We are in the stretch run of the fantasy hockey season and there’s some exciting action in the RCLs. Let’s take a quick look at who is at the top of each league as they battle it out for the title in each individual league and then the overall RCL champion:
RCL 1 – Ice Road Puckers has built a nice lead over the field with 89 points out of a possible 108. This team is simply loaded from top to bottom with no weak spots and elite players like Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Kris Letang and Jonathan Quick. He even has more starts remaining than the people chasing him making it a near certainty IRP holds on to win the title. In second place is The Flying Frenchmen with 80 points. Both Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski have had strong second halves to push the Frenchen towards the top, as has Mark Stone. His best chance to gain points will be at goals being 10 goals away from 3 more points. Rounding out the top 3 is Paul Before Swine who has 78 points. Assists are his best opportunity to gain ground as three more points are certainly attainable. Pekka Rinne‘s struggles, especially early in the season, stopped him from winning the title as he has only 3 points in save percentage. The rest of his team isn’t far off from Ice Road Puckers having Brent Burns and Steven Stamkos lead the way.
RCL 2 – Just like at the last update, Lord of the Rinks has a massive lead on the pack with a whopping 95 points. He’s had a brutal stretch of injuries to his defensemen with P.K. Subban, John Carlson and Justin Faulk all out but it hasn’t slowed him down. His quarter in net is amazing with Quick, Thomas Greiss, Tuukka Rask and Brian Elliott all on the roster. Offensively, he’s led by Artemi Panarin and Blake Wheeler. Team Codo is in second place with 81.5 points. He has the best offense in all of the RCL’s having an absurd 68 out of 72 points from skaters. The problem is that outside of Corey Crawford, he doesn’t have a full time starting goalie on his roster. As a result, he has 3 points in both GAA and sv%. Codo looks pretty locked into the 80-83 point range meaning he should hold onto second but is no threat for first. Team Flames is in 3rd with a balanced 76.5 points. He has a 12.5 point cushion on fourth place but he’s going to need every bit of it. The Flames have already used all of their starts at forward so they’re left starting only defensemen and goalies the rest of the way. He’s also counting on Roberto Luongo big time as he’s the only goalie on the roster who’s a full time starter.
RCL 3 – While nobody here is a threat to the overall title, it has the best battle for first place as Sk Epic Travels and Team Fulmer both have 78 points on the season. While Sk is also capped out of forward starts, there is some easy ground for him to gain in save percentage to help his total and he’s also built a big enough lead in most offensive categories to hold on to his points. His problem was he’s dead last in plus-minus with only a chance at getting one more point there. In one way, it was nice to be done in starting having his best player, Tyler Seguin, recently be injured for the rest of the regular season. With Luongo, Martin Jones and John Gibson on the roster, Sk still has a chance to hold on. On Team Fulmer, he finally has a healthy roster and a bunch of points that can swing either way. Like all of the other RCL’s, the guy who has Artemi Panarin is right at the top. In 3rd is Team O’Brien with 66.5 points. Unfortunately for him, his team has been gutted by injuries with Alexander Steen, Cory Schneider, Justin Faulk and Nikolaj Ehlers all out. He has a ton of easy points to gain on offense if he makes all of his starts but with only Craig Anderson and Eddie Lack left in goal, there’s a better chance he falls out of the top 3 than catching either team ahead of him.
RCL 4 – Team Bruins is running away with the lead here and is battling LotR for the top spot overall with 93 points. His team is loaded from top to bottom with Patrick Kane, Jonathan Quick and Petr Mrazek leading the way. Plus-minus and penalty minutes are the two easiest spots for him to gain ground in order to catch Lord of the Rinks for first overall. In second is Team Nope with 77.5 points. His team has a bunch of studs, led by Erik Karlsson, Vladimir Tarasenko and Johnny Gaudreau, but with the injury to Schneider, the only healthy goalie on his roster is Martin Jones. At this point, it’s a matter of trying to hold on for second place, not pushing Team Bruins. In third is Euros Aliens with 73,5 points. The Ducks tandem of John Gibson and Fredrik Andersen along with a red hot Cam Talbot has really helped his goaltending stats. His team has nice balance offensively but is lacking a true stud anywhere; his best two guys are Corey Perry and Kris Letang.
There you have it. Best of luck to everyone in the RCLs and their other leagues in the last couple weeks of the season. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave them at the bottom of the article. Take care everyone!
