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-Six Newsletter

It's the second-to-last Newsletter of the regular season and I think it's fair to think that there won't be any playoff pool this year, I've added another ball team to my summer, so I will likely be too busy and not in front of the computer a whole lot to do all the updating, so yeah... there's that!  I will be looking forward to a summer outside and not stuck in front of the TV.  Maybe when the Canucks return to the playoffs next year, I'll be excited again.



I would sure like to say, since Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets had already won a Player of the Week nod this season, that I can turn around and offer it to someone new, like Tyler Bertuzzi of the Red Wings, who finished with 10 points.  Since Bob had himself a 12-point week again, I can't really do that, it just doesn't feel quite right.  Player of the Week has got to be the best player and that certainly was Bob.  I was looking forward to writing that post about Bertuzzi, until I saw Bob's numbers though.

The Blue Jackets are fighting for their playoff lives and coming up trumps with their number one goalie, who has now won five games in a row, including going 4-0-0 with a pair of shutouts in Week Twenty-Six and now the Jackets are holding the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, but are still far from safe at the moment, now with only three games left this season.

Bobrovsky shutout the Islanders on Tuesday, beat the Canadiens on Thursday, 23 saves against the Predators on Saturday and then finished the week off with a 38-save shutout against the Sabres on back-to-back nights on Sunday.  He has really dialed himself in over the last week and a bit and the Jackets are on their way to riding a hot goalie into the playoffs.

With this stupendous run of wins, Bobrovsky has now taken over top spot among all goalies in hockey pool scoring with 36 wins and 90 points in 60 appearances this season, only 1 point better than Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning and 2 points better than the injured Marc-Andre Fleury of the Golden Knights.  All three rank in the top 25 overall in pool scoring and would be considered the only goalies suitable for the 1st round of the draft this year.

Well, who knew it would be a season-high week so close to the end of the year?  I was ready to punch in Stacey M.'s e-mail address into that 2nd place e-mail money transfer on Sunday last week, but oh no, here comes Kristy & Don to make things "interesting."  Just on Tuesday, Don was worried about finishing 5th in the standings, looking at the other two teams that were charging and didn't think his team had the legs for it, but here they are, ruining the last week of the season... in one way, but making it kind of interesting in a different way.

On top of having the Player of the Week, the duo were also collecting on the red hot Red Wings, who had another player in the double digits as well, Anthony Mantha, also finishing with 10 points, so 22 points between a couple of players was the same amount of points as the two teams that were vying for the Basement Dweller nod, but I will get to that in a little bit.

The drop-off from the top two players was pretty good, as Ryan Pulock of the Islanders and John Gibson of the Ducks finished the week with 4 points and they also had four more players with 3 points each, so they did have some consistency through their lineup, even one active player that didn't register a single point and they still put up the best week of the season.

If there is one thing that the duo has done this season, it has defied some of the new conventions that we've been seeing among the money winners or some of the drafting strategies among them of late, as they have continued on the tradition of big goalies and big defense and mediocre forwards to get the job done, as their forwards rank tied for 15th in the pool, while their defense is 4th and they have the best two goalies.  The debate will rage on in regards to what the best strategy is in the long run.

After all of that, we did have ourselves a tie for the Basement Dweller again this week, as both Troy and Scott finished with 11 points each in Week Twenty-Six, so we had to break it down to the tie-breakers to get this one all worked out.  First up, goals scored and by a fairly wide margin of 5-2, Troy's team kept him out of the basement by lighting the lamp a few more times, leaving it all to Scott's team for another week.

A couple of injuries and some healthy scratches were not helpful for Scott's team this week and his team fell back down into 25th place, as even the tanking effort of Derek B.'s team was able to put up a few more points and jump back into 24th.  Matt Murray of the Penguins was Scott's only saving grace, registering 4 points in the week, as there were eight players on his team that failed to pick up a point in the week.

This was Scott's 4th Basement Dweller nod of the season and it has just been a horrible year for his luck, as there were a number of duds on his team that came out flat out of the gate and the Waiver Draft, no matter how good his picks were, were just no help to him this year.  Talk about a long year.  At least his team is only 3 points out of 24th, so there is a chance it won't finish last this year, but he'll need some help in the final week of the season.

Well, I think about this time last week, I was writing cheques or doing up transfers for 1st place and 2nd place and that was very premature of me.  Sure, Stuart still won't be caught for 1st place, but I certainly didn't see a season-high point total from any team coming this late in the season, but there were Kristy & Don, collecting massive amounts of points from a couple of players and they zoomed up to catch Stacey M.'s team, which was caught resting on their laurels.

Now, the duo and Stacey's team will start the week tied, with the duo leading in goals for the tie-breaker, both teams 39 points behind the leader, 21 points up on 4th place.  I guess I shouldn't say that it is all locked up for 2nd and 3rd and that we just have to decide the order, this last week taught me that lesson in a hurry.  Still, will Grant or even Jesse (23 points back) be able to put that kind of week together?  I suppose we shall see.

Nothing premature about calling the rookie race... a few weeks back!  Derek B.'s team continues to roll, posting another 10 points and bringing his overall total to 120 points from freshmen this year.  No other team has even sniffed triple digits yet.  This one has been over for a long, long time.

The shootout has been somewhat a dud for the better part of the season, so it does look like Grant will come away with some money, if his team doesn't miraculously find a massive scoring streak in the final week of the regular season.  Grant's team has a 3-goal lead in the shootout and Mike's team sits in-behind, 13-10, but with the shootout being fairly scarce for the better part of the season, it seems fair to call it... again, barring a miracle week of non-stop shootouts.

Stuart's team extended its lead over Clayton's team in the game-winning goals department, now sitting at 47-40 with a week to go and Clayton's team didn't post a single winner in the week, thanks in large part to his long list of injuries to key goal scorers on his team.  Looks like Stuart's team will take home some extra cash on the year with a mini-game as well.

Scott's team still holds a narrow lead over Stuart's in the overall race for goon team of the season, 493-492, which still doesn't pay, but is still fun to have a look at.  It's no wonder Stacey M.'s team was caught napping, it was the goon team of the week, 28 minutes, and was too busy resting its eyes in the penalty box and not picking up points to keep the duo away.

Well, if the plus/minus statistic was a payable one, Neil's team would have run away with it a long time ago as well, as his team has been very responsible in their own end and at the same time, put up enough points in key situations to make a difference in the year.  His team has a combined rating of +121 this season, 42 points better than his nearest competitor.  That's fairly remarkable, to be honest.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

The pool did bounce back from some lowly scoring weeks, picking up its best weekly total of points in a month, with 646 points.  It was our best per game average in five weeks at 12.4 points per NHL game in the week, which was quite something as well.  Participation didn't go up any, as injuries and scratches continue to mount and there should be a significant downturn in participation in the final week of the season, as some players will be rested ahead of the playoffs, while very few will be making that push to the playoffs.

One more week, 51 one games to go.  Let's have it!

Week Twenty-Five Newsletter

We kick off the Newsletter with a tie-breaking situation, where we had four players finish the week with 8 points, but two were goalies and it only really came down to two forwards, where Kyle Connor of the Jets took the title home, defeating Steven Stamkos of the Lightning by a 5-4 margin in the weekly goal total.  The two goalies in question, Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets and Carey Price of the Canadiens, but they certainly were not going to get any more than a single goal, if they were lucky.

The Jets forward played in four games and was very good in three of them, picking up a goal and an assist on Monday against the Kings, another goal and an assist against the Ducks on Wednesday, shutout against the Golden knights on Thursday, but had a hat-trick and an assist to swipe the title against the Predators on Saturday.

This brings the young forward's totals up to 32 goals and 61 points in 75 games this season in Winnipeg, which is now good enough for 69th in hockey pool scoring this season, well within a 3rd round, if we were to redo the draft at this point of the season.  It has been a very productive year for the sophomore.  Not too bad for Jeremy's team, which picked him in the 4th round, 98th overall, making him a very good bargain pick that high.

Well, what do you know?  Another tie-breaking situation in the Mover & Shaker race, as the top two teams were really doing a bit of both... moving and shaking in Week Twenty-Five.  It came down to Jeremy's team and Jesse's team in the week, both teams were jockeying back-and-forth, Monday to Sunday, but in the end, by a 13-9 margin in the goal scoring race, it was Jeremy's team which took the title, with 37 points.  It was nearly a 3 or 4-team tie-breaker, as there were a couple of teams within 2 points of the Mover & Shaker by the end of the weekend.

Nevertheless, Jeremy gets the sweep of the top spots in the Newsletter this week with a pretty big week.  It didn't do his team all that much good, as it was only 14 points better than the team ahead of him in 18th and is still 12 points back of Jon P.'s team.  It may be hogging on the headlines for nothing, especially since Jesse's team is really making a run at things of late, but that'll be more for the trophy race, I guess.

Jeremy did have two out of the four Player of the Week candidates, also rocking Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets, who finished with 8 points, helping to guide the way for his team to its 2nd Mover & Shaker of the season.  Alexander Edler of the Canucks also had a really good week for him, finishing with 6 points and this was all done with four players unable to register a point on his team, only one of which was due to injury.  That's a pretty incredible run, really.

Where did it all really go wrong for Jeremy's team this season?  Well, his forwards as a whole haven't been great, ranking 20th in the pool this season with 321 points, while his defensemen and goalies have been good, it has just been a let down up front and I think we've all concluded this year and after last season as well, that forwards are back to the way we should be picking in this pool.

At the start of play on Sunday, it was looking like the Basement Dweller was also going to be in need of a tie-breaker, but of the three, it didn't.  Brian's team took another week on the chin, finishing by itself with 12 points, unable to pick up anything on Sunday, where Steve's team, which was vying for the title as well, picked up that much-needed point to avoid the basement.

This is Brian's 2nd mention of the season in the Basement Dweller spot, taking the Week Fourteen mention as well.  His team has only dropped one spot in between those weeks, going from 16th to 17th, so it has been a pretty steady couple of months for his side, which just couldn't gain much for traction this year.

Mike Smith of the Flames was his top player in the week with 4 points, but only five players were unable to register a point in the week, so there were a lot of singles on his roster, which would be his eventual downfall this week.

Brian's forwards have been just okay this season, up with 423 points this season, but his team couldn't find the balance, with defense in 25th and goaltending tied for 18th.

We already know that Stuart has walked away with the top spot, but I think we can pretty well say that Stacey M. has now secured her spot in 2nd place after a very good week of 35 points, now opening the gap between 2nd and 3rd place to now 13 points.  It's not an impossible gap to overcome, but her team has been running fairly hot of late and Grant's team has just been okay.

Grant's position in 3rd, however, is still up for debate for some.  Kristy & Don made gains and now sit only 5 points back, while Jesse's team, tied for a Mover & Shaker this week, is only 14 points back and has been steadily gaining.  With only two weeks to go, neither the duo or Jesse can afford a down week, if this race is to continue.  Week Twenty-Six will be pivotal in how this all plays out.

Derek B.'s lead got shaved a little bit, only by 1 point, by Clayton's team in the week, but that's really a moot point with only two weeks to go.  The lead is 25 points and there's just no chance in hell that will come down.  It's Derek's money back, for sure!

It was another boring week in the shootout department, as there were only 4 goals scored in total, as these games are surprisingly not heading all the way to the skills competition.  Dale C. was the top team in the standings to get a goal, as his team moved into a tie for 4th with 8 goals on the season, while Grant's team, now 13-for-33 on the season, is tops by 3 goals and by the way this season has gone, that could be more than enough.

On the bright side, Eric's team finally got on the board in Week Twenty-Five, his team was the only one without a goal until this week, all thanks to Sidney Crosby of the Penguins.

Dale C. had the top team in the game-winning goals side as well, finishing the week with 5 clutch tallies, bringing his team's total up to 34 on the season, good enough for a tie for 8th in the standings.

Stuart's lead was shaved again by a goal and now leads Clayton's team by 6 goals with two weeks to go and that could easily be enough now too.  It would need a monster week for Clayton's team to nail this down and his team has been anything but special of late.

Scott's team has finally overcome Stuart's team for the goon team of the season, now leading 480-478 in the penalty minutes game, so there's one plus on the season for Scott's side.

John P.'s team, however, took goon team of the week honours, up with 35 minutes on the week and bringing his team up to a total of 413 minutes, good enough for 7th on the list this season.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Despite four teams vying for the Mover & Shaker with really good weeks, it wasn't a great week for the hockey pool, as a whole.  The scoring rate across the board was down by almost three-quarters of a point per NHL game on the schedule, as we all combined for 580 points in the pool in the week.  Not clipping over the 600-point mark is pretty disappointing, especially when there are over 50 games on the schedule.  It's near the end of the year, so that does play a big part in it all.

NEWS AND NOTES

An upper-body injury for Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf made him a late scratch for the club ahead of their Saturday game against the Kings.  Getzlaf has been dealing with something over the last couple of weeks and has already missed some time in the past couple of weeks to the injury and now with the season winding down, you begin to wonder how much more he'll play.  The Ducks are well out of the playoff race now, so it might be a good time to rest up the captain.

Stuart's team can afford to see Getzlaf take some time off, but I'm sure that this couldn't come soon enough for the teams that were chasing him all season long.  I don't think this is any cause for concern now.

It was a home-and-home series for the Avalanche and the Blackhawks this weekend and Colorado played it out, taking 3 of 4 points, without Mikko Rantanen in their lineup for either game, as he is dealing with an undisclosed injury.  He was reportedly hurt on Thursday night against the Stars, but there hasn't been any detail published on his ailment, as the Avs are still in a playoff spot, even after their overtime loss on Sunday.  The Avalanche are now down two big guns in their lineup and will have to hold on for dear life now.

Ryan's team has some space to give, before having to drop down any more spots in the standings, as his team is 11 points clear of 15th in the standings.  However, he is now without one of his top forwards for an unknown timetable, so there is a chance his team could drop without suitable offense.

The Minnesota Wild are chasing the Avalanche for that last wild card spot in the west, but had to do so on Saturday without Zach Parise, who is dealing with a lower-body injury of his own.  The forward was reportedly hurt the night before, but played through the injury and it got the best of him overnight and into the next day, as he was unable to go against the Hurricanes.  He's considered to be day-to-day and if the Wild are going to make that last ditch push for the playoffs, they'll certainly need him.

Dale C.'s team is in a dogfight for a top 10 spot this season, finishing the week in 10th, 4 points back of 8th and only 1 point clear of 11th, 5 points clear of 14th.  If Parise is gone for any long stretch of time, that could be a harsh finish for his team, which is already down one key Wild player. 

New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider might be getting some late season rest on a lower-body injury, since the Rangers are long since out of the playoff picture in the east.  Kreider didn't play on Saturday against the the Maple Leafs and he has already been ruled out of Monday night's game against the Penguins.  With only eight games to play this season and no hope of spring hockey, the Rangers may just give Kreider whatever time he needs to feel 100% and he might draw back in to finish the season on a high note, if healthy enough.

Mike's team is in danger of dropping below 20th place now, as all of these injuries have been adding up for him this season.  His team finished the week only 4 points clear of 21st place and he has five players on the news page, all missing time.  What a horribly unlucky season for Mike's team, which on the plus side, still isn't in last place.

After starting (and losing) on Saturday, Carter Hart got the afternoon off on Sunday afternoon, when the Flyers took on the Capitals in Washington, allowing Cam Talbot to draw back in as the backup. As one of a few teams rocking a few goalies on the roster, there has just been no need for these clubs to overwork their goalies, if they don't have to, especially since they would have to put these extra goalies on waivers to send them down to the minors.

It was Jeremy's goalie that took to the press box on Sunday, which isn't considered a missed start at all, while Mike's goalie didn't exactly get a start and there were no points for getting dressed.  I don't expect we'll see Talbot much for the rest of this season.

Week Twenty-Four Newsletter

A weekend away from the television and the computer made for some serious catch-up to do on the website and the blog on this Monday morning. Playing snow pitch all weekend doesn't have me moving all that quickly today, so there was no real rush to get this published in the wee hours of morning, hence the late publishing time today. So, did I miss anything this weekend?



It was a pretty solid week for Connor McDavid, as he pulled out a convincing 9-point week out and took the Player of the Week honours without the help of any tie-breakers.  The Oilers forward was the clear winner and only had to outpace one other player, who finished with 8 points, so it really wasn't too much of a scoring race this week.

McDavid kicked off the week with a goal and an assist against the Rangers on Monday, followed that up with a couple of assists against the Devils on Thursday, 2 goals and an assist against the Coyotes on Saturday and then capped it off with a pair of assists against Vegas on Sunday.  3 goals and 6 assists in four games and that earns him top spot in the week.

The Oilers captain is now 2nd in hockey pool scoring with 36 goals and 105 points in 68 games this season, but it doesn't seem very likely that he'll track down the overall lead, as he currently trails Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning by 12 points and there's only a few weeks left to go this season.

There's just no catching Stuart's team, especially when his team is still posting Mover & Shaker weeks and just walking away with these weekly honours on top of it all.  His team's 45 points in Week Twenty-Four was 12 points better than anyone else's team in the week, so it was almost a good thing that we didn't have a live look-in throughout the weekend, it just would have been so deflating.

Thomas Greiss of the Islanders led the way for Stuart's team in Week Twenty-Four, taking home 8 points and was the last player in consideration for the Player of the Week and he's been quite the pleasant surprise this season, taken in the 9th round, 214th overall and he now ranks 85th in pool scoring with 55 points this season.  This is definitely one of those picks that have really pushed Stuart's team over the hump this year.

Ryan Getzlaf of the Ducks and Anders Nilsson of the Senators each posted 6 points in the week, while Brad Marchand of the Bruins and Brayden Point of the Lightning each popped in 5 points.  Only one player on Stuart's team wasn't able to post a point, so that was a pretty dominating effort all the way around.

This big week now gives Stuart's team a monster 61-point lead atop of the standings and there will absolutely be no catching him this season.  It's going to be back-to-back titles for his team this year.

The Basement Dweller race was a little bit more interesting, as there were a few teams really putting the hammer down on this turtle race.  It has come down to a photo finish, as Jeremy and Mike's team each finished with 14 points and we had to come down to the tie-breaker to decide who gets the title for the week.  By a 4-3 margin in the goal scoring department, Jeremy's team narrowly escaped the mention, leaving Mike's team with the sleeping bag and the keys to the basement.

Both Mike and Jeremy's teams have been occupying the basement for the three of the last four weeks now, Mike's team taking it twice.  Mike's team has been riddled with injuries through the year and this week has been pretty bad, not to mention his goaltending situation has been less than ideal as well.

With this Basement Dweller nod, Mike's team is now only 11 points clear of 21st place in the standings, holding on for dear life to this top 20 spot in the standings.  It's not much to brag about, but it's something.

10 points now separates 2nd place to 4th place, with the order remaining the same: Stacey M., Grant and Kristy & Don going 2-3-4.  Jesse and Tony's teams are still trying to push their way closer to this race, but time is certainly working against them, with Jesse's team still 19 points back of 4th place and losing time everyday.

The rookie pool has also been settled for quite some time now, as Derek B.'s team has now topped the 100-point mark this week, now sitting at 105 points, 26 points ahead of Clayton's team.  It's not even much of a race anymore.  Dominik Kahun of the Blackhawks was his best freshman this week, finishing with 3 points to lead the way for his team.

The push for shootouts took a bit of a hit in the week, as we didn't see nearly as many skills competitions as we did in the previous two weeks before this.  Only 4 goals were collected from shootouts in Week Twenty-Four, 3 out of 4 goals were collected by the top three teams in the mini-game standings: Grant, Mike and Ryan.  Grant's team now holds a 13-10 advantage over Mike's team, now with only three weeks to go.

Clayton's team managed to collect one more game-winning goal than Stuart's team, which now took down the overall lead down to 7 game-winners, 45-38, with three weeks to go in the season.  Eric's team is only 3 goals back of Clayton's team too and we've still got plenty of games left to play this season, so there's a chance that we can see race get a little tighter down the stretch or at least, we can be hopeful for that.

Finally, the goon team of the week belonged to Scott, as his team topped the standings with 29 minutes in penalties in the week, but his team is still 6 minutes behind Stuart's team for top spot in the category.  Scott's team has been fairly consistent this season, posting 158 minutes in the first segment of the season, 157 minutes in the second segment and they lead the third segment with 145 minutes, to date.  His team should be able to win this, except it won't pay out anything.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

The pool saw a slight up-tick in scoring in the week, averaging 12 points per NHL game for the pool, but participation remained very steady, both among our skaters and our goalies.  The pool collected a total of 637 points in the week, which isn't anywhere near our best this season.  The last three weeks will see 154 games to be played, so at 12 points per game, that would be a pretty good haul for us, even if we can't win this pool.

In order to get the Newsletter out and done, I'm going to do more of the player notes in their own post later on today.  We'll get to that news before too long.