The Tea
The Whole Thing, Looking Back
Twenty-one weeks, two playoff rounds, one champion who never flinched, a semifinal blowout that will take its victim all summer to process, and a consolation bracket that served its own small piece of drama to everyone who wanted one. The season is over. Everyone is accounted for.
By Nina Rivera • Staff Writer
The Championship
Don't Trust Aho (296.8) def. Tkachuk Around And Find Out (223.4)
There is a version of this recap where the championship was in doubt at some point. This is not that version. Don't Trust Aho entered the final two weeks fresh off an eleven-game regular-season win streak, dispatched DeMan DeSmith DeLegend 217.9 to 175.7 in the semi without breaking eye contact, and then did the same thing to Tkachuk Around And Find Out to the tune of 296.8 to 223.4 over two weeks. TAFO had beaten a 16-5 team by a hundred and seventeen points the round before. It did not matter. Ashley Le's team simply kept scoring, and at a certain point the math becomes personality.
The 296.8 is not a typo. It came from a team that had already posted the league's best regular-season record (17-4), the best point differential (+25.8 per game), and the longest win streak of the year (11). The final was just the last data point on a graph that was already a straight line up and to the right.
TAFO was not bad. TAFO was the most active manager in the league, the one who made 61 moves over 21 weeks, the one who ran the #2 seed into the ground in the semi. Ashley Antones earned her place in the championship. She also walked into a buzz saw that had been running all season. There is no shame in finishing second to a team that was, from Week 10 onward, playing a different sport.
Verdict: The best team won. They won decisively. They won the way teams win when they have stopped caring whether the game is close and started caring only about the margin. Fantasy hockey, for once, produced the result it was supposed to.
The Semifinals
Don't Trust Aho (217.9) def. DeMan DeSmith DeLegend (175.7)
The one seed met the four seed in a matchup that was less a game and more a procedural step. Don't Trust Aho scored 217.9 across the two-week round, held DeMan DeSmith DeLegend to 175.7, and moved on without anyone writing home about it. The margin was 42.2 points, which is not close and not interesting.
DDD did not play poorly. DDD played a respectable regular season and finished 15-6, which is what gets you the four seed in a league where four teams make it to the winner's bracket. Lexie Smith's team came in on a two-game win streak, had the tools to compete, and ran into a team that had already made up its mind about the bracket. That is how the one versus four matchup works, most of the time.
Verdict: The top seed did its job. DDD did not disgrace themselves. The story was elsewhere.
Tkachuk Around And Find Out (280.4) def. My Little Kraklings (163.4)
This one was the story. The three seed put up 280.4. The two seed put up 163.4. The margin was one hundred and seventeen points, which is roughly the entire scoring output of an average fantasy hockey team over two weeks. My Little Kraklings, 16-5 all season, winners of the West, owners of the league's second-highest regular-season points total (2210.4, behind only DTA), were erased.
TAFO was not supposed to do this. MLK had the better seeding, the better playoff positioning, and arguably the better matchup history. Instead, Ashley Antones' team detonated two consecutive weeks of offense and turned a competitive series into a wake. A 16-5 team losing by a hundred and seventeen is not a game result. It is a weather event.
Caitlynn Choi's team did not get a chance to settle in. By the time it was clear what was happening, the scoreboard had already decided. MLK would regroup for the third-place game, but the damage was done, and the #2 seed would not see the winner's bracket final.
Verdict: The semi that mattered. TAFO did not win a game. TAFO won an intervention.
Third Place
DeMan DeSmith DeLegend (261.1) def. My Little Kraklings (218.0)
The two teams that had been sent home from the winner's bracket in Round 1 reconvened for third place. DDD, coming off the 42-point loss to DTA, came back with 261.1 points. MLK, still processing the 117-point semifinal, posted 218.0. The margin was 43.1, and the numbers were flipped: the team that lost by 42 in Round 1 won by 43 in Round 2.
Third place is a strange trophy to hold. It means you lost when it mattered and won when it mattered less. But for DDD, it means fifteen regular-season wins, a winner's bracket berth, and a bronze finish to close a season that was legitimately good from start to almost-end. Lexie Smith earned it. So did the De-prefix, which turned out to be accurate.
Verdict: Bronze is still a color. MLK heads into the offseason as the best team that did not win a playoff game, which is its own particular flavor of heartbreak.
The Consolation Bracket
Sixteen teams. Two rounds. No trophy at the end, but plenty of pride on the line, and a few scores that would have won most weeks of the regular season.
The biggest score of the entire playoff bracket came from consolation. Candy Canes for Hurricanes posted 313.1 in Round 2 to erase The Em-VPs, who managed 223.4 (a number that would have been a solid win most weeks and instead became an 89.7-point loss). Anna Yauger's team finished the regular season 15-6, second in the West, and did not make the winner's bracket because of how the seeding shook out. They spent Round 2 demonstrating what that was worth. Emily Martin's Em-VPs had beaten What's Dunn is Dunn 181.7 to 157.4 the round before, which is how you end up playing a team scoring 313 in the second round: by winning the wrong first round.
The closest game anywhere in the bracket happened here too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl scored 196.2. Nose Face Killah Crew scored 194.6. Lilly Howe's team won by 1.6 points in a matchup where Daryl Wood's goalie corps, carrying NFKC all year on the back of 68 goalie wins from a 13th-place roster, could not quite get across. A 1.6-point loss in a consolation-round game that nobody would remember in July is still a 1.6-point loss.
The upset of the consolation bracket was Strome Alone. Brie Skiles' team, seeded 11th, beat McDaddy Issues (the 8th seed) 249.9 to 234.3 in Round 2 after winning their Round 1 game 183.4 to 173.8 over TMNH. Ashley Patenaude's McDaddy Issues had 47 moves on the season, finished 14-7, and still couldn't shake an 11 seed in April. Seeding, once again, was a suggestion.
Hugh(es)SUCKS played the moral-win game. Heather Smart's team, 6-15 on the regular season, lost Round 1 to Stay in the Net by 0.1 points (188.0 to 187.9, a margin that is less a result than a rounding error) before coming back in Round 2 to erase Panarin Bread 223.6 to 192.4. Mackenzie Klouda's Panarin Bread had themselves scraped past Lachimolala 180.7 to 164.1 in Round 1 before the Round 2 loss. Kirsten Bowen's Stay in the Net took that 0.1-point Round 1 win and made the most of it, which is more than most teams manage from 0.1 points. None of this changed the standings. All of it mattered for the bit.
FORMERLY Papi's Princesses closed strong. Cat Monico's team, 4-17 on the regular season, won two consolation games, the first over Delaney's Daring Team 175.6 to 108.8 in Round 1, the second over The Spoked Bae 183.6 to 124.7 in Round 2. Elizabeth Bradley's Spoked Bae went home with their own 6-15 regular season. Delaney's Daring Team finished 4-17 and lost both consolation games, which is how the schedule works, but the league would not exist without Delaney Galbraith putting it together in the first place, and that matters more than any scoreline.
Lachimolala got a win. Jenna McCall's team, carrying a ten-game losing streak into the playoffs, fell to Panarin Bread 164.1 to 180.7 in Round 1 and then beat Delaney's Daring Team 152.8 to 102.9 in Round 2. A win is a win. The streak finally broke. The name, which means nothing on purpose, was vindicated, which is its own small miracle.
Net Results went 2-0 in consolation, beating Candy Canes for Hurricanes 243.0 to 188.3 in Round 1 and Smashville Puckheads 293.6 to 246.4 in Round 2. Smashville, Liv Slocum's team, had themselves beaten McDaddy Issues 247.2 to 187.5 in Round 1 before the loss. None of it changed the standings in any consequential way, but every consolation game is a game, and every game is a chance to say you did not give up when the bracket did.