April 20, 2015

Dobber

2015-04-20

Thoughts on Dal Colle, McDavid, Burakovsky, the Eric Fehr injury, the Erik Karlsson hit and more …

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The Sens are down to their last life and are probably not going to sneak through to the next round. But other than that series (nothing against it, as every game has been tight and could have gone Ottawa’s way) we’re two or three games into every series now and there is one thing you can absolutely conclude with 100 percent confidence – we still know absolutely nothing about the outcome. The one series outside of Ottawa – Montreal in which a team ‘may’ have a stranglehold is the Winnipeg – Anaheim one, and the Jets actually had a lead in both of their games and so we’re far from writing them off with any certainty.

I’m in two playoff pools this year and I haven’t even checked the standings. Meaningless. Last place, first place – it’s all gonna change. I usually take my first look once a couple of teams get knocked out.

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In the Isles – Caps series, an Islanders win would help my one pool. But I called a Washington win. However, those who bought my draft list may have wondered (because they didn’t read the description) why in my own personal list Ovechkin was projected for 13 games and Tavares for 12. How can that be? Well, every year I do the playoff bracket on my interactive list. Then I go through the first round and pick the one series I am least confident about. This year it was this one. So then I go to the ‘bonus’ games area and give the Islanders five bonus games. Obviously at the draft table, whichever team I get a guy on – either Washington or the Islanders – I will then focus on and throw the other team’s players off the list.

So Josh Bailey with some more poolie teasing, eh? But we know better by now. We’ve seen his little six-game outbursts before. But when his other 76 games consist of like 10 points, well we’re not interested! Anyway, the 25-year-old is on another six-game points streak. He actually has 22 points in his last 32 games (22 in 41 before that).

Braden Holtby has stopped 63 of 68 (0.926), which is good. But it’s been Grubauer who has the team’s only playoff win so far. No chance of Barry Trotz turning to him though – Holtby is his man. Zero chance of a goalie controversy. Holtby is Trotz’s new Rinne. In case it crossed your mind.

Jaroslav Halak has stopped 79 of 85 (0.929), which is also good. I wanted to dig into the shot distances that Halak and Holtby have been facing, but Frozen Pool is not yet set up for playoffs and I couldn’t find the info anywhere else.

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Sam Bennett scored his first career NHL goal last night and has two points in three playoff games. He’ll be a regular with Calgary next season, though I think they’ll roll three scoring lines and thus Backlund and Monahan will continue to contribute. However, once Bennett takes that next step in a couple of years, Backlund’s numbers will slip if he’s still a Flame.

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A couple of DobberHockey league notes. First of all, the industry experts league now boast the following champions:

2014 – Russ Miller – DobberHockey

2013 – Glenn Gingerich – The Sports Forecaster

 2012 – Ian Gooding – Kukla’s Korner

 2011 – Matt Romig – Yahoo

 2010 – Scott Cullen – TSN

 2009 – Evan Reynar – FantasyHockey.com

 2008 – Michael Finewax – Rotoworld

 2007 – Eric Maltais – DobberHockey

 2006 – Scott Cullen – TSN

Congrats Russ! Way to represent! And look at that, I recruited a former champ in Sunday Ramblings guy Ian Gooding…

And although I stopped running the DobberHockey multi-tier league three years ago when it became too much to coordinate, the members of the forum continued the tradition on a smaller scale. They now run two entry leagues, where the winners move up to the pro league. The winners of the pro league move up to the expert league. On the flip side, the last place finishers get relegated down a league. This year the expert league was won by Steve Laidlaw. Here are the winners of the pro and entry:

PRO: Last Resort (temek)

ENTRY NORRIS: The Nickel City (clo-clo)

ENTRY SMYTHE: Legend of Klingberg (TheNugeCooge)

Congrats to the winners! If you want to jump in on this, an announcement will come in late August and I’ll hook you up to the sign up area in the forum.

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A textbook hit here. A real beauty by Erik Karlsson on Nathan Beaulieu:

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Also, some of the Frozen Pool playoff features are online now. FYI

 

 

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TY YOUNG VAN
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