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Canes Country’s 2018 Playoff Pick ‘Em Challenge: Final Standings

They don’t ask how you started, only how you finished, and that’s good news for our pick ‘em champion.

By Brian LeBlanc
NHL: Stanley Cup Final-Washington Capitals at Vegas Golden Knights Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

Despite the best efforts of a Hall of Fame columnist at the New York Post, most right-thinking hockey fans, whether fans of the Washington Capitals or not, would tend to agree that finally winning the Stanley Cup changes the narrative around Alex Ovechkin forever. It’s not how you start, but how you finish that matters.

(And before we go on: good Lord this ratio is something to behold.)

And our 2018 Pick ‘Em champion can also hang his hat on the fact that it doesn’t matter who had the lead at the end of the first three rounds: his pick of the Caps in the Stanley Cup Final was enough to push him into first place by a single point.

Congratulations are in order to marcmd, who was hovering in the top ten throughout the entire competition and who correctly picked the Caps to win the Cup, giving him a 49-48 win over Matt Krombach. Matt, you’ll recall, had the lead after both the second and third rounds, and...uh, he didn’t take the news well when I broke it to him:

A few notes on the pool this yer:

  • It was a good year for the CC staff. Five were in the top ten. See, every once in a while we do know what we’re talking about.
  • Sixty commenters participated in at least one round, which is a very solid number.
  • The Eastern Conference Final was the biggest upset by our picks. Only eight people took the Caps to win the series over the Lightning. The second-biggest upset? Our picks broke 38-13 for the Predators in their second round series that was won by the Jets in seven games.
  • Only three people took the Caps in 5 in the final, and the fact that one of them was yours truly has absolutely no bearing on why this factoid got a mention.

Below is the spreadsheet of picks for the Final sorted by overall score:

If you want to see the full spreadsheet with all picks, head this way.

As always, thank you for participating this year, and we look forward to doing this again next hear when, finally, you may actually have the opportunity to pick the Hurricanes!