We'll continue to explain and preview the pool I'm hosting for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you've made it to this entry, thank you! If you're new to my blog - welcome. I promise I write about things other than fantasy hockey...I'm just trying to get back into a routine after a one-blog-in-eleven-years hiatus. (It was a good entry, but very serious.) My re-entry blog is a bit more multi-faceted, and if you want to go back to the start of the hockey thread, here you go.
OK, back to the business. My Stanley Cup Playoff Pool is doubling as a fundraiser for Language Arts scholarships at Chabot College. You can download the form directly from this link; the fee/donation details are at the bottom of this blog.
Today, we preview how the grids are completed by featuring defensive statistics:
Hockey does use goaltenders, as in soccer, but they calculate shots differently. Here, we only refer to "shots on goal", which can only result in goals or saves. A shot that hits the goalpost in hockey does not count as a shot on goal, whereas it is tallied as a "shot on target" in soccer.
On this particular grid, note that Los Angeles leads the West in fewest goals and shots allowed, so Edmonton moves into the center square as the next-highest ranked team for shots allowed. If we were to put LA in the center square, Vancouver could claim the fewest goals spot in the West - it's the next highest-ranked team in that conference.
We now look at the same statistics, limited to just the last month's worth of games (the NHL's trade deadline was March 8):
In this more limited window, all the top row teams were among the top four in the league in fewest shots against. So the middle row shows you the next-highest teams in that category.
And discerning readers may catch that you've seen ten different teams from the East across the four preview grids so far. That's because there is a very tight race for the final two spots in the playoffs. As of this moment, the Islanders and Washington occupy those spots, but Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Detroit are all within two points of sneaking in with four games remaining in the season.
Up next, an explanation of how we determine the "longest playoff series" in the first round.
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