  Sadly, that's where the good news stops, as he went very forward-oriented, but it didn't pay off, like the teams that we'll be highlighting later on in this post.

Eric's team also came away with the sweep of the top weekly honours, winning the Mover & Shaker for Week Twenty-Seven, his second nod in the last six weeks, but it wasn't quite enough to get his team to the equator, although it finished damn close, 14th place.  Eric's team had 39 points in the final week and I'm sure a few of those money chasing teams were looking for this sort of week to finish off the season.

So, besides having the Player of the Week on his side, Eric's team was also blessed with Kyle Connor of the Jets, who finished with 6 points in a very good season, and Evgenii Dadonov of the Panthers and Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks, who each had 5 points.  Only two players on his active roster failed to get any points and those two were on the shelf with injuries for the better part of the week.  I would say that it was a pretty productive last week for Eric's side.

But yes, unfortunately, it wasn't enough for his team to finish in the top half of the standings.  Still, his team did come in 3rd place a year ago, so I don't think he could be too disappointed.

Eric had the 7th pick overall this year and he opted to go with the forward route in his strategy at the draft, using his first four picks up front, before taking a couple of defensemen and not taking a goalie until the 9th round.  Only four of his picks finished higher in the rankings than their pick position and his best bargain pick this season was the Jets rookie, Connor, seen pictured above, taken 307th and ranked 97th.

With that strategy being said, Eric's team finished 3rd in forward points, 20th in defensemen points and 24th in goalie points.  There just wasn't enough support from the back end or maybe, the forwards were not quite good enough, to help his team get too much further up.  It's all about how you spin the luck.

You never really want to see a first year team finish down in the basement of the pool, because you want them back year-after-year, but after Steve showed up to the Olympics pool, I think we might have him back before too long, I'm sure.  Unfortunately for his side, his last place team in the standings, also earned the last Basement Dweller nod of the season too, finishing with only 12 points, unable to catch Scott's team at the very end of the season.

Steve's team found the 25th spot in Week Sixteen and never really looked up from there.  It was a long finish to the year and not even 1st pick in the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft could help his side out.

I am not prepared to look up the number of times this happened, but I don't think it's very many... Steve's team finished last overall with the 1st pick overall in the draft and also having the best player in the hockey pool, coincidentally, the same player, another thing we'll touch on here shortly.  I am not sure that has ever happened before.

Here's hoping that this first year was a good learning curve for Steve and that he comes back with a vengeance next year!

The debate continues to rage on in the media about the Hart Trophy and whether or not it should be awarded to a player that didn't see his team into the playoffs and that's a pretty good discussion at the end of the day.  Thankfully, the hockey pool is far more cut and dry and the MVP award goes to the best player in the hockey pool, no matter if his team finishes in the money or dead last in the standings.



Yes, the 1st pick overall in the hockey pool draft this year, Connor McDavid, came from a ways back to edge Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning by 2 points, 108 to 106, to take his first hockey pool MVP honour.  McDavid did win the Art Ross last year, but didn't have the season that Braden Holtby of the Capitals had and fell short of the pool MVP nod then.

It has been somewhat of a curse to have the 1st pick overall in the hockey pool draft, as it gets really difficult to see a lot of those other 1st round and 2nd round players go, before you get to see your 2nd pick.  This could have very well have been the case for Steve, the pool's newbie (or one of), as he likely wasn't prepared for such a high pick.  He got the best player, but it wasn't his season overall.

Only one name gets to go on the trophy and for the very few of us, it does get to happen multiple times.  Stuart's team is now one of those teams that has his name on more than once, even if some of our members believe that the first year needed an asterisk beside his name.  Stuart's team absolutely dominated the third segment of the season, finishing with 320 points in the last nine weeks and no one's team could possibly catch-up.

The trophy is off to the engraver's today and his season total of 790 points will be added to the wall, forever emblazoned on the historic bobblehead we carry around from year-to-year.

Stuart's team was also one of those teams that was all about the forwards first.  His team had the 2nd overall pick and he was still able to pick up both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, #2 and #49 overall.  How did we let that happen?  His team was also fortunate enough to have one of the biggest bargain picks in Islanders rookie Mathew Barzal, who was taken 349th overall and finished the season 19th in scoring.

And then, let's not forget about the massive stroke of luck he had in the Waiver Draft, dropping Louis Domingue and picking up Keith Kinkaid, who was the new saviour in New Jersey this season.  I think this guy was ridiculously lucky and we all had the chance to shut that down.  I blame all of us more than his luck.

Just a quick note about the hockey pool prize money, I am expecting to collect the last couple fees in the next day or two, Wes and Cam still haven't paid in full yet.  Once the money has been collected, I will sort that all out.  There have been years, where I think I have covered a few people and have forgotten about it and that will happen no more!  All the prize money is safe and sound... well, the money that I have collected, it just needs to be completed.

Looking back, I don't think I actually did a prize money post, but since we're 25 teams at $60 a head, it will be exactly the same as last year's prizes.  Stuart will collect $750 for 1st place, Benson will collect $300 for 2nd place and Dale B. gets $120 for 3rd place.  There is also $60 for the three mini-games, which will be highlighted below and only $150 for my fees, which include the website hosting, trophy engraving and all of the interac e-transfers this year.

Congratulations to all of our overall pool winners, let's recap how the mini-games shook out!

The goalie survivor pool is still one of my favourite mini-games of all-time and I'm glad that it came back for another year.  It's the first time that this mini-game finished as a tie, as Grant's duo of Braden Holtby and Philipp Grubauer of the Capitals, went toe-to-toe with Wilton's combo of Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning and then the Waiver Draft swapped Chad Johnson of the Sabres for Malcolm Subban of the Golden Knights.  Looking back, it is somewhat of an incredible coincidence, that these two teams couldn't find wins in Week Sixteen, but that's just how it all shakes out.  They will split the entry fee, each getting $30 for their troubles... $20 if they both decide to enter the playoff pool too.

The most volatile statistics in the hockey pool, plus/minus, was the subject of another mini-game and that one told a pretty good story as well.  Steve's last place team in the overall standings, was having a great year in this statistic and he even tried to pad his lead with a couple of good plus/minus moves at the Week Eighteen swap.  That wasn't to be.  Five of the last nine weeks of the season, his team was a combined minus and couldn't find its way back.

This race finished off fairly strong, as Dale B. finished atop of the standings with a +95 rating this season, followed closely by Clayton's team, which was +82, thanks to a +15 final week, falling just short of the money.  Dale B.'s total now goes up to $180 of take home money, which is a great season, following a pool win the year previous.

This year-end Newsletter does seem to be a shit party on Steve's team, but fear not all!  Steve's team was indeed good at something!

Between Connor McDavid of the Oilers and Johnny Gaudreau of the Flames, Steve's side was able to capture the scoring title in this year's All-Star festivities in Tampa Bay, winning his money back, thanks to 7 points (in total) from these two players.  You get your money back, Steve... I hope it was worth all the ripping!

Since it's really easy to keep track of, I did also keep track of penalty minutes again this year.  I do like this statistic as a mini-game, but the wheel didn't seem to agree with me this season.

Nevertheless, Wes' team was the goon side of the season, finishing with a pool-high of 577 minutes in penalties, 62 minutes better than Neil's team at the end of the year.

The rookie pool was another good mini-game of the past, one that a few teams tried to possibly peg their season on during the year.  There were a good number of fine young freshmen out there, so this would have made for a good mini-game this year, if there was any money on it.

Sadly, the last minute surge of rookie points that Chris had in the last week of the season, vaulting him up to top spot in the mini-game, won't be paying him out this year.  His team's 123 points was better than Clayton's 120 points and he can thank Alex DeBrincat of the Blackhawks, Pierre-Luc Dubois of the Blue Jackets, Adrian Kempe of the Kings and Thomas Chabot of the Senators for this honour.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

It was pointed out to me, that Tony's team, which picked 25th in the opening round of the draft (and then had the next pick in the 2nd round), exceeded most of his own goals and expectations, beating Kristy & Don by 34 points.  That was just pointed out to me... at random?

As a collective, the pool amassed 15,985 points out of the grand total of 22,893 available to us from all 985 players that stepped foot on the ice for a shift.  That's not too bad for a pool that only has 350 players maximum at any given time, when there are a maximum 713 active players on most rosters (before the trade deadline).

Last season, there were 20,755 points available to us in the hockey pool and the 14,719 and I think before looking at those numbers, I would have definitely said that this was a more exciting year for points, just on how the games were being played and I'm glad the numbers are there to prove it.

See you all in the playoffs, I hope!

Olympic Pool Update (Day 10, Feb 25)

The 2018 PyeongChang Olympics were destined to give us an unpredictable men's ice hockey tournament and it didn't disappoint.  I suppose, all we could have wished for was some pretty good hockey and for the most part, minus some of those questionable European guidelines, it was pretty decent hockey.  In the end, I think we all got the gold medal game that we were looking for, a well-contested game, with some last minute drama and an overtime to finish it off.  No one expected Germany to be there and no one expected Germany to hang in so well against the tournament favourites, but they arrived and they played well.  In the end, however, Russia's best players were the difference, as Nikita Gusev and Kirill Kaprizov carried their team on their shoulders and won it in extra time.

Both players were in on every goal in the 4-3 win and they truly won the day, as Germany could not seem to contain the pair, even in the softest moments, like with seconds on the clock to end a period.  The Russians are golden and the Germans should be proud of their huge accomplishments in this tournament.

Nikita Gusev was the hockey pool MVP in this tournament, finishing with 4 goals, including 2 playoff round game-winners, and 8 assists, which totaled up to 16 points, far and away the best player in the pool and the biggest reason why Neil is our winner this time around!

Neil's team finished 4 points clear of Don's team, 44-39, to take the overall title and win the $180, thanks to Gusev, who was indeed his 1st round pick, 7th overall in the draft.  Congratulations to Neil, he won a fun 2-week hockey pool, which was a good laugh at the draft and all the way through.

Week Four Newsletter

With things picking up around the office this past week, it has been a little tougher to get the news out in a reasonable time, if at all, hence why the Newsletter is running a bit late today.  It might be a bit of a condensed version of the Newsletter, just because of that.



This week, it was pretty well a tie for the Player of the Week nod, as we had a couple of goalies finish the week with a 3-0-0 record with a shutout, but since one was going to be the headline player for our Mover & Shaker, I thought it would be good enough to spread the wealth a little bit and offer up the Player of the Week to the team that wasn't going to get a nod otherwise.

Henrik Lundqvist had a great week with the New York Rangers in Week Four, shutting out the Blues on Tuesday, beating the Oilers on Thursday and then getting the second half of the team's back-to-back nights, defeating the Jets on Sunday.

No complaints for Grant, I'm sure.  Grant picked up the Rangers' number one goalie with the 16th overall pick and now, with his big week in the books, he now has 17 points on the year and is now ranked 3rd overall in pool scoring.  He's already become a bit of a bargain.

It was another week where the lack of separation in the standings made another week look amazing.  Marcin's team had a very good week, racking up a whopping 36 points and moved up from 13th place, all the way up to 2nd place!  That's a pretty good week, I'd say.

Yes, Marcin's number one goalie was one of the qualified goalies for the Player of the Week in Corey Crawford, who also finished with a 3-0-0 record with a shutout under his belt.  The Blackhawks are starting to roll again this season and Marcin is taking full advantage, Crawford being his 1st round pick and then he added a top line player as well in Artem Anisimov, who finished with 6 points in the week as well.  Those two players, combining for 14 points in the week, were better than or equal to three teams in the pool alone.

Then when you also add Ryan Getzlaf of the Ducks and Nick Holden of the Rangers, each potting 4 points of their own, Craig Smith of the Predators, Henrik Zetterberg of the Red Wings and Kevin Klein of the Rangers with 3 points each, he comes away like a bandit in the weekly scoring, indeed.

Marcin's team, if it was a mini-game, would be running away with the plus/minus in the pool, as his players are on in a lot of scoring situations, leading the pool with a combined +42 rating, a full 25 points better than any other team in the pool.  He could be in line for a big pay day, if his players continue to be in positive situations through the year.

With only 2 points between his team and 1st place, another big week could mean a big lead by the end of next week.

In the basement this week, Wes returns after a tough season last year and his luck hasn't seemed to get any better at the start of this season either.  In Week Four, his team finished with only 12 points and has dropped down to 24th in the standings.

With Cody Eakin of the Stars starting the year on the IR, Ryan Pulock getting recalled by the Islanders and suffering a broken foot right away and now, just recently, an upper-body injury to Jonathan Drouin in Tampa Bay, his team has not been lucky at all.

His biggest plus in Week Four was Coyotes goalie, Louis Domingue, who finished with 4 points on the week and is starting to find his game in the desert.

We're now a few weeks away from the Waiver Draft and will Wes look for his money back again?  His team will need some help in the PIM pool department, sitting in 24th, 93 minutes back, his team has been eliminated from the survivor pool, but the outdoor game pool is still wide open with three more games in the New Year.  He may want to make sure he's picking outdoor bound players... just a thought!

I have been meaning to write that prizes post all week, but time generally works against me during the day and the evening's activities, which include sports and beers, aren't really helping too much either.  So, how about I talk about the money here and get it over with?

Well, not only will our 1st place winner get their name on the trophy, 1st prize will be a solid $750 this year, 2nd place will be $300 and 3rd place will be $120.  We'll still have the three mini-game prizes, where people will get their money back and the rest went to the website costs and engraving on the trophy.  That's it.  That's the whole shebang.  Now you know.

The top three teams this week, all hit the 100-point mark in the week, as Benson, Marcin and Scott are 1-2-3, 103-101-100 in the standings and they are followed closely, all the way down to 11th, which is Wilton, who is at 90 points today.  No lead is safe, especially with these Mover & Shaker weeks.

This week's goon squad belongs to Kristy & Don, as it finished with 54 minutes in penalties in Week Four and took the outright lead from Marcie, 123-121.

Just how big of goons were they this week?  Their 54 minutes were greater than the four weeks combined of six teams in the pool.  Such a dirty team.  That Nazem Kadri more than anyone.

Brenda & Seward, Cam and Ryan all fell out of the survivor pool, all thanks to a lack of wins in Week Four, leaving us with 10 teams in the pool.  Now, three of those 10 teams were only able to snag a single win in Week Four... could they be in trouble next?  What about these supposed bye weeks that are upcoming for each NHL team?  Are these teams properly equipped to handle the schedule?  Stay tuned!

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Well, on the plus side, the pool saw some more participation in Week Four, as the average number of games played by skaters and minutes played by pool goalies were up, if only marginally, but scoring continues to tail off.  It wasn't nearly as drastic as a point per NHL game on the schedule, no, we're down from 11.34 to 11.2, which is still a pretty good total.  We also saw a spike back up in the penalty minutes, up from 7.5 to 10.7 this week, which is good news for those goon teams.

It sounds like we have some more significant injuries coming up, so we could be hurting again right away.  Let's hope our healthy players start picking up the slack.

NEWS AND NOTES

The Carolina Hurricanes are still waiting to hear how long they might be without defenseman Justin Faulk, who left Sunday night's game against the Devils with an undisclosed injury. Faulk left the game in the 1st period, not to return and there was no update after the game and we're still without one on Monday afternoon, but I would imagine that one would come soon.

Eric's team was able to move out of the basement of the pool in the week, but this injury will likely hurt him in the long run, if it is a long-term injury.  6 points in 11 games is decent enough production to lose out on and that isn't even his peak performance level either.

The Columbus Blue Jackets announced on Monday afternoon that defenseman Seth Jones is now expected to miss the next three weeks worth of action to a hairline fracture in his foot.  Jones played all the way through overtime against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night, which may not have helped too much, but he also likely didn't take off his skate to find out how bad he was hurting during the game either.

A tough blow to Stacey M.'s team, which fell down in the standings in the week, down from 19th to 21st.  Jones has 6 points in his first 10 games this season, which is a pretty decent start from the blueline.

The Detroit Red Wings had to do some much-needed paperwork on Monday, but it isn't great news for the hockey pool.  Thomas Vanek has now been moved to the Long Term Injured Reserve on Monday, retroactive to the 25th of October, which means he'll need to miss at least 10 games, but he has already missed six games to the injury, so the minimum is only four left to go.  The Red Wings were so tight to the salary cap ceiling, that they needed the relief from the LTIR to bring up Tyler Bertuzzi on Monday, who is a cheap cap hit as a replacement.

Vanek's projected games were already off Kristy & Don's team of goons and they will be without him for at least another week, possibly more, but the Red Wings will at least operate with a bit more flexibility.  The duo dropped down to 17th in the standings, 23 points out of 1st place.

A lower-body injury was the reason why Jesse Puljujarvi was out of the Oilers lineup yesterday evening against the Red Wings and he is currently listed as out day-to-day.  It's hard to say whether or not this injury is a recurring injury, like the one he had going on in the preseason, but it is something to keep an eye on.

The Oilers' 1st round pick this year is the only rookie representation on Mike's pool team, but that isn't a mini-game, so it isn't quite the biggest deal.  Puljujarvi hasn't exactly been the best freshman this season, scoring only 3 points in his first 10 games.

Morning World Cup Player Notes (Sep 30) - It's All Done!

The threat of prolonging this tournament to Saturday night was looming, as Team Europe was playing their brand of shutdown hockey to an absolute tee, thanks to the broad shoulders (and other padded areas) of goaltender Jaroslav Halak, who was dynamite on Thursday night.

The Europeans were dead set on grinding this game to an absolute halt, especially after they were able to poke through with the game's opening goal, thanks to a great rush from Zdeno Chara and his slightly deflected shot, finding its way past Carey Price, less than seven minutes into the contest.  It was then all hands on deck, as the Europeans clogged the neutral zone and collapsed in front of their own net, aiding their red-hot keeper, as best as they could.

Through two periods, there was very little sense of urgency out of the Canadians, their numerous power plays didn't quite have the zip of a team down a goal and the chance of taking home the championship in their back pocket.  No, it really seemed like there was an ambivalence about them, which was okay to let this one slip and play an even bigger game on Saturday.

Unfortunately for Europe, there was one penalty too many and it was their best forward, Anze Kopitar, heading to the box, late in the 3rd period and the tide was turned and it carried the whole game out with it.  A point shot on the power play from Brent Burns, deflected by Patrice Bergeron, eluded Halak and it was that redirection that knotted up the game at 1-1 and Canada had life, with less than three to go.

Two minutes later, 44 seconds to go, the puck crossed the European line again, thanks to a shorthanded marker from Brad Marchand, as he took a drop pass from Jonathan Toews, Europe already on their heels and it was a top shelf beauty and all the European hearts were broken.  The game didn't even require overtime, it was all done in regulation and the game, the tournament, was over.

Well, I think this tournament was already long over, before the finals had even gotten started, as Dale's motivation to pick a few starting goalies in the pool, not to mention grabbing the two Bruins on the champion's top line certainly didn't hurt his cause any.  Dale will walk away with the whole $160 prize, thanks to his team's dominant 21-point win over his nearest competitors.

Thanks to the audit, Neil jumped up to 2nd place on a couple more missed game-winning goals, while Scott dropped down to 3rd, despite losing most of his players after the round robin.

I do think this worked out to be a pretty good pool... just wish there were a few more participants in it.  Oh well, next up is the big show!  We'll see you in just over a week's time!

Morning Player Notes in the Playoffs - It's Over! (Jun 13)

It's all done!  The Pittsburgh Penguins are indeed the Stanley Cup champions for 2016 and they did so in fine, convincing fashion yet again.

The Penguins not only kept the pressure on at the San Jose end, they were also able to restrict the number of shots that the Sharks had in their own end, giving it a very good two-way effort, something that somewhat went under the radar in this series.

A 1st period marker from depth blueliner Brian Dumoulin got the Penguins well on their way, which could have been derailed by the 2nd period goal from Logan Couture, if Kris Letang didn't own the play shortly after, finishing a quick feed from Sidney Crosby, less than two minutes later to take the lead back.  The game was sealed away by a Patric Hornqvist empty-netter late and that was all she wrote in this one.  A 3-1 final and a Game 6 victory, the series concluding at 4-2.

Letang had the bonus point for the winner, while Crosby had a pair of assists, being the only notable players in the finale, but that was really how the pool turned out in a nutshell anyways.

Well, despite the Stanley Cup win for the Penguins, they don't have the honour of having the Playoff Pool MVP, which belongs to Martin Jones of the Sharks.  No, Jones was again amazing in Game 6, but it didn't add up to a whole heck of a lot in the end, but he was the best player in the pool this year, so that means something to us.

This Playoff Pool had the worst luck this year for goaltenders, since Matt Murray unseated Marc-Andre Fleury as the playoffs got started and his momentum carried him through, right to the end.  Fleury got a grand total of 79 minutes worth of action and wasn't able to register a win, which was bad news for his four teams that selected him.

The result for the Sharks was not indicative of Jones' play in the Finals, because he was certainly working his hardest to keep his team in every game, but they certainly couldn't repay the favour.  The acrobatic saves he was making, each and every night, were keeping the Sharks in it, but the offense couldn't quite make it through the Pittsburgh defense.

In the end, Jones finished with 13 wins and 3 shutouts, picking up 32 points and was the best player overall, taken only twice in the pool.

Usually throughout the playoffs, I would make good use of this GIF for the game-winning goals, but I just wasn't feeling it at all this year.  It wasn't a great year for scoring this year and the pool numbers were quite low, but we'll get through these pretty quick.

On the players' side, Joe Pavelski had the pool-high in game-winning goals, leading the way with 4 bonus points this Spring.  Three other players, Sidney Crosby, Tyler Johnson and David Backes all finished with 3 bonus points as well, making for good playoff years for them as well.

From a team point of view, Kristy's team ended up with a great season in the bonus point department, finishing with 16 game-winners from her team, taking the title.  11th place, Bill, was 2nd in the pool with 14 and Stuart, our pool-winner, not to mention Chris, who finished 5th, each had 13 winners.

I don't think the bonus points played a huge role in this year's pool, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

So, we're paying out the top two teams for the pool this year and all the money goes into the pot, when it comes to the playoffs, so $350 will go to Stuart for the win and Kristy will receive a cool $150 for 2nd place.

We'll have the money out this week to our winners.

Thanks everyone for joining the pool again this year, this was one of the better populated playoff pools in recent years, so thanks for that.  Sorry, the sheet wasn't very receptive to all of these back-up goalies that went a long ways or these 4th line contributions that we saw throughout the playoffs.

We'll have a World Cup pool announcement at the end of the month, we'll have more information on next year's draft, likely in August and stay tuned to the blog for all your silly season updates, that have more bearing on how our hockey pool draft may go forward.

Have a great Summer, all!

Prizes for the Playoff Pool

It looks like all 50 teams will be paid for and accounted for, I've got three guys holding onto the money that is owing, so I can safely say that the pot for the this year's pool is a flat $500.  With that being said, I will be paying out two prizes, 1st and 2nd place, the top team getting the big prize of $350 and 2nd place will get the rest at $150.  It's a sprint to the finish... and we're already through one round (almost)!

Is anyone going to catch Stuart?  He's set up quite well after round one...

Week Twenty-Seven Newsletter, Year End Edition

I don't know about your, but those 27 weeks just flew by.

Yes, we're all done another NHL regular season and now we have the final tallies in for all the players on all the teams in all the various categories.  But before we get to the year-end features, let's have a peek at the week that was and go through all of the motions.



It has been quite sometime since John Tavares has been named the Player of the Week in the hockey pool, the last time being Week Fifteen in the 2014 season, so well over two years ago.  Tavares and the Islanders are playoff-bound and it will be on the captain's shoulders to guide this team as far as it can go.  If the last week of the season was a good indication, he was more than capable of doing that.

Tavares played in four of the five games scheduled for the Islanders in the week, where he was able to register 4 goals and 9 points.  He started off with a goal and 2 assists against the Lightning, another goal and 2 assists against the Capitals, a goal and an assist against the Rangers and then one more goal against the Sabres on Saturday.

It wasn't an amazing season for Tavares, but by no means was it a bad season.  The 25-year old finished the year 28th in pool scoring with 33 goals and 70 points in 78 games in Brooklyn, which by our pool count this year, would have made him the opening pick in the 2nd round of our draft, if it was redone by the scoring standings.  Last season, the Islanders captain finished 8th overall in pool scoring, so you can obviously say that it was somewhat of a down year for him.

For Eric, it was a bit of a disappointing year, because he had picked Tavares with the 5th overall selection, which made him into somewhat of a bust pick.  In order to have been 5th overall, where Martin Jones of the Sharks finished, he would have needed 16 more points and if that was to have happened, Eric would have been in the money conversation, as I wrote up this blog post.

Eric's first season in the hockey pool wasn't exactly a bust, as his team really made that push for the money spots, capturing the final Mover & Shaker award and falling 10 points short of 3rd place.  His team's 38 points was tied for the best week of the season, as John P. had 38 points as well in Week Seven, and Eric's team jumped up from 7th to 4th in the final week of the year.  That's a pretty good push, considering the teams he had to pass to get there.

Eric's team finished the season with three Mover & Shakers, which is a pretty good debut to the pool.  It already has him tied for 21st overall in total number of M&S nods all-time, in the eight years of this pool being active on the website.

His good week stems from having the Player of the Week nod, plus a guy like Dustin Byfuglien of the Jets, who finished with 5 points as well.  Ryan Johansen of the Predators, Milan Lucic of the Kings and Thomas Greiss of the Islanders were also key contributors this week, all finishing with 4 points a piece.

Only three of his active players failed to register points in the week, one was due to illness, the other due to being a healthy scratch and the other was actually ice cold in the production category.  Still, 11 of 14 players picking up points was a good thing.

Eric's team certainly finished the season on a high note, as his peak position was his final spot in the standings, at 4th place.  He made some positive moves in both Waiver Drafts, as all three of his pick-ups were positive in points and penalty minutes, so his team was able to take those moves and slowly move up from the midpoint of the pool, whereabouts he got started this year.

Thanks for joining the pool, Eric... hopefully, you had a good time!

Honestly, I haven't really done a count of the career Basement Dweller nods that each team has had, I'm sure that sort of dubious distinction wouldn't go over well.  Dale B., however, gets that dubious distinction of landing the last Basement Dweller nod of the season, as the legs fell out from underneath his team in the last week of the year, finishing with only 12 points in the week.

If there was a silver lining to that, it was that his team was so far ahead of 16th place, that he wasn't going to fall out of his 15th place position, where he finishes the year.  He had finished the last three weeks in that position and wasn't going to give that up, if only just barely.

Dale's team was led by Scott Hartnell of the Blue Jackets this week, finishing with one-third of his points, 4 points, while Andre Burakovsky of the Capitals and David Krejci of the Bruins each had 2 points a piece.

The real disappointment for Dale was that his team got off to a rocket of a start to the year, up in 1st place in Week Two, touched it again at the end of Week Seven, but the wheels really started to come off in Week Eleven and the downward spiral dropped him down to his eventual finishing spot of 15th.  A tough pill to swallow by the end of it all.

Now, we come to all the year-end good stuff.  The money prizes and the trophy, which I will get all engraved and ready for our new champion, to which we all know who it is by now, but will get the big reveal down at the bottom.

We'll start with the mini-games and then move down to the real money, really giving this post a sense of dramatic fashion, right?

The first of the three mini-games to officially be decided was the goalie survivor pool, which was technically done after Week Seventeen, when Jeremy's goalies couldn't quite get the job done before the All-Star break, while Allan's two goalies, Ben Bishop of the Lightning and Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets, were able to get one win between the two of them, before all the stars went to Nashville for their little soiree.

Allan could also throw in a few thanks to Penguins' back-up goalie, Jeff Zatkoff, who was on his roster for the first nine weeks of the year, before being dropped for Hellebuyck, which was a pretty good move in the end... for this pool, I mean.  Hellebuyck was sent down to the minors around the NHL trade deadline and wasn't seen afterwards, really leaving a hole in Allan's roster.

Nevertheless, in what probably is Allan's last draft, he comes away with his money back, as a mini-game winner.

When a guy drafts the likes of Connor McDavid, Artemi Panarin, Robby Fabbri and Joni Ortio at the draft, in their first 14 picks this season, you would have thought that this guy had one of those picks right at the time. In fact, three out of those four picks were dynamite picks, as Ryan had huge success with the likes of Panarin and Fabbri, while McDavid's long-term injury may have cost him the money, in the overall sense, but was certainly more than enough to dominate the likes of this rookie pool.

Congratulations, Ryan... your rookies set a record that will be hard to match, with 170 freshman points.

Maybe the most exciting, certainly, the most controversial, of the three mini-games this season was the PIM pool, which rubbed a few people the wrong way, when the Waiver Draft became a tipping point of contention.  When Wes' team fell out of money contention early, he decided to drop a healthy Jeff Carter to goon it up, since Carter wasn't the guy who was going to do it himself.  That gave Kristy & Don a free pass to get up from 19th place to having a shot at the money... one they almost capitalized on.  Let's also not forget, Wes dropped Logan Couture of the Sharks, who was on the verge of being healthy again, for his first goon.  Couture ended up on Jeremy's team... and well... see below.

Wes wasn't alone in this competition, but Derek & Dan, they dropped hurt players or legitimately cold players to exercise their Waiver Draft rights and goon it up and they did okay.  It wasn't until the Week Nineteen Waiver Draft, when they thought they were out of it, that they found it was quite the opposite.  They did a slight upgrade with one pick and then opted to upgrade their goalie.

That worked.  Well, the duo's numbers were staggering in the third segment of the season, met only by the even more staggering number of injuries that Wes' team suffered after the start of Week Nineteen.  Wes' team finished the year with six key players on the shelf, from the end of February on.

Derek & Dan's team dominated the third segment, accumulating more minutes in penalties, in that segment alone, than 11 teams did all year.  That domination saw their team finish with 762 PIM in total, taking 1st place by 115 minutes.  What a huge year from another pool debut.

As for mini-games next year, we'll likely be incorporating some new wrinkles into the selection process of these games and there is also some talk that the Waiver Draft may be modified to keep the integrity of the competition intact.  Stay tuned!

Now, we come to the big money!  3rd place was a good race by the end of the year, but when Brian's team really caught fire, back in Week Nineteen, his team went from 10th place to 3rd place in a matter of four weeks.  Brian's best picks this season were Jamie Benn of the Stars, Johnny Gaudreau of the Flames, Mark Scheifele of the Jets, Evgeny Kuznetsov of the Capitals, Elias Lindholm of the Hurricanes and Brad Marchand of the Bruins.  All of which were bargain picks in the draft this year.  Congratulations on your $125 Canadian.

Brenda & Seward had a taste of 1st place, a few times this season, and their last came at the end of Week Twenty-Two, but after that, they couldn't finish a week any closer than 4 points away from 1st place, losing the title by 6 points in the end.  Still, it was a great push, which they can thank their bargain picks for, which included: Jonathan Quick of the Kings, Filip Forsberg of the Predators, Derrick Brassard of the Rangers, Marcus Johansson of the Capitals, Adam Henrique of the Devils, Frans Nielsen of the Islanders, Zdeno Chara of the Bruins and Matt Beleskey of the Bruins.  For your efforts, $325 is all yours!

Finally, in 1st place... a stunning pool debut, as Jeremy walked in, sat at a table all alone in a darkened corner of the Voodoo Lounge basement and picked himself a winner.  No distractions, no bums bringing him down and just pure unadulterated hockey pool picking thought.  661 points was the winning total this season, which was actually higher than the result of our 2014 pool with three less teams in it.  That's some good picking.

Jeremy's team finished 5th in goals scored, 3rd in wins, avoided the rookies, 11th in PIM, 6th in forward points, 8th in defenseman points, 6th in goalie points, 3rd in skater games played and 9th in goalie minutes.

Well, in terms of bargain picks, Jeremy's team did incredibly well.  Only four players, out of the 14 he originally drafted, scored below their draft position and he dropped two of them in Week Nine.  His best pick of the draft, in terms of biggest bargain, was Reilly Smith of the Panthers, who finished 160 places better than his draft position, thanks to a 50-point year.

Jeremy's take in this win is a pool-high, $800!  Congratulations!  The trophy will be engraved and given to you for the Summer soon!

After the year of the goalie, there was a lot of hesitation not to take a goalie in the 1st round of the draft this year and then when you take into account some of the off-ice issues and storylines that were going along, it didn't come as a huge surprise that our Most Valuable Player in the hockey pool draft was taken in the 3rd round.  I do want to make it abundantly clear, every team passed up on Patrick Kane twice before John Swan took him to start the 3rd round.



Kane was one of two players to finish the season with more than 100 points in the pool and the first skater to do so since Evgeni Malkin did it in the 2012 season.

Unfortunately, the season that John S. had did not reverberate from the choosing of this year's MVP, because he also had the chance to take the 2015 MVP, Montreal goalie Carey Price, with the 1st overall pick, but that move blew up in his face in December, when Price went down for the count for the rest of the year.  Still, he went from one MVP to another in one year, but his team still finished 17th in the standings.

Does Kane immediately make it to the top of your list for next season or do you like the goalie options first?  That runner-up, Braden Holtby of the Capitals, he finished 2nd in both 2015 and 2016.  How's that for consistency?

That was a pretty good year, when it was all said and done.  It was a pretty good race throughout for a good portion of the season, but by the time the third segment rolled around, teams were pretty well decided in the neighbourhood that they were going to be finishing in.  I thought the mini-games were a decent success, something that we might tinker with to make it more interesting next year and with a greater number of teams joining the pool, it really kept the competition to a high level.

Of course, if this pool continues to grow, which it may or may not, there could be some changes made to the system, I know that there is a call for taking only one goalie per pool team, but that will be a decision that will be made at the draft in September.

I would like to thank everyone again for coming out this year.  I know I only get to speak to most of you three times in the year (the draft and two Waiver Drafts), but I hope for all of you, that you'll gear up for another exciting year in 2017.  There's no question that there is a lot of talent available in the NHL for a lot of pool teams, so I would encourage you to invite another person in, I can certainly accommodate more people who enjoy a fun and easy draft.

Congratulations again to all of our winners, including those who got their money back.  Don't forget, the Playoff Pool is now live, you can check out the sheet here.  Stay tuned to the blog all Summer long, I'll be keeping an eye on team rosters at the Entry Draft and the Free Agent Frenzy and we'll also be publishing more details about next season's draft before too long.

Cheers!