Lord Stanley's Pool 2015 - Final Analysis

If there was ever a team deserving of their Cup success, it may be the Chicago Blackhawks. In a salary-cap-limited world where winning teams are forced to dismantle, it is nothing short of amazing that Chicago has won their third Cup and could still be a challenger next year. This could well have been their fourth, and third in a row, but for an overtime goal at the wrong end of the ice in game 7 of the conference finals last year against the Kings (another incredible hockey team).

This year's pool was notable for a lot of reasons - a lot of records broken and different path to victory among them. Pool winner Sarah Wardell picked the strongest and most accurate list of nine players ever, the only difference from the Dream Team being Steven Stamkos instead of scoring leader Tyler Johnson. The entry was so strong, even though Sarah picked Anaheim to win the Cup, a team not even in the final round, she walked to pool victory only two points shy of the all-time high score.

Second place on this year's podium, the first all-female podium ever, is Harper Christie-Allard. Harper followed Sarah in second place the whole way since round 2 and would have won it all had Tampa Bay won the Cup. And third place Jessica Thompson repeated her come-from-behind podium finish of last year, starting the final round out of the top ten and jumping into third - last year, first - with a final-round shutout and the Cup bonus. For two consecutive years Jessica led all poolies who picked the Cup winner.

Honourable mentions go to Dave Spedding, who set a pool record for most points in round 3 (72), and Sherri Rowe to round out the top five though they go home empty-handed.

In a year when the pool winner had as near-perfect an entry as we have ever seen, how can the key to the pool be anything other than having the sports almanac from Back to the Future and going back in time to pick the Dream Team? Yet amazingly in such a highly accurate pool in a year when few underdogs won, it wasn't necessary to pick the winning Cup team. You certainly needed three players each from Tampa Bay and Chicago, but the real key was the duo of Ben Bishop in net and Duncan Keith on defence.

Duncan Keith tied the highest point total for a defenseman since the pool began in 1998, with 21 - a number matched only by Chris Pronger with Edmonton in 2003. The last time any defenseman had more points in the playoffs was Brian Leetch's 34 points in 1994. Keith's 21 along with Victor Hedman's 14 points contributed to a new pool record for most points by defensemen, set by four poolies: Harper Christie-Allard, Sherri Rowe, Janine Pileggi and Tim Smith.

The best picks possible under the rules of the pool, the Dream Team is the combination of players you were going to pick all along (before you changed your mind, of course). This year the top goalie and defenseman were absolute shoo-ins. Ben Bishop and Duncan Keith dominated the pool and are on the dream team for their first times along with five others.

Four players are familiar faces on the team. Patrick Kane is there for the third year in a row and fourth time overall, tying Daniel Briere's records on both marks (Joe Sakic was on five dream teams but two were for Olympics/World Cup). Ryan Getzlaf is also joining Kane and Briere with his fourth nod, the second in a row for him. Jonathan Toews is also there for the second straight year, third overall while Corey Perry made it for his second time.

See all dream teams here.

Forwards
Tyler Johnson, TAM, 23 pts. (60 picks)
Patrick Kane, CHI, 23 (87 pick)
Nikita Kucherov, TAM, 22 (13 picks)
Jonathan Toews, CHI, 21 (116 picks)
Ryan Getzlaf, ANA, 20 (117 picks)
Jakob Silfverberg (2 picks) OR Corey Perry (84 picks), ANA, 18
Defense
Duncan Keith, CHI, 21 (76 picks)
Sami Vatanen, ANA (14 picks) OR Keith Yandle, NYR (63 picks), 11
Goalie
Ben Bishop, TAM, 31 (27 picks)
Team: Chicago, 10
Dream Team Score: 200 points
Winning Score: 185 points

While the top two started and stayed on the leaderboard the whole way, some took a much longer route to the top of the pool. Four of the pool's top 10 finished round 1 deep in the triple digits, only to fight their way up. Jessica Thompson and Pierre Maxime Gravelle, the pool winner's boyfriend, both climbed from 169th; Jessica into third and Pierre into 6th. 2012 pool winner Janine Pileggi and first-timer Owen Thompson both climbed from 218th after round one to finish in the top ten.

This year we made up for having set no records last year, by setting plenty. Some are listed on the pool records page while others are more obscure, such as most points in a day in round 3, most shutout-and-assist nights in one year (and by the same goalie), and others I wrote about in the blog but forgot already. Hey, this is serious stuff but I was probably sleep deprived and discovered some obscure stat never to be repeated.