NHL 2016 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS / POOL PREDICTION THREAD

Pool Update:

The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to march on, even without the services of their star captain, Steven Stamkos, as they quickly dispatch the upstart New York Islanders in 5 games on their way to a second straight Eastern Conference Finals, where they will now await the winner of the Washington / Pittsburgh series.

Shinan manages to score 2 points for predicting that the Lightning would win in that round and has now moved into 3rd place overall in the standings in the meantime. kentona also manages to earn a bonus point for predicting that the Islanders would at least make it to 5 games. Now he’s only 9 points back of GreatRedSpirit for 1st overall.

Also, in elimination news, Hexatona, Shinan, Addit and ankylo have ALL been officially eliminated for contention for the Conn Smyth Achievement Award after the results of the last two recent games.

Hexatona, who was eliminated quite some time ago, cannot catch up to GreatRedSpirit because even if the Predators do manage to move on GreatRedSpirit will still collect more points than him, since that’s his Stanley Cup pick and he receives double the points for that, making it statistically impossible to do so.

ankylo also cannot catch up either, because even if Washington does manage to move on and he gets the rest of his picks absolutely perfect he’s also picked the same number of games in each of the series’ along with kentona as well, who’s also 6 points ahead of him, so there’s no way to catch up to him at all.

Addit is also done, because kentona is officially guaranteed at least a point or two in the Nashville / San Jose series no matter what the outcome is, making it now impossible for him to catch up, which officially eliminates him out of contention.

And Shinan is also eliminated as well, despite the outcome of the Washington / Pittsburgh series. No matter what ultimately happens, he then won't be able to catch up to either GreatRedSpirit or kentona in the end.

So it now comes down to only two combatants left for the achievo. It’s either going to be GreatRedSpirit for the ultimate prize or it’s going to go to kentona in the end.

- The bracket and the full standings have now been updated!

All right, so here’s how it goes:

If Pittsburgh manages to win their series against Washington, no matter whether it’s in Game 6 or 7, GreatRedSpirit you win the pool and win the achievement. However, if Washington does manage to pull it out and win it in 7, kentona will still have some life left and this competition will still continue. Even if Nashville does happen to win its series against San Jose in 7 and Washington also manages to win, there’s still a remote chance that kentona could still win the pool later on. So basically, kentona, you have to hope and pray that Washington manages to get it done in the next two games to even have a remote chance at winning. Anything else, and you finish 2nd.

I also put our names in a lovely shade of red on the leaderboard for those who have failed for all to see. Anybody else that isn’t still has a chance. And if your name happens to be in green sometime in the future – you win!

I'm going to go cry now. :(

author=ankylo
I did a terrible job with my picks...

So did I, my friend…so did I…

And that’s f**king BS because I freakin’ watch this game like every single day! My early morning routine before I go to work is watching Sportsnet to see all of the highlights of all the games on T.V., and I even get to see most of teams play because I watch the Canucks all season long. This freakin’ blows!

Next year I’m breaking out the dartboard for this shit. F**k logic and analytics next time.

And kentona I freakin’ love Bloodsport. :P

author=kentona
I don't think I watched any hockey this year (fuck Sportsnet and Rogers - they have the shittiest Canadian broadcast) (and that douche George Snuffleupagous who pretends to know about hockey but just looks like a teenager who grew a beard to pretend that he's good enough to sit at the big boys table). TSN had the best broadcast, followed by CBC when Ron McClean was lead, but now that's dead, and I am extremely disappointed. And now TSN has disabled comments on their articles, which surprisingly killed a lot of interest from me in reading them - the comments were often as entertaining and sometimes even more informative than the article itself!

Yeah, ever since Rogers came in Sportsnet has been absolutely f**king terrible. I used to love how each Sportsnet channel, like Pacific, West or East, highlighted those said particular teams in that particular region, so if you wanted hear more about the Alberta based teams or certain players you’d watch Sportsnet West, and visa versa, and everything was pretty good and all around solid, and they even had certain sports personalities that knew the teams and were from the area so they knew their stuff. Now it’s just all under Sportsnet Central which, you know, fifty percent of the conversation is all about the Toronto based sports teams, and that can get a little bit annoying after a while (yes, Toronto, I know your baseball team did good last year; I’ve seen the Jose Bautista batflip a million times – I GET IT. Can we talk about something else, please?) But also all the sports analysis that they have on there are all freakin’ dinosaurs in their mid-fifties and always like to talk about the “good ol’ days” and bring up some of the stupidest shit that I’ve ever heard. I dunno, Sportsnet just hasn’t felt the same since Rogers took over.

And yeah, I agree, TSN was the best, and I enjoyed watching their broadcast whenever the Canucks would happen to play a game on there, which would be a rarity but it still was quite fun to watch. And yeah, lol, it does suck that they disabled their comment section on their website as that definitely was one of the best highlights to check out from each of their articles, because a lot of them were pretty stupid (“The Leafs PERFECT Tank,” lol). I’m guessing that they disabled them because they don’t wanna hear about the truth about how much they suck and how bad some of their columnists are.

author=kentona
tl;dr: good job NHL at killing the NHL broadcast in Canada by doing the 12-year $5 billion TV deal with Rogers.

Best money ever spent, lol. I bet they’re kicking themselves right now!

author=GreatRedSpirit
My favorite "fuck rogers" from this round is that they don't even show every playoff game! Whenever there were three games in one day they would only show two and the third would get highlights or shown during intermissions. They have a handful of Sportsnet channels but they're always showing the same shit, clearly it's too busy to show hockey's playoff games!

Well, they gotta show them Blue Jays games and highlights plus the Raptors! Can’t forget about them! And, hey, sometimes you even get to hear about them on occasion during the Stanley Cup Playoffs! YES! :D

author=GreatRedSpirit
It's like when TSN shows a game that might be interesting but "it isn't available in your region". I'd rather cut off hockey altogether than throw more money into the pit that is the current hockey broadcast situation in Canada.

I agree - where can I find this pit? Do I have to stick pennies up my Dark Pit Amiibo’s ass and pray to the hockey gods for something to happen or do I have to find the world’s biggest ditch and drop my sacks of money there? Either way good.

And those pesky Preds managed to make it to a Game 7. Dallas too.

Who ARE these people from Nashville and why haven’t they been crushed yet? :P

And it’s destiny day tomorrow. Go Caps!

Pool Update:

Thanks to the efforts of former Vancouver Canuck Nick Bonino in overtime (god damn it, Benning), the Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the reigning President’s Trophy winners, the Washington Capitals, in 6 games to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals where they will now play the Tampa Bay Lightning to see who goes on to play for the Stanley Cup.

Shinan is only one who receives any points this time around, as he receives a bonus point for predicting that the series with Washington would go to 6 games, and since that’s his Stanley Cup pick as well he receives a grand total of 2 points!

And with the Washington loss – congratulations, GreatRedSpirit, you are now the Pool Predictor Champion for 2016! Congratulations on a fine display of your hockey knowledge and wisdom. Well done.

With that being said – I reward you now with the coveted Conn Smyth Achievement Award! Wear it proud, son! :)

Also with the Washington loss, the placements in the standings are ultimately set: GreatRedSpirit finishes in 1st place while kentona finishes in 2nd while Shinan manages to take the 3rd place spot to round out the top three this year! Good job, you guys.

EDIT: Oops, never mind; Hexatona still has a chance to pass ankylo for 5th place – SO THE RACE FOR 5TH PLACE IS NOT OFFICALLY OVER YET FOLKS, LOL!!!

- The bracket and the full standings have now been updated!

So congratulations, GreatRedSpirit, you managed to hold on by the skin of your teeth and win the entire thing…with the Nashville Predators being your Stanley Cup team...

(...You gotta be kiddin' me.)

Although the full rankings have been ultimately decided and nobody can really pass each other anymore in the standings ('cept maybe Hexatona), there’s still a few more potential points left on the board, so I’ll continue to update the points totals depending on the results of the next couple of games. And of course we can still talk and chat about the rest of the playoffs here in the meantime. Just because the competition’s over doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the rest of the playoffs, can we? I mean, I've been doing that for the last couple of days now, lol.

- But that was a good game tonight. I really thought that Washington was going to take it to the Game 7, but I guess not! *sigh* Oh well.

Lol, that was an AWFUL performance by Dallas. It wasn’t even close! Why’d I even watch this game in the first place?

And yeah, it’s hard to believe that the Western Final this year could feature two teams that have had miserable luck in the playoffs over the years and one of them can finally get over the hump this time around and make it to the finals. If it is indeed the Sharks verses the Blues, whoever loses that series I’m going to feel really sorry for.

- Speaking of which:

Pool Update:

The Dallas Stars get absolutely f**king destroyed on home ice in Game 7 last night as the St. Louis Blues continue their magical run and advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2001, where they now await the winner of the San Jose / Nashville series to decide who they get to play next.

Nobody receives any points this time around, as everything else remains unchanged.

- The bracket and the full standings have now been updated!

Well - that was an easy update, lol.