Fantasy Recap: May 22
By CHRIS NICHOLS -- SLAM! Sports
Tampa Bay 2 Philadelphia 1 (Tampa Bay wins series 4-3)
In nine our of 16GP, Khabi has allowed one goal or less... Fred Modin scored his 7th goal and 16th point of the post-season as he collected the series clinching goal... Brad Richards had two assists, giving him 4G, 4A in this series alone... Jassen Cullimore had been out since the third game of the playoffs, but he returned from injury to register an assist in the most important game for his team to date this year... Ruslan Fedotenko had six - count them, six - goals against his former team and is a guy with rising fantasy stock for next year... Martin St. Louis has 18 points in 16 post-season games after that great 94-point regular season... Kim Johnsson had gone seven games without a point before scoring Saturday night... Jeremy Roenick had two goals in his first three playoff games, then a mere two goals the rest of the way... Simon Gagne only had three points in his final eight games... Tony Amonte's fantasy value falls further each year; he only had 3G, 5A in these playoffs... John LeClair had three points in this series, but only four in the entire playoffs after a decent 55-point regular season... Michal Handzus had an assist to push his playoff total to 10 points... Keith Primeau had his four-game point streak stopped in Game Seven and his post-season heroics couldn't carry his team to the Stanley Cup Finals... I've been standing by Robert Esche as a solid fantasy goalie and Ken Hitchcock's great defensive schemes all season and that will remain the same next year, so remember Esche on draft day.
Some interesting stats from the ESPN crew which bore out with Tampa's win: home teams are now 72-43 in Game Seven situations; teams are also now 82-33 when they score first in Game Seven... The Lightning organization won big points with fans by selling 200 tickets for Game Seven for only eight bucks...Each team deserves kudos for a well-played series where neither team was able to string together back-to-back wins... Nine words can describe why Tampa had the mojo to eke out a win in seven games (English teachers, please forgive me): WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN HULKAMANIA RUNS WILD ON YOU?
In addition to analyzing fantasy hockey for us, Chris also writes a weekly column for ESPN's fantasy hockey section during the regular season and periodically during the rest of the year. He can also be found at Mckeenshockey.com, where his News & Notes section is featured seven days a week through the end of the playoffs.
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