Just one week to go until we crown a winner, and things are looking pretty tight at the top!
Ricardipus made up some ground on first-placed Lavaland, and if I were them I’d be choosing this week’s players veeeeeery carefully indeed… either of them could win this! A series of strong weeks finally paid off for ScientistMother as she passed me to take fourth place, but I have to say that Bob looks pretty secure in third. There’s clear space between each pair of the remaining four players, but anything can happen as teams dig deep to try and make the play-offs, and we could still see some shake-ups over the next few days!
Of course, the Monday morning standings don’t tell the whole story – the scores are updated daily, and there’s typically lots of jostling for position:
Daily break-down of this week's points. I wish I'd thought to make this graph in a week when I actually did well...
The Canucks clinched the Presidents’ Trophy on Thursday, with four games to spare and before any other team in the West had even clinched a play-off spot. Amid the celebrations and jubilation, I announced that I would have an all-Canucks team for the final week of the pool. However, I was forced to reconsider when we lost 4-1 in an atrocious game against the Oilers on Saturday. I probably shouldn’t put all my trust in players whose only goal for the week is not to get injured, but I’ll probably keep Danny Sedin, who’s still leading the individual scoring rankings. Actually I might add Hank, too – a Sedin one-two would be pretty sweet!
I hope you all enjoy the last week of the regular season!
Sweet! Congrats Thomas as I think you won this week!!! 🙂
As for me, I’d be happier if I would’ve kept up with Lavaland like on Friday but as for now I’m going for the play off idea and counting down how much difference there is btw the Leafs and Buffalo etc… although, as I stated last year, if you’d played well in the beginning of the year the last 3 games wouldn’t matter as much… duh 😉
If only my goalie didn’t get injured the day of picks!
I’m afraid, I’m very afraid! I’ve already changed my roster 3 times this weekend…. with 5 hours left until the deadline I have time for 3 more changes I’m sure!
Stellar week by Thomas! I’m gonna have to suggest you ditch Turco, he hasn’t started in 18 games, if your gonna stick with CHI for goalie go with Corey Crawford – he’s likely to get 3 of the 4 starts this week.
Richardipus, Kath & ScientistMother – Just in case you didn’t see, Rick Nash is injured – was expected to play this week but didn’t leave on the road trip this a.m.
It’s going to be a crazy week! Go Canucks Go!!!
T
ps. Was there any interest in a playoff pool?
Why oh why help them by telling them about Nash?! 😉
I’m interested in the play off pool!
“as I stated last year, if you’d played well in the beginning of the year the last 3 games wouldn’t matter as much”
Same goes for the pool! I’m wishing I hadn’t found it so amusing to jinx teams I don’t like by choosing their goalie in the first half of the season (me choosing a goalie did actually jinx teams most of the time in the first few weeks). I’ve done much better (on average) since deciding to choose good goalies, although I never got confident enough in my non-jinxing abilities to risk picking Luongo!
I’d be interested in a play-off pool, but I’m going to be in England and Spain for three weeks in May, so I can’t commit to running it. Even making my picks on time might be a struggle, but I’ll try if someone else can run the pool!
I’d actually already ditched Nash without knowing he was injured, based on my prediction that there’s no way Columbus will make the play-offs and they won’t be trying all that hard; I’m stacking my pool with players from teams in positions 6-10 this week. (Plus the Sedins).
Aah, safely in third – I can relax. My strategy of picking Nordics has done me well.
Who’s this Luongo guy? Sounds like a cup of coffee.
LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr E Man and I will be spending the next 10 days or so doing a lot of non-hockey-related things – such as seeing movies, and eating in restaurants that don’t have TVs – because once the play-offs start, there’ll be no time for anything else!
the injury issue is why I always wait until the last minute to make my picks, not that helped me the other week with Ovechekin who waited till 3:45pm to say he wasn’t playing – bastard! Lets see if I can catch up to Bob 🙂
Tense, very tense… but I think Lavaland’s got me. Thanks for the Rick Nash tip BTW – I hadn’t picked him, so you Chall can rest assured you haven’t helped me at all. 🙂
Oh and Chall – for the record, I was top of the table this week… squeaking into first for the week solely as a result of Sunday’s games. 😀
As for my picks, I’m either gonna kick butt or sink like a rock. The balance between good players, teams playing four games, and judicious guesswork about who’s hot and who’s not (goalies, players, and teams trying to make a point in the last few games) seems really tricky indeed.
Cath, mucho thanks again for hosting this. I’m not sure I’d be nimble enough for a playoff pool, but certainly willing to give it a shot!
Lavaland… it’s you and me… [begins to shake gloves off hands in approved threatening manner]
ahh… sorry. Didn’t mean to steal your thunder. I was looking at the score Sat and clearly didn’t pay attention to the graph in the blog post ^^
As for the results, I’ll hope I shoot like that crazy week and catch up with Cath (hope’s spring eternal etc etc etc)
ScientistMother, how ’bout let’s see if you can hang on to 4th 🙂
Ricardipus, it’s a weird time of year! I had some GREAT players in my pool last week who just didn’t score, or scored much less than usual – defenses are tightening up, but forwards are playing with some desperation. It makes for very exciting hockey if your team’s still fighting for position, and very unpredictable hockey pools!
Thanks for your thanks – you’re very welcome! It’s been fun – having more people involved (and hosting updates!) has made it more enjoyable than last year (which was also fun, but became a bit of a chore).
…and after one day, it’s all tied up at the top!!!!!!
/nailbiting
I haven’t looked yet today, given that there were only two games last night and I didn’t have players from any of those four teams! How exciting!
Just luck – for goalies, NY win helped me, Boston loss didn’t help LL. I did ok out of the San Jose win, whereas LL’s sole player on that team didn’t score any points.
Early days yet, she was still 5 points up on me at the beginning of the week and I expect it to end that way…
Oooohhh… I don’t know…. I will definitely need a manicure at the end of the week… if there is anything left.
Bugger. I lost. 😀
Well done Lavaland, you got the last week’s picks just right (all season long, really).