NHL All-Star Mock Draft

So for a little bit of fun tonight, a friend of the blog, Kevin Gregus of CL Game Misconduct, and I decided to do a cross-blog mock draft of tonight's NHL All-Star fantasy draft. We set up our draft with the same captains and assistant captains (Alfredsson w/ Lundqvist, Chara w/ Lupul) and format of tonight's draft. We also decided beforehand that Alfredsson most likely will "win the coin toss" for first pick. Finally, we did a coin toss to decide who gets who (I won and took Team Alfredsson) and off we went.

Round	Team Alfredsson	Team Chara
Captain	Daniel Alfredsson, F, OTT	Zdeno Chara, D, BOS
A. Captain	Henrik Lundqvist, G, NYR	Joffrey Lupul, F, TOR
1	Jason Spezza, F, OTT	Tim Thomas, G, BOS
2	Erik Karlsson, D, OTT	Kris Letang, D, PIT
3	Milan, Michalek, F, OTT	Evgeni Malkin, F, PIT
4	Marian Hossa, F, CHI	Phil Kessel, F, TOR
5	Marian Gaborik, F, NYR	Dion Phaneuf, D, TOR
6	Dan Girardi, D, NYR	Jonathan Quick, G, LAK
7	Jimmy Howard, G, DET	Tyler Seguin, F, BOS
8	Henrik Sedin, F, VAN	Daniel Sedin, F, VAN
9	Shea Weber, D, NSH	Brian Elliott, G, STL
(GOALIES) 10	Carey Price, G, MTL	Steven Stamkos, F, TAM
11	Claude Giroux, F, PHI	Kimmo Timonen, D, PHI
12	Ryan Suter, D, NSH	Corey Perry, F, ANA
13	Alexandre Edler, D, VAN	Brian Campbell, D, FLA
14	Keith Yandle, D, VAN	Jarome Iginla, F, CGY
(D-MEN) 15	Pavel Datsyuk, F, DET	Dennis Wideman, D, WSH
16	Patrick Kane, F, CHI	John Tavares, F, NYI
17	Jordan Eberle, F, EDM	Scott Hartnell, F, PHI
18	Logan Couture, F, SJ	James Neal, F, PIT
19	Jamie Benn, F, DAL	Jason Pominville, F, BUF

Both Kevin and I predicted that the captains would appease their teammates early, with Kevin making some Penguins picks in between and I guessed that Alfredsson would bring in Hossa, his teammate of seven years before bringing in the Rangers.

Other fun little tidbits we predict:

• We broke up the Sedins again, with me taking Henrik first this year after Daniel went first last year.
• The player nobody wants in this draft, Carey Price of Montreal (neither a Bruins or Sens player will want him), ended up with Team Alfredsson following a little gamesmanship by Kevin taking Team Chara's third goalie a round earlier than necessary.
• Fun lines we predict: Team Alfredsson runs out a Kane-Datsyuk-Hossa line (The Wings-Hawks Connection or Before-and-After line) or a Gaborik-Sedin-Giroux line (Multinational Goal Corporation line). Team Chara runs out a Seguin-Tavares-Stamkos line (the Young Guns line) or Kessel-Malkin-Lupul (the What-If Toronto Had A Star Center or the 44-Years-And-Counting line)
• Mr Irrelevant in our predictions: Jason Pominville of the Buffalo Sabres. Young man is getting a new car, makes up for playing on that crappy team this year.

Finally, we predicted how the rookies would break down for the skills competition:

• Team Alfredsson: Justin Faulk (CAR), Carl Hagelin (NYR), Colin Greening (OTT), Matt Read (PHI), Ryan Johansen (CBJ), Luke Adam (BUF)
• Team Chara: Raphael Diaz (MTL), Gabriel Landeskog (COL), Cody Hodgson (VAN), Sean Couturier (PHI), Nick Johnson (MIN), Craig Smith (NSH)

There's our mock draft for tonight's All-Star Fantasy Draft. The second half of our fun was a cross-blog fantasy draft that we would do if we were picking captains, asst captains, and our own teams of 2012 All-Stars (i.e., if we were captains). You can check that out over at CL Game Misconduct, a blog that I highly recommend you spend some time checking out while there. This was such fun that I can promise more cross-blog endeavours in our future, something I hope y'all will enjoy.

NCAA Hockey Tourney Prediction Jan 23

Following a week that saw more than it's fair share of upsets and some more moving around within the pairwise, I was left with a tougher job to make a bracket this week than last.

Once again, the only host that made the tourney is Minnesota, so they are the only team automatically put in a regional.

West Regional (St Paul - 18,064)

4 Ohio State 15 Minnesota

5 Michigan 12 Denver

Midwest Regional (Green Bay - 8,709)

2 UM-Duluth 13 Miami

8 Merrimack 10 Northern Michigan

Northeast Regional (Worcester - 12,239)

1 BU 16 Mercyhurst

7 Ferris St 9 BC

East Regional (Bridgeport - 8,412)

3 UMass Lowell 14 Michigan St

6 Notre Dame 11 Cornell

(Bubble Teams: CC, WMU)

Going purely by pairwise, I started by putting Minnesota in St Paul. Then going with the one seeds, I put BU in Worcester, UMass-Lowell in Bridgeport, Duluth in St Paul and Ohio State in Green Bay. That gave us two interconference matchups in the first round, with Miami-OSU and UMD-Minn. That's a simple enough switch, that keeps Duluth in a western regional (in Green Bay) and moves OSU to St Paul.

Now the next group is where it gets brutal because the CCHA has 4 teams, including three of the 2 seeds. Michigan and Notre Dame both match up with nonconference foes and keep bracket integrity, so I left them alone. The question is how do you split the BC-Merrimack and Ferris-NMU matchups. Do I send BC to Green Bay or Merrimack? While keeping BC in Worcester would rock, Merrimack is less likely to travel all the way to Green Bay. On the flip side, I think keeping Northern in Green Bay makes more sense than Ferris. So, I went with BC-Ferris in Worcester and Merrimack-Northern in Green Bay. (Honestly, you could convince me of either configuration, but a possible BU-BC regional final in Worcester was too sexy to pass up)

The only regional there that might struggle in attendance is Bridgeport, but I like that bracket overall. It looks like a very fun and intriguing tourney. Until next week!