B’s in; Aloe falls. The season came to an end in style, with major shifts in the standings yielding a bracket we did not anticipate. Let’s dive in.
Season Results
With both Barbs and Evan beginning their post season one week early, the focus was surely on their matchups.
The Nutt Butters had their work cut out for them squaring off against Crosby and the Barics for their tournament life. In turn, it was a dark week for Dark Wing Duck. Jim posted a 9-1 victory sporting an 87 Index, taking the top spot in this week’s Power Rankings. Evan’s 42 Indexed performance was 7% under his season average with multiple injuries. Of this, “Haha, I think that week perfectly captured my year”, said Aloe. “My team has the components to be a dominant force, but with Karlsson and Byfuglien out, I never stood a chance”.
With an 18 point pickup, Jim put up the numbers he wanted, but was stonewalled by Lantz’s parallel victory over the Ruins de Elmo, locking Jim out of a conference lead while securing the first round bye for himself. I reached out to Lantz, replied “no comment”.
Albeit a tame result, Barbs and TK’s matchup became the linchpin for dramatic delta at the top of the house. With a 1 point deficit to cover, B looked to pocket whatever he could while TK needed points to maintain his round 1 bye amidst a hungry Doebler and Caruso. Barbs led from behind as his netminders posted an impressive 6 Win with .954 SV%, stealing minor victories in Assists, +/-, and PPP. With Evan’s folly, Barbs more than covered his spread, taking the final wildcard spot for the year. Tom’s 10 point take leaving him moderately exposed.
Doebler posted a similar performance against Jay this week, stealing 11 points for the war effort. Coming into the week, Doebler sat 4 points behind TK for the conference lead. His performance was not enough to cover the spread, however while in no danger of falling to 6th, this week proved to be a non-event in the life of Zaj as he just waited to find his post season dance partner. Jason’s deficit was not enough to further his draft aspirations, but as we transition into the post reason he gets some extra time to spend with his new son. Congrats again!
Caruso really needed a big win this week for it to make any impact on his post season matchups. A neutered Rad opposite his corner, he found the juice necessary to squeeze an 8-2 victory on the week posting a 69 Index. Coming into the week, Tom was 5 points back of TK for the conference lead while holding the trump card for the tiebreaker as he was (14-6) in heads up matches between the Toms this season. The 16 point take was enough to propel him 3 spots in the standings to steal the first round by from TK in a photo finish, dramatically increasing his post season chances of recovering capital. It should be noted his bypass of Jim due only to winning the conference as he still sits 6 points back from him on the leaderboard. The Odds Conference proving to be quite strong this year. What’s more, this comes while facing tougher competition on average, given Wes and Elm both sit in the Evens Conference. One thing’s for certain, Caruso owes Barbs a beer for his efforts against TK this week.
Yielding our final bracket for Round 1, we landed somewhere we knew as possible, however improbable, yet here we are and the puck has dropped. Let’s take a look at our post season lineup.
6th Seed: 10 PM Sleeper Picks
Barbs finished the season with 207 points, a paltry .518 winning percentage, the bubble boy being Evan finishing the season .500. It was enough however to enter the post season in the final wildcard spot. In the past 3 weeks, Barbs was 9th in the Power Rankings with a severe lack of offensive production, operating 16% below his average. Given he sold at the deadline, the postseason and ending Evan’s season prematurely is all juice however. His hopes of going the distance are small, but not outside of reasoning the possibility of him ruining more owners’ seasons in the coming weeks.
5th Seed: Jaromiracle on Ice
Doebler finished the season with 231 points (.578 winning percentage). Zaj had an impressive season, with a 38 Elo pickup on the year showing (5.3 Average Weekly Elo point exchange for the league) for dramatic improvement over last season. Over the past 3 weeks Zeke middled in performance 6% under league average, hemorrhaging points in skating categories. He made large pickups the past couple weeks which could bolster his production, but it has of yet to be seen.
4th Seed: Malkin Her Titties
TK walked into the week as the sitting conference lead, losing ground in a moderately disappointing Week 20 performance. He posted 234 points this season (.585 winning percentage) picking up 25 Elo on the year. In the past 3 weeks, TK produced 14% over his season average and Power Ranked 2nd on the stretch. Kelly is walking into the playoffs with a loaded gun, although unfortunately called to action a week earlier than anticipated. “You get out of my face or I’m gonna roundhouse your ass”, exclaimed TK’s PR rep during our touch base on Thursday regarding comments of losing the first round bye. According to the Elo approximation, this is a .501/.499 matchup outcome this week. A far cry from a week off, but a silver lining in Shitty Predictor calling for an 8-2 victory for TK and the sweater meat affiliates.
3rd Seed: Puck Hockey Puns
Jim had an amazing season this year, posting 241 points (.603 winning percentage), picking up 61 Elo points on the year, the most improved owner over the prior season. Jim had an impressive 8 week win streak, followed by a 5 game no-lose streak mid-season and he finished the season Power Ranked 3rd over the past 3 weeks. Jim finds himself in Round 1 despite posting the second highest point total, as he sits behind a behemoth in Lantz, but given his momentum and matching up against a wounded Barbs, he’s a .582/.418 favorite before adjusting for recency bias.
2nd Seed: Better Than Bettman – 1st Round Bye
Caruso had a season of turmoil that ended in a bang. He posted 235 point (.588 winning percentage) picking up 30 Elo points on the year. In the last 3 weeks, his 4th Power Ranked performance was enough to bolster him to a first round by, 1 point ahead of TK, performing 5% over his season average capping off the year with a 4 week win streak after dropping to the 6th seed in Week 16. More than content to take the week off, he can look forward to the second round while truing up his lineup.
1st Seed: Turd Ferguson – 1st Round Bye
What can be said about Lantz that hasn’t been said since the formation of this league? Lantz posted 248 points this season (.620 winning percentage). Coming into the season with a 25 Elo point buffer between him and second place, he somehow found a way to improve another 20 points on the year, again finishing in the 1 spot and a 30 point buffer on second. He somehow found a way to be even more dominant; Lantz lost only 3 weeks this season with early losses to Doebler and Rad, and TK. In the past 3 weeks, he’s power ranked 1 overall, with a 2nd rated Skating Corp (1st Offensive) and 1st Goaltending Corp. Given Lantz’s comment earlier, it’s evident he’s not sweating the playoffs and nor should he. He is the clear favorite to take The Krut home this year, and it’s going to take some serious effort to shake him.
Post Season Reminders
Given we’re in the midst of the post season (yeah I know this is coming out midweek and I’m being deliberately ignorant to current events), I wanted to bring attention to some playoff specific rules we currently have set. If anyone has issues with these, please bring them up in conversation and we can add them to the docket for issues to be discussed in the offseason.
Playoff Tie-Breaker: Best Regular Season Record vs Opponent Wins
I know we are all pretty unhappy with this outcome, unfortunately the last time we tried to change this, there was not an abundance of options to choose from and this was deemed the least evil of the litter
Playoff Reseeding: No
This was voted on 2 years ago, and we ultimately decided not to reseed in playoffs. I think this year you’re seeing the scenario where Jim is truly receiving the shaft as he did not earn a first round bye, even though he was a top 2 producer in the league, in a stronger conference. If he does in fact defeat Barbieri this week, he’s rewarded with the opportunity to match up against Lantz for $100, which truly could be the real championship game as they are both heavy favorites over anyone in the opposite conference. We’ll see how the cards fall, but I’d be interested to see how you all feel about this. Jim has already offered his protests. I think it’s worth discussing.
No FA/Waiver Pickups for Non-Playoff Teams
I looked into this a bit more and there is in fact a commissioner feature to freeze rosters by team. I have gone and done that so there won’t be any “accidental” manipulation of the FA during the post season. If you have any questions, forward them my way. Otherwise, I’ll unfreeze the rosters the day the playoffs end.
Again, if you guys have any questions regarding the rules, hit me up and I’ll research if I don’t have the answer on hand. Thank to everyone that did not make the playoffs; get some rest, enjoy the playoffs, and be on the lookout for a League Communication sometime after the NHL season. Good luck to everyone that did make the playoffs; the pursuit of The Krut moves forward.
GL;HF