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Normally the Playoff Hockey Challenge is but a small percentage of the great marathon that is the NHL season. Not so in this lockout-shortened campaign. This season, the Playoff Hockey Challenge will come with almost equal bragging rights to your regular fantasy hockey pool. In fact, if a team captures the cup while playing in four seven-game series, those games would represent more than half of what the NHL regular season was. If you havent participated in the Playoff Hockey Challenge before, this is your season to get into it. We had almost four months of hockey taken away from us earlier this season, and this game is a chance for the fantasy sports fans to reclaim part of that lost time. Dont settle for your fantasy hockey season ending later this month. Extend it through the postseason with the Playoff Hockey Challenge. The Basics This should be easy for those who enjoy playing the Hockey Challenge during the regular season. The rules are very similar to the Hockey Challenge and are consistent with most of your basic salary-cap games. You pick a team of six forwards, four defensemen and two goaltenders under a fantasy budget of $100 million. That team scores you goals, assists, wins and shutout bonuses to carry you to glory. Goals are worth a point, assists are worth a point, wins are worth two points, and goaltenders and defensemen get a bonus point for a shutout. Selecting a team of stars should be relatively easy as the game begins with most forwards drawing a salary just under $9 million, the top defensemen just under $8 million and the goaltenders peaking at $11 million. Do the math and you will notice you are just shy of being able to ice a roster of all the top players in the league. While that may be true, its not always the top players in the league who excel in the playoffs. You get to swap out your team after the first round of the playoffs and again after the conference semifinals, but you dont get to trade out the team after the conference finals. In other words, there is no harm in selecting players from teams that get eliminated in the first or second rounds. But when the playoffs are pared down to the four teams vying for a trip to the Stanley Cup finals, that is your final roster lock. There are no limits to the swapping as long as you stay under $100 million. In theory, you could have 36 different players on your roster during the entirety of the Playoff Hockey Challenge. Remember that all NHL players will be available to all other owners you are competing against, whether in a public, private or fan-based group. Your picks need to be shrewd, calculated and, most of all, pretty lucky. The Details Go for the goaltenders first in this game. Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown led the NHL in playoff scoring last season with 20 points. That means they led all skaters with 20 points in the Playoff Hockey Challenge. Henrik Lundqvist, whose team was eliminated in the conference finals, compiled 23 points in the Playoff Hockey Challenge.Jonathan Quick? He had 35 points in the Playoff Hockey Challenge. Evgeni Malkin had to be the seventh-highest scoring forward in NHL playoff history in 2009 to just get 36 points. Goaltenders are where the money is in this game. Pick two good ones and you have a guaranteed 48 points through the first three rounds. Pick two goaltenders who both make the Stanley Cup finals and battle in a seven-game series there? Thats 62 points, not counting shutouts. Brown, Kopitar and Ilya Kovalchuk, who was third in playoff scoring last season, didnt equal that number combined. Longer playoff series provide and advantage, but not for goaltenders. Goaltenders cannot win more than four games in a series and get zero points if their team loses. Goalies are somewhat capped for points during this game, but there is no limit on what a skater can do for point production. A skater can score in a loss as much as he pleases. Seven-game series are where the real money is at in this fantasy game. A lot of star players not only score points when their team wins games but also when their team loses. A player competing in seven games, even if three of them are losses, has a much better chance of getting more points than a player in four games that are all wins. Defensemen are still important in this game and there will usually be one or two who stand out during the postseason, but the majority of defensemen will all be bunched between six and 10 points. That isnt enough of a difference to break your bank and not be able to afford a key forward who can get into the mid-20s for points. Besides, would you have predicted Drew Doughty and Bryce Salvador would lead the pack last season? Pick the good defensemen at the start of the game and switch out for the hot ones when you get to repick your team. The ones you picked at the start of the game probably wont be the ones leading the way. Picking the seven-game series ahead of time can be a fools errand, but there are slightly smarter places to place your bets. Of the 25 seven-game series in the first round during the past 12 postseasons, only five were between the No. 1 and No. 8 seeds. The most series that went the distance -- eight of them -- involved the No. 3 seed versus the No. 6 seed. No. 4 versus No. 5 accounted for six Game 7s, and No. 2 against No. 7 made up the other six. Thats a fairly even split, but if you are picking between two players where everything else is even in your mind, lean toward the tighter seeding between the teams. One final point: Treat the bonuses as a bonus. Last season was the first time in several years that shutouts in the regular season were an indicator of shutouts to come in the postseason, with Quick, Lundqvist and Mike Smith all notching three playoff shutouts for bonus points. Only three goaltenders during the 2007 through 2011 NHL playoffs posted more than one playoff shutout after finishing top three in shutouts during the regular season: Tim Thomas in 2011, Antti Niemi in 2010 and Dominik Hasek in 2007. Does that mean Pekka Rinne, Cory Schneiderand Smith are bound for great postseasons? Based on last year, yes. Based on the previous five years, no. That leans toward the conclusion that the bonus points are somewhat unpredictable. That said, Lundqvist and Smith sure do seem to pick up a lot of shutouts. If you like the New York Rangers orPhoenix Coyotes chances (if they make the playoffs), those two particular goaltenders do show personal trends for shutouts. But remember some of these facts: In the 2010 playoffs, Michael Leighton led the way with three shutouts after posting one during the regular season. In the 2009 playoffs, Chris Osgood, Cam Ward, Jonas Hiller and Semyon Varlamov led all goaltenders with two shutouts each. During the preceding regular season, they recorded a combined 12 shutouts. TSN Playoff Hockey Challenge is brought to you by Kia. Craig Adams Jersey . No. 13-seeded John Isner and No. 21 Philipp Kohlschreiber were among six players who dropped out of the tournament on Tuesday, joining No. 12 seed Tommy Haas and two other players who withdrew on Monday. Evgeni Malkin Jersey . Then the Pacers gave Oladipo and his Orlando teammates the cold shoulder. Paul Georges buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter spurred a 21-4 run, finally sending Indiana past the Magic 97-87 in a tougher-than-expected opening night matchup. https://www.cheappenguinsjersey.com/771q-larry-murphy-jersey-penguins.html . The Canadian squad, skipped by Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg, got on the board first with two in the second end, and followed that with two more apiece in the fourth and sixth ends. Mike Bullard Jersey . -- If Henry Burris has his way, he will be the starting quarterback to lead the Hamilton Tiger-Cats back to the Grey Cup next year. Rob Brown Jersey . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. RIO DE JANEIRO -- There are 11,551 athletes competing at these Olympics, all striving for that elusive gold, silver or bronze medal. While Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles have won multiple golds, around 10,500 of the athletes will go home without a single medal of any color. After the years and years of training and sacrifice, that is devastating for some. But they and others still will take home lessons and emotions that are nearly as important as any medal.And perhaps more so.The Olympics to me are permission to continue wanting things that I may or not get, distance runner Alexi Pappas said. Because I see so many people around me trying so hard as well. Its motivating to be around that. The Olympics are permission to keep believing in yourself because hundreds of other people believe in themselves, and they want something. And its a scary thing to want something but its less scary to be in a whole village of people who want something they may or may not get. ...Theres an element of it being a celebration. People want to do big things here, but everyone recognizes that its an achievement to be here and that the competitions themselves are celebrations.Of Greek-American lineage, Pappas grew up in the Bay Area and attended Dartmouth. In Rio, she competed for Greece in the womens 10,000-meter run, finishing in the top half (17 out of 37 entrants) with a personal-best time of 31:36.16. Like every Olympian, there is more to know about her than just her time in a competition.Pappas is also a writer. And an actress. And a filmmaker. And a poet. She writes poems for Womens Running Magazine, including a recent one titled Before, Olympics 2016, about such pre-competition preparation as knowing where bravery hides so she can draw it out.Every word matters in poetry, Pappas said. That helps me as a writer to appreciate words, and it also helps me as a runner. Because in poetry there are certain limitations, but there also is a lot of creativity within it, and I think that running is similar.Pappas and her fiance, Jeremy Teicher, co-wrote and co-directed the recently completed film Tracktown, which is set in Eugene, Oregon (aka, Tracktown USA). Based on some of her own experiences in the sport, the movie is about an intensely focused runner, played by Pappas, who competes at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene. The film also stars SNLs Rachel Dratch and Andy Buckley of The Office.She eventually wants to become a full-time filmmaker -- I would like to maake things with Jeremy for the rest of our lives -- but she also wants to run as long as she can.ddddddddddddA top runner and vibrant personality in the States, Pappas could have competed for the U.S. but chose to run for Greece instead -- she was able to thanks to dual citizenship since her grandmother is from Greece. She said it was an easy decision.My goals are to compete at the highest level, which you can do regardless of where you run. But also to have an impact on the sport, she said. Im doing that already in the U.S., but I think I can extend it to a place where distance running was born. But Greece has never had the leadership or role models in distance running. This was an obvious opportunity for me.While Pappas time in the 10,000 was more than a minute behind Ethiopian gold medalist Almaz Ayanas world record, Pappas said the race was the highlight of the Olympics. Thats because the Olympics are not just about winning or medaling. You can draw something just from being here and competing against the worlds greatest in your sport, regardless of what that sport is.Everyone at the Olympics is among the best, not just the ones who win gold, Pappas said. There is a remarkable energy to be around.Pappas was saying this outside the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre, where she had just watched Greek teammates compete in synchronized swimming. She turned to Teicher and her father, telling them how odd it was that she and they were Olympians despite vastly different sports. But that is another beauty of the Olympics. It is about athletes in so many sports.Were different creatures, but were all trying to be at the highest level of something very specific, Pappas said. And none of these things are life or death matters. Win or lose here, youre going to be OK. But that you care about something so much that you almost make it a life or death thing is really special. And to be around it is emotional. Were all doing things that are not life and death every day, but if we can dedicate ourselves to it like these women I watched today, thats the best.Thats the lesson of the Olympics. Medal or no medal, the key is dedicating yourself to doing your best in what you love, whether that is running, swimming, poetry, film, technology, medicine, education or anything at all. Win or lose, succeed or not, the experience alone can be equally important. ' ' '