Saturday, May 12, 2018

Goalie Announcements (May 12)



Well, the score last night didn't reflect well on the hockey pool much at all.  The favourite goalie got absolutely shelled for 4 goals on 25 shots and didn't even start the 3rd period.  I wonder if that sort of thing could play out in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals tonight.

Marc-Andre Fleury versus Connor Hellebuyck
The Jets are right back at it and they get to start on home-ice in the Western Conference Finals, less than 48 hours from the conclusion of their series against the Nashville Predators.  The Vegas Golden Knights have been off since Sunday night, almost a week off, an extra day longer than what Tampa Bay had going into last night.  Does a Golden Knight's armour rust?

The top two active players in the hockey pool are going head-to-head in this game tonight, Marc-Andre Fleury leads the pool with 24 points in these playoffs, while Connor Hellebuyck has 20 points to his name, an extra couple of shutouts for Fleury remain the difference.

Hellebuyck and the Jets remain the favourite in the pool to win it all and there was still some figuring that the Golden Knights were for real, so the selections, as lopsided as they are, could have been much worse.  The Jets currently are in at 67-38 favourites in the selections, Hellebuyck leads Fleury, 8-2 in Box 12.

More importantly, Tony has Fleury as his keeper in the West, while the Jets knocked out Neil's keeper, opening up the crease to a bunch of points, if the results fall Vegas' way in this series, but if the Jets are going to be an offensive force, as you can see below, Neil could really pot himself a good deal of points here too.

Box Tony Neil
2 Mark Scheifele
3 Patrik Laine
5 Kyle Connor
6 Erik Haula
7 Mathieu Perreault
9 Tyler Myers Tyler Myers
10 Deryk Engelland Deryk Engelland
11 Shea Theodore
12 Marc-Andre Fleury

Neil is short one Vegas player to Tony's team, he was kind of hedging his bets, which wasn't a terrible idea, in theory, but now that he's just trailing top spot, it doesn't look so good now.  Okay, it didn't look good when the Golden Knights swept the Kings either.

Puck drop is at 5pm MT tonight on the CBC... I believe there will be plenty of pregame action on the tube as well.

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