Winners Of The Second Round

Round Two turned out to be very interesting considering that there were 27 total games played over the four series. There were also 27 entrants into Round Two, thereby narrowing your competition greatly when it comes to a top-ten finish in the pool. Things got interesting considering that there are no top seeds left in the playoffs, and three third-seeds are competing for two berths in the Stanley Cup Final. Needelss to say, there were some points left on the board this round by a number of competitors. I'll post the updated leaderboard at the bottom of this article, but let's take a look at whose crystal balls were the most clairvoyant in this round.

Chicago vs. Minnesota

One entrant showed up in a big way in this round. Ty F. literally aced this series. He called every single game of the six-game series correctly in terms of the winning team. He added Patrick Kane's game-winners in both Game One and Game Six for another four points. And because he called every game right, he also picked up the five points for calling the winning team in the right number of games. Ty's final total in this series? 15 points, and his total was the highest for any series this round! Incredible job, Ty!

Average score for this series: 6 points.

Anaheim vs. Los Angeles

Because Los Angeles won at Anaheim followed by Anaheim taking three in a row off the Kings, lots of people missed out on point. Westin F. didn't, though. He correctly predicted the winners in Game One, Three, Five, Six, and Seven for five points. He tossed in Marian Gaborik's game-winner in Game One for another two points. And because he chose Los Angeles to win in seven games, he grabbed the all-important five points. After the dust settled last night, Westin had 12 points tacked onto his score! Well done, Westin!

Average score for this series: 5 points.

Boston vs. Montreal

Dave F. came to play in this series. Dave only called Games One, Two and Seven correctly for three points, but he added Pacioretty's game-winning goal in Game Seven to bring him to five totals. In calling Pacioretty's game-winner, he also predicted Montreal to win in seven games for another five points. All told, Dave grabbed 10 points in this series! Excellent job, Dave!

It appeared a lot of people thought Boston was going to walk all over Montreal in this series. Montreal, if you had been looking for trends, won the season series between these two teams, Tuukka Rask has struggled against Montreal, and all of Carey Price's career playoff shutouts have come against the Bruins. Ten of 27 entrants scored three points while seven others had six points. Needless to say, the trends continued in this series.

Average score for this series: 4 points.

Pittsburgh vs. NY Rangers

Like the Boston-Montreal series, it seemed that Pittsburgh was the favorite by a big margin. Scott M. and Ty F. didn't let that stop them in scoring big, though. Scott M. called the correct team in Games Three, Six, and Seven to win. He added Brad Richards' game-winning goal in Game Seven to boost him from three to five points. And because he called the Rangers as the winning team in seven games, Scott grabbed a total of 10 points in this series! Excellent job, Scott!

Ty F. joined him by calling the correct winning team in Games Three, Five, and Seven. He also called Sidney Crosby's game-winning goal in Game Three for another two points. And because he called the Rangers in seven games as the victors, he picked up another five points. All totaled, Ty had another 10 points for his predictions! Fantastic work, Ty!

Average score for this series: 5 points.

Overall Greatness

Scott M., who pulled down ten points in the Penguins-Rangers series, also walked out of this round as the top performer! Scott grabbed eleven points in the Chicago-Minnesota series, eight points in the Anaheim-Los Angeles series, and four points in the Boston-Montreal series to go with his ten points in the Penguins-Rangers battle. Scott ended up atop the heap of entries with 33 points in this round with the best score of Round Two! Excellent work, Scott!

Again, the new spreadsheet has been configured. Again, to expedite the marking, I have created a pretty little Excel document that can be opened in both Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice Calc. Fill this out and send it back to me WITH YOUR NAME AS THE NAME OF THE EXCEL DOCUMENT (ie. Teebz.xls). Once more, if you are going to use the .numbers format that Apple machines use, please see if you can save the document in .pdf or some sort of common format between the Apple and Windows platforms. That's my only request from all participants!

Click here to download if you missed the link above. Again, Round Three starts tomorrow night, so get those picks in! If there's a deadline problem, email me! The deadline is the start of Sunday night's game for Round Three picks! Good luck in Round Three, everyone!

Oh, and the leaderboard has been updated. Tyler J. is leading way in the pool! Congrats, Tyler!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!