CFHL 2018 Playoffs Round 1

In what I would call an unexpected development, the two teams that leading up to the playoffs seemed to back into the playoffs, not playing their best hockey, turned up their game play and both upset their opponents.

La Femme Nikita 4  AshBusters 2
In the dreaded Husband/Wife match up La Femme Nikita defeated their husband and defending Cherry Cup Champs AshBusters.  It had seemed the AshBusters were in command all week but Saturday games came and Nikita took the lead going into Sunday with very few players left.  It was close as La Femme Nikita edged the Ashbusters in goals by one, plus minus by one, hits by only 4 and they tied in their goalie wins.  Zibanejad had 3 goals for Nikita and Jaden Schwartz scored 2 goals, 2 assists and a +3.  Both teams had some heavy hitters as Colin Miller for Nikita had 12 hits as did the AshBusters' Jamie Benn.  Must have been an interesting week and weekend in the Johnston household.

Zibanejad celebrates the upset victory

Thus ends the AshBusters quest for a repeat to keep the Cherry Cup.  In a season which they looked like the team to beat all year just goes to show you all you have to do is get into the playoffs and anything can happen.

Who Gives a Puck 4  Krampus Carols 2
In another upset the Puck defeated the Krampus Carols behind outstanding performances from Crosby (3g, 3a, +2, and 6 hits), Taylor Hall (2g, 3a, +2 and 3 hits), and Arvidsson (2g, 3a, +3).  Cam Atkinson of the Krampus Carols was overshadowed in the loss scoring 3 goals, 2 helpers and a +5 with a PPP and 3 hits.  Krampus Carols have continued to be disappointed with their two Blackhawk stars of Toews and Kane.  They only combined for 1 goal and 3 assist and a terrible -4.  But Dougie Hamilton had a -6 on his own for Krampus.

Sid the kid helped the Puck defeat the Krampus

Playoffs 2nd Round Match Ups:

La Femme Nikita at Mayhem on Ice

Laine, a handsome fellow...

The Mayhem have been the hottest team in the league lead by Malkin and Laine.  They have a physical presence in Kane as he pounds the boards.  Nikita, coming off their huge first round upset of the AshBusters need big games from their Flames Giordano and Gaurdeau and strong goalie play behind Tuukka Rask. 
Prediction:  Its going to be hard to hold down the Mayhem with their firepower.  Mayhem win 4-3
(currently La Femme Nikita are up 4-2 at press time.  Another upset in the making?)

Who Gives a Puck at Cherry's Checkers

Checkers looking to these two to bring them back to the finals

The Checkers are looking to make it to the Cherry Cup Finals for a chance at a fifth Cherry Cup while the Puck, are looking to try to win it's second.  Overall skaters seems to favor Who Gives a Puck with the likes of Crosby, Hall, Tarasenko and Oshie.  Checkers look to their Oilers combination of McDavid and Draisaitl.  Checkers hold an advantage with Goalies behind Rinne and Quick. 
Prediction: This one will be close and the Checkers will come away with the victory behind their goalies 3-2.  (At press time the Checkers are up 6-1)

CFHL Final Regular Season Week!

The final week is here and the playoffs are upon us.  4 teams have pretty much locked down playoff spots.  Mayhem on Ice, Ashbusters, Checkers, Krampus Carols will be in the playoffs.  This leaves 2 spots left for 3 teams.  La Femme Nikita and Who Gives a Puck are in the driver seats at 21 points while the Goon Crew at 19 points will try to tie and hope for tie breakers to help them get in. 

AshBusters 4  Goon Crew 3
The Crew drop yet another game after leading the game all the way till Sunday night.  After scoring 12 goals, 17 assists and an impressive 15 PPP the Crew had a slight lead in the +/- and hits.  When Sunday was over the AshBusters were able to beat the Crew in both of those categories enough to win +/- by 2 and hits just by 1.  The Crew have been decimated with injuries that started with Crawford 35 games ago, then Scheifele has been in and out and now out again.  Matthews is out.  McAvoy went out and probably won't return.  Then Sunday Marchand was ruled out of the game after scoring 4 goals, 4 assists and 3 PPP. 

La Femme Nikita will need more big production
out of these two

Assassins 4  La Femme Nikita 3
La Femme Nikita didn't solidify their playoff hopes after losing to the Assassins.  While their Flames connection of Gaudreau and Giodano combined for 4 goals and 6 assists the loss of Bergeron definitely hurt.  In fact the Assassins only had 3 goals all week and haven't been the same team since earlier in the season.  But they did enough this week to beat Nikita.  22 assists will do that, led by Panarin, Butcher, and Reilly who all had 4 assists each.

Checkers 4  Who Gives a Puck 2
And another team that is fighting for a playoff spot loses as the Checkers, winner of 5 straight now, defeated the Puck.  Pekka Rinne was solid in net for the Checkers getting 2 wins and a SV% of .966.  Connor McDavid continues to have a great year, scoring 3 goals to go along with his 2 assists and a rating of +3. 

Rinne is getting in Cherry Cup Playoffs form

Playoff Picture: 

So there is the three teams fighting for a playoff spot, not looking like any of them want it.  Goon Crew will have to take on the red hot Mayhem on Ice and hope for a miracle to beat them.  Mayhem on Ice have won 6 in a row and lead the league in goals with 196.  They had little trouble taking care of the White Mambas last week 4-2 with the help of Number One star Patrik Laine's 5 goals. 

La Femme Nikita has to take on another hot team in the Checkers who have won 5 straight now.  La Femme Nikita will have to win this game to make the playoffs if the Crew manage to beat the Mayhem as the Puck and Crew hold the tie breaker advantage over La Femme Nikita based on head to head match ups. 

Who Gives a Puck take on the AshBusters, also winners of 5 straight.  So its no easy task for the final three teams as they play the best 3 teams in the league.  However, the Puck are in based on tie breakers even if they do lose and the Crew win.  So if all three teams win, Crew are out and La Femme Nikita and Who Gives a Puck are in.  If Crew win and La Femme Nikita lose, then Crew are in. 

Three Stars of the Week (it was a week of Mayhem):

Number One Star:  Patrik Lanie, Mayhem on Ice, 5 goals, +4, 1 PPP and 4 hits

Number Two Star:  Brad Marchand, Goon Crew, 4 goals, 4 assists, +3, 3 PPP

Number Three Star:  Evgeni Malkin, Mayhem on Ice, 3 goals, 5 assists, +3, 2 PPP and 7 hits

Goon of the Week:  Evander Kane, Mayhem on Ice, 12 hits

CFHL Week 18

Here is last weeks action.  For those of you wondering how long the season is, the final week is Week 22 (March 12 - March 18), so only 4 weeks to go!  Playoffs start March 19 and will go three rounds having 6 teams qualify with the two top division winners getting byes in first round.  The Cherry Cup Finals will only go one week.

So as we stand with 4 weeks to go in the regular season the top seeds would go to the Mayhem and Checkers, with the remaining 4 teams being AshBusters, Krampus Carols, Goon Crew and La Femme Nikita.  But with 4 weeks to go, this could easily change....

Goon Crew 4  La Femme Nikita 1
The Goon Crew were on the ropes as Nikita took control of the game on Saturday.  Sunday the Crew would need a big game from their players needing 2 assists to tie the game and down 6 hits.  The Goon Crew didn't disappoint as they gave everything they got on Sunday scoring 2 goals, 8 assists, +9 and 6 hits! Their trio of Jets (Scheifele, Wheeler and Myers) combined for 1 goal, 6 assists, and a +7 on Sunday alone.

Myers added 5 assists for the Crew

AshBusters 6 Assassins 0
The Assassins were shut out for the second straight week as the AshBusters dominated this game.  Stamkos had 3 goals for AshBusters and Kris Letang had 2 goals, 4 assists and a +8 to lead the team.  Hellebuyck was stellar in goal going 3-0 in three starts for the week with a .929 SV%.  Assassins will need to figure something out if they want to make a run for the playoffs and figure out how to score.

Letang's wife Catherine Laflamme

Mayhem on Ice 4  Krampus Carols 3
Krampus Carols wasted an outstanding performance between the pipes as Anderson and Fleury combined for 5 wins and a SV% of .931 in the loss.  The Mayhem dominated in 4 categories to win the game not giving the Krampus a chance.  Mayhem had an impressive 16 PPP getting 4 each from Monahan and Hedman.

Fleury went 3-0 for the Krampus Carols

Who Gives a Puck 4 White Mambas 3
With only 3 victories on the season and continuing to start Kreider and Trouba who are out with injuries it appears that White Mambas have given up on the season.  Who Gives a Puck was thankful who still had to battle to beat the Mambas.  They were led by Byfuglien's 5 assists a +6 and 2 hits.  Who Gives a Puck will take on Goon Crew this week for second place in the Norris behind the Checkers.

Byfuglien's like "What do you want from me"

Checkers 4  USSR 3
The USSR didn't have the success their Olympic counter part had against the USA as the Checkers remained in first in the Norris.  Connor McDavid had a huge hat trick and finished the week with 4 goals.  The Checkers were able to win both goalie categories with a relatively pedestrian performance between Quick and Rinne who each only had 1 win and combined for .903 SV%.

McDavid was huge for the Checkers

Three Stars of the Week: (Winnipeg Jets Week)

Number One Star:  Mark Scheifele, Goon Crew - 3 goals, 4 assists +8, 1 PPP and 3 hits

Number Two Star:  Connor Hellebuyck, AshBusters - 3-0 week with SV% of .929

Number Three Star:  Blake Wheeler, Goon Crew - 2 goals, 5 assists, +5, 2 PPP and 5 hits

Goon of the Week:  Michael Ferland, Checkers - 11 hits (He was tied with Ericsson of the USSR but Ferland had a -4 compared to Ericsson's +0, hence Ferland's only reason to be on the ice was to knock some heads around..)

CFHL Week 17

Hello everyone I'm back.  Well for the moment.  Not sure why I want to write this anymore as my team has tanked the past 7 weeks going 2-7 as suspensions and injuries have plagued my team.  But oh well, I guess this leagues isn't all about me...

Checkers 7  Assassins 0
In a rare shut out it appears that the Checkers might have found their groove as they are now in first place in the Norris Division.  McDavid scored 5 goals for the Checkers and his teammate Draisaitl tallied 3 goals as well.  The two Oilers combined for 8 goals, 6 assists and 5 PPP.  Not bad.  Pavelski had 4 goals, 2 assists and 1 PPP with a +3 in the losing effort for the Assassins.

Draisaitl and MdDavid were huge for the Checkers

AshBusters 4  Krampus Carols 1
Who needs to score goals in this league to win anyway?  AshBusters only had 4 goals but had an incredible 34 assists!  6 from Brazal, 6 from Gostisbehere, 5 from Couturier led the way.  It was quite a goalie dual tho as they tied with 3 wins each but the AshBusters edged them in SV% .899 to .855 behind net minders Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy.   Despite the loss with Seguin, Toews, Kane and Kessel, the Krampus Carols still a dangerous team.

Gosti had 6 assists for the AshBusters

Mayhem on Ice 4 La Femme Nikita 2
Mayhem on Ice are the top team in the CFHL defeating Nikita.  Giroux and Monahan each had 3 goals and Gibson was solid in net with a SV% of .944.  La Femme Nikita got 4 goalie wins between Andersen and Smith in the loss.  Gaudreau for Nikita had 2 goals, 5 assists and a +6.  Flames were hot in this game...

Giroux had a big week for Mayhem with 3 goals and 3 assists

White Mambas 4 Goon Crew 3
The Goon Crew have fallen on hard times after being one of the hottest teams earlier in the season.  Its pretty bad they couldn't even beat a Mamba team that was starting 2 players that were out with injuries (Kreider and Trouba).  They also only had 8 hits the entire week.  How is that even possible?  Bright spot? Matthews and Rakell scored 6 goals?  Marchand and Scheifele are back (but were still on bench)

No real reason...

USSR 4  Who Gives a Puck 3
The Soviets edged the Puck thanks to a loss by the Islanders on Sunday that would have at least tied the game at 3, but instead the USSR hung onto the goalie wins 4-3 behind Dubnyk and Holtby.  Dubnyk had 2 wins and an impressive .950 SV%.  Who Gives a Puck had a nice distribution of goal scorers with 4 players scoing 2 a piece and 3 from Taylor Hall.

Reilly Smith had 5 assists for USSR, and oh
he dates former Ms. Mass. Caroline Lunny...

Three Stars of the Week:

Number One Star:  Connor McDavid, Checkers - 5 goals, 2 assists, +0, 3 PPP and 1 hit

Number Two Star:   Johnny Gaudreau, Nikitia - 2 goals, 5 assists, +6, 1 PPP and 1 hit

Number Three Star:  Devan Dubnyk, USSR - 2 wins, .950 SV% including a shutout Saturday

CFFL 2017 Awards

The Cherry Fantasy Football Awards

"Yea awards!"

Player of the Year

Russell Wilson, QB, Sinistars - 156 points (honorable mention Greg Zuerline, 158 points for the Chislers, but he is a kicker...)

All CFFL Team

QB - Russell Wilson - 156 points - Sinistars

RB - Todd Gurley - 114 points - Chislers

RB - Alvin Kamara - 80 points - Sinistars

WR - DeAndre Hopkins - 78 points - Bums

TE - Jimmy Graham - 62 points - Sinistars

WR - DeVante Adams - 60 points - Roulette

WR - Alshon Jeffery - 60 points - Crew

K - Greg Zuerline - 158 points - Chislers

Def - Baltimore Ravens - 60 points -  Chislers

(according to that All CFFL Team, should have been the Sinistars vs. Chislers in Fantasy Bowl.  But "that's why you play the games!")

All CFFL Nickname Team

QB - "Smoking" Jay Cutler - Dragons

RB - Jordan "Curly Joe" Howard - Crush

RB - Corey Clement "C. Dombrowski" - Crew

RB - Kenyan "Hate the" Drake - Krauts

WR - Robert "Ice Bucket" Woods - Cocktails

WR - Stefon Diggs "Dig Dug" - Krauts

WR - "Aunt" JuJu Smith-Schuster - Sinistars

K - Josh "Lame-bo" Lambo - Cocktails

Most Passed Around Player of the Year Award

Antonio Gates:

drafted by Ferrets and dropped

picked up by Cocktails Week 5 and dropped

picked up by Chislers Week 6 and dropped

picked up by Cocktails Week 7-10 and dropped

picked up by Chislers Week 12-17

Ruxin explaining to Gates why he is passed around so much

CFHL Update

Been a while since we had a CFHL update.  So here is one. 

Little late, but Happy Holidays from the CFHL Ice Girls

La Femme Nikita 5  Checkers 1 - Nikita had little trouble beating the Checkers after Patrice Bergeron  went off and scored 4 goals in one game.  He would finish with 5 goals, 2 assists and a +6.  This stopped the Checkers streak of wins but they are still only 3 points out of first in the Norris Division. 

Bergeron wsn't done after his hat trick.

AshBusters 5  Who Gives a Puck 2 - AshBusters continue to roll, winning its 7th in a row and have a 3 point lead in the Smythe.  Couturier led the Busters with 5 goals and 5 hits while the Bearded Wonder Burns had 4 assists in the win.  3's were wild for Puck's Taylor Hall who had 3 goals, 3 assists, +3 and 3 PPP in the loss.

Goon Crew 5  Mayhem 2 - The Crew had a huge day on Saturday flipping the +/- when they started the day at -1, ended at +13.  Brad Marchand was a big reason for this as he finished with 2 goals, 6 assists and a +6.  Mayhem goalies let them down as they had no wins. 

Marchand had 6 asists

Krampus 7  White Mambas 0 - Wow the Krampus shut out the hapless Mambas 7-0.  This game saw both teams have players that are on IR in their line ups.  Kreider for the Mambas and Atkinson and Forsberg for the Krampus.  And we thought the CFFL was bad...On a bright note the Krampus had some impressive goal tending with Fleury and Anderson who combined for 4 wins and .940 SV%

Fleury came up big for the Krampus

Assassins 4  USSR 2 - The Assassins took care of the KGB with equally good goal tending as the Krampus as Bobrovsky and Price combined for 4 wins and a .943 SV%.  The USSR are still trying to figure things out and were ready to overhaul their entire team. 

Mid Season Leaders:

Goals: 27 - Nikita Kucherov and Alex Ovechkin, a pair of Russians lead they way in goals playing for the Johnston family.  Kucherov for La Femme Nikita and Ovechkin for the Roulette. 

Kucherov bending it like Beckham

Assits:  43 - Jakub Voracek from the USSR, one of the few bright spots on the USSR so far this year.

Voracek giving the stink eye...

Rating:  +23 - Jaden Schwartz of La Femme Nikita.  That's two for Nikitas.  No wonder they are battling for the Smythe division. 

Power Play Points:  27 - Phil Kessel "Run" from the Krampus Carols.  Oh silent night. Oh deadly night...

Phil Kessel on the Kessel run?

Hits:  137 - Adam Larsson from the appropriately named Checkers.  Checkers also have the number 3 and 4 in hits on their team. (Orpik and Brown)

Goalie Wins: 26 - Anderi Vasilevsky from the AshBusters, formerly of the Puck who traded him to the AshBusters earlier this year, making them a super team.  He's also second in SV%

Wonder if Puck wishes they still had Vasilevsky

Save %:  .945 - Marc-Andre Fleury from the Krampus.  A pleasant surprise from the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.