THE RINK REPORT

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League 12 • SGC Ladies' League Edition Weekly Wrap Up Volume 20
On This Day
← Back to All Editions WEEK 20 March 2026
Correction

This article was published with the final score of Net Results 123.4, McDaddy Issues 122.9. Days later, stat corrections awarded additional points to McDaddy Issues, bringing the corrected final to McDaddy Issues 123.5, Net Results 123.4.

McDaddy Issues won. By a tenth of a point.

The entire lead story below — the Ekholm blocked shot heard 'round the league, the "half a point" headline, the haiku about Ekholm's shin, the moral about rewrites — was written in celebration of a victory that, as it turns out, was not a victory. The blocked shot still happened. It just stopped being the ending. Seven paragraphs of poetic sports journalism about a defenseman's shin deciding a matchup, and the matchup had already been decided by a spreadsheet none of us had seen yet.

We are choosing to leave the original article fully intact, because at this point, the correction is funnier than anything we could rewrite. The article below is a time capsule of a win that lasted 72 hours, and we think that's beautiful.

The Rink Report regrets the error. Net Results regrets it more.

The Tea

One Block. Half a Point.

Net Results survived a 0.5-point finish on a last-second Mattias Ekholm blocked shot, Don't Trust Aho clinched a playoff spot with 152.4 points and a ten-game win streak, DeMan DeSmith DeLegend's historic run ended at the hands of the league's seventh-place West team, and Scott Wedgewood posted 19.8 goalie points because goalies answer to no one.

By Nina Rivera • Staff Writer

The Matchups

Net Results (123.4) def. McDaddy Issues (122.9)

This matchup came down to a single blocked shot. Not a goal. Not an assist. A blocked shot by Mattias Ekholm in the final period of the final day, worth exactly the fraction of a point that separated two rosters who spent the entire week trading leads like neither one wanted to be ahead when it counted.

Net Results trailed after Monday, 12.1 to 12.4. By Tuesday evening, the gap was a canyon: McDaddy Issues had surged to 47.0 while Net Results sat at 16.7. Thirty points down with four days to play. The kind of deficit that makes you check if your lineup is set and then check if your lineup matters.

It mattered. Net Results scored 106.7 over the final five days. Robert Thomas led with 12.0 on three goals, two assists, and 10 shots. Joel Hofer, picked up off waivers on Thursday to replace the dropped Anton Forsberg, promptly posted 11.4 on a win and a shutout. Dylan Holloway added 8.3. Kopitar 8.0. Zibanejad 7.9. Stutzle 7.7. Six players above 7.7, and the roster needed every one of them — because Andrei Vasilevskiy started three games and contributed 0.0 points. Zero. Three starts and not a single fantasy point. Net Results won a matchup by half a point while one of their goalies contributed the same number of fantasy points as a healthy scratch. Hofer's shutout wasn't a luxury. It was load-bearing.

McDaddy Issues had the better star power and still lost. Cale Makar led all players in the matchup with 14.1 on two goals, four assists, and three power-play points. Marchenko added 11.4. Lane Hutson, acquired from Hugh(es)SUCKS last week, posted 10.7 in his debut. Hanifin 9.8. Hyman 8.8. Brady Tkachuk 7.6. The numbers were there. The depth was there. And it still wasn't enough, because the other side had a waiver-wire goalie who chose the right week to post a shutout and a defenseman who chose the right moment to put his body in front of a puck.

The final day told the whole story. Net Results scored 26.9. McDaddy Issues scored 12.3. One Ekholm blocked shot was the difference between a win and a loss that would have haunted every remaining week of the regular season.

Verdict: Fantasy hockey is a sport where a defenseman's shin can decide a matchup. Mattias Ekholm's shin chose wisely.

Don't Trust Aho (152.4) def. Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl (90.6)

When a team posts 152.4 points and uses zero acquisitions to do it, there is nothing left to analyze. There is only the record.

Martin Necas led with 16.0 points, a number that would be the story on any other roster. Ivan Provorov added 12.6. Macklin Celebrini, the rookie who keeps showing up in sentences that shouldn't involve rookies, posted 12.2. Charlie McAvoy 11.3. Wyatt Johnston 9.6. Sebastian Aho 9.6. Bo Horvat 8.4. Taylor Raddysh 8.1. Eight players above 8.0 in a single week. The depth is no longer a feature. It is the identity.

Don't Trust Aho is now 16-4, tied for first in the East with TAFO, and both have clinched playoff spots. The ten-game win streak is the longest active streak in the league by a factor that would be embarrassing to calculate. The midseason trades that added Schmaltz and Horvat weren't just good moves. They were infrastructure.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl had Nikita Kucherov (13.3) doing Kucherov things. Dougie Hamilton added 7.6. Logan Cooley 7.2. But the goaltending was an active liability: Ilya Sorokin posted 4.0, Stuart Skinner contributed -1.4, and Akira Schmid added -5.0. Combined: -2.4 goalie points. When your goalies are scoring in the wrong direction, even Kucherov becomes a consolation prize.

Verdict: Ten straight wins. Zero acquisitions this week. 152.4 points. The scariest team in the league didn't need to change anything, and they still set the high score. At some point, the word "streak" stops being a description and starts being a warning.

Candy Canes for Hurricanes (134.3) def. FORMERLY Papi's Princesses (98.0)

Scott Wedgewood decided to have a week.

The journeyman goalie posted 19.8 points: three wins, three goals against, 69 saves. That is the single best goalie performance since Arturs Silovs' 19.2 last week, and the kind of stat line that makes you double-check the player name because it doesn't feel right. It was right. Wedgewood carried the matchup from the crease, and Candy Canes for Hurricanes built the rest around him.

Nikolaj Ehlers was excellent with 12.8 on five goals and an assist, the kind of scoring week that turns a roster from good to untouchable. Kiefer Sherwood added 9.1. Mavrik Bourque, a Monday waiver pickup, contributed 9.0 in his debut. Evan Bouchard 8.4. Clayton Keller 8.2. Jack Eichel 7.7. The roster had six players above 7.7, and Wedgewood's goaltending made all of it count.

FORMERLY Papi's Princesses posted 98.0, which is their best output in weeks and deserves more credit than the final score suggests. Nick Suzuki led with 11.1. Shane Pinto added 9.4. Viktor Arvidsson 8.4. Marcus Pettersson 8.3. Auston Matthews put up 24 shots on goal but scored zero goals, which is the fantasy hockey equivalent of knocking on a door for an hour and then leaving. 7.5 points on volume alone, but the efficiency wasn't there when it mattered.

Verdict: Candy Canes for Hurricanes are 14-6, second in the West, and Scott Wedgewood just became the goalie nobody saw coming for the second time this season. The man appears to operate on a schedule known only to himself.

Honorable Mentions (a.k.a. Games That Still Counted)

Hugh(es)SUCKS (110.7) over DeMan DeSmith DeLegend (107.6): The streak is over. Ten games. Ten wins. And it ended at the hands of a team sitting seventh in the West with a 6-14 record. Tage Thompson led Hugh(es)SUCKS with 14.3 points, Sean Walker added 11.6, and Jack Hughes posted 11.5. DDD had Alex Tuch (13.5), Mathieu Olivier (12.9), and Jason Robertson (10.7), and none of it was enough to keep the longest win streak of the season alive. The margin was 3.1 points. Somewhere, the other fifteen teams who couldn't beat DDD for two and a half months would like a word with Hugh(es)SUCKS about how, exactly, they made it look that easy.

Tkachuk Around And Find Out (108.5) over Strome Alone (80.0): TAFO clinched a playoff spot behind Nathan MacKinnon's 14.4, Alex DeBrincat's 10.8, and Brayden Point's 8.7. Five waiver moves this week, more than any other team, and it didn't even look like panic. It looked like restocking. For Strome Alone, Adam Fantilli (11.0) and Rasmus Dahlin (10.1) showed up, but the roster around them went quiet at the worst time. Strome Alone drops to .500 at 10-10.

The Em-VPs (89.6) over Stay in the Net (87.9): Five straight wins for the Em-VPs, and this one came down to 1.7 points. Mark Scheifele (14.3) and Miro Heiskanen (10.2) did the heavy lifting. Stay in the Net had Jake Greaves (9.4), Brock Boeser (9.3), and Chris Kreider (8.9) making it uncomfortably close. A four-game losing streak for SITN, and the Em-VPs are 13-7 with the momentum of a team that doesn't know it's been eliminated.

My Little Kraklings (127.5) over Delaney's Daring Team (66.0): The West's top seed bounced back after last week's loss. Leon Draisaitl (13.1), Mitch Marner (11.5), and Dalton Severson (9.7) did what top seeds do when nobody's watching. Alex Laferriere (8.7), Dylan Cozens (8.0), and Arseni Gritsyuk (7.4) kept DDT competitive in the top half of their lineup, but a six-game losing streak doesn't leave much room for moral victories.

Smashville Puckheads (128.6) over Lachimolala (53.0): Lachimolala's losing streak hit nine. Filip Forsberg (11.4), Juraj Slafkovsky (10.8), and Josh Doan (10.6) led Smashville's second-highest score of the season. Lachimolala's Pavel Zacha (13.5) and Roman Josi (7.5) showed up, and the rest of the roster did not. Cole Caufield, the one-man argument against giving up, managed 6.9. 53.0 total. There is a floor beneath every losing streak, and Lachimolala keeps finding new basements.

Nose Face Killah Crew (80.5) over What's Dunn is Dunn (71.4): An upset from the bottom of the West. Matthew Tkachuk (9.7), Vasily Podkolzin (7.5), and Sergei Bobrovsky (7.2) combined for just enough. WDD had Matt Duchene (10.2) and Quinn Hughes (8.4) but not much else. WDD drops to 12-8 and is now mathematically eliminated.

Elsewhere, The Spoked Bae (81.4) edged Panarin Bread (80.5) behind Connor Hellebuyck's 14.8 goalie points, with Jason Zucker (12.9) and Moritz Seider (10.3) keeping Panarin Bread close but not close enough. Both teams are 5-15. The scores are getting closer, the records are staying the same, and the season is finding its level.

Team of the Week

Don't Trust Aho clinched a playoff spot the way you'd want to: by making it look unnecessary. 152.4 points, the week's high score by nearly 20. Zero waiver moves. Eight players above 8.0. Necas (16.0), Provorov (12.6), and Celebrini (12.2) headlined, but every level of the roster contributed like it had been briefed. The ten-game win streak isn't just about talent anymore. It's about consistency so deep it looks effortless. Don't Trust Aho is 16-4, co-first in the East, and if there's a more complete team in this league right now, the numbers haven't found it yet.

Coldest Team of the Week

Lachimolala posted 53.0 points this week. Nine straight losses. Pavel Zacha (13.5) accounted for more than a quarter of the team's total output, which is not a stat that should be possible in a league with this many roster spots. Roman Josi added 7.5. Cole Caufield managed 6.9. Beyond the top three, the roster combined for 25.1 points across the rest of the week, which is less than what some individual players scored. The losing streak is no longer a streak. It's a season within a season, and the only question left is whether Lachimolala finishes the year with a number that requires a hyphen or a support group.

Transactions & Trades

The TAFO Shopping Spree and Other Business

Tkachuk Around And Find Out treated the waiver wire like a personal showroom. Five moves this week: Egor Chinakhov in, Nicholas Robertson out. Dylan Samberg in, Uvis Balinskis out. Then DeMelo dropped. Then Matt Savoie in, Eetu Luostarinen out. Then Mikey Anderson added for good measure. When you've clinched a playoff spot, every roster move is either fine-tuning or a flex. TAFO chose both.

Candy Canes for Hurricanes made four moves of their own. Mavrik Bourque arrived Monday and immediately posted 9.0 points, which is the kind of waiver pickup that makes other managers check if they missed the alert. Owen Power and Kaiden Guhle came in later in the week, with James van Riemsdyk, Nick Blankenburg, and Michael Bunting heading out. The blue line got an entire renovation and the season isn't even over.

McDaddy Issues had an interesting week on the wire. They dropped Connor Ingram, picked up Michael Bunting, then dropped Michael Bunting three days later for Ryan Shea. Also swapped Pavel Mintyukov for Radko Gudas. Michael Bunting was a McDaddy Issues employee for exactly three days. That's not a roster move. That's a temp assignment. At 12-8 and eliminated, the waiver wire is less strategy and more occupational therapy.

DeMan DeSmith DeLegend made two moves: Teddy Blueger and Brett Pesce out, Michael Misa and Jake Middleton in. The ten-game win streak earned them exactly one week of grieving before the roster changes started. Respectful, but efficient.

Net Results made one move, and it was the move of the week. Anton Forsberg, last week's redemption-arc shutout hero, was dropped Thursday. Joel Hofer was added. Hofer promptly posted 11.4 with his own shutout. The goalie carousel at Net Results continues to spin, and somehow every stop lands on the right name.

My Little Kraklings quietly added Michael McCarron. Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl dropped Kent Johnson. The rest of the league stood still.

Translation: The teams at the top are restocking shelves. The teams in the middle are rearranging them. And Net Results keeps finding shutout goalies on the waiver wire like it's a skill and not a miracle.

League Landscape After Week 20

East: The top of the division clinched in the same week. Tkachuk Around And Find Out and Don't Trust Aho are both 16-4, both locked into the playoffs, both looking down at a field that's starting to sort itself. Net Results and DeMan DeSmith DeLegend are tied at 14-6 for third and fourth. For DDD, the ten-game win streak is over, but the record it built still holds: two games back of first with the season winding down. Net Results climbed into the picture with back-to-back wins, including this week's 0.5-point thriller. Below that, Smashville Puckheads and The Em-VPs sit at 13-7. The Em-VPs' five-game streak is the longest active run in the East behind DTA, but the math says they're eliminated. Winning doesn't always save you when the teams above refuse to lose. What's Dunn is Dunn falls to 12-8, also eliminated. The playoff field is effectively set.

West: My Little Kraklings steadied the ship at 15-5, bouncing back from last week's stumble with a comfortable win over DDT. Candy Canes for Hurricanes moved to 14-6, one game back, with Wedgewood's goaltending and Bourque's debut signaling that this is a roster still adding layers. After that, it's over. McDaddy Issues (12-8) is eliminated. Strome Alone (10-10) is eliminated. The West will send two teams to the playoffs, and the only remaining question is which one gets the higher seed. Below the contenders, Hugh(es)SUCKS' win over DDD was a statement — not for the playoff race, but for the kind of spoiler energy that makes late-season matchups dangerous for everyone above them.

Moral of the Week

Last week's hero was dropped. His replacement posted a shutout. A ten-game streak ended at the hands of a team with nothing to play for. A matchup was decided by a blocked shot worth half a point. This league doesn't write endings. It writes rewrites.

Haiku of the Week

Ekholm blocks one shot
Half a point, full week of stress
Goalies explain naught

Current Standings

East Division
Tkachuk Around And Find Out 16-4-0
Don't Trust Aho 16-4-0
Net Results 14-6-0
DeMan DeSmith DeLegend 14-6-0
Smashville Puckheads 13-7-0
The Em-VPs 13-7-0
What's Dunn is Dunn 12-8-0
The Spoked Bae 5-15-0
FORMERLY Papi's Princesses 4-16-0
Delaney's Daring Team 4-16-0
West Division
My Little Kraklings 15-5-0
Candy Canes for Hurricanes 14-6-0
McDaddy Issues 12-8-0
Strome Alone 10-10-0
Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl 9-11-0
Stay in the Net 8-12-0
Hugh(es)SUCKS 6-14-0
Nose Face Killah Crew 5-15-0
Lachimolala 5-15-0
Panarin Bread 5-15-0

Serving Stats & Spilling Tea