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NHLGamers! The ECL 8 Lite Playoffs are finally here and we have got some very strong teams that will battle each other for a Pro spot. From each group the teams that finished top 8 will make the playoffs. The first round of the playoffs will start today on Thursday, February 7th, 2019 and end on Wednesday, February 13th, 2019. According to section 5.6.1 of the ECL 8 Rulebook, the first round of the ECL 8 Lite Playoffs will be played as follows: In ECL Lite, the top 8 teams from each of the 6 groups will make the playoffs. For each group the top 2 teams will have a bye round and advance directly to round 2. All remaining teams will be seeded according to the tiebreakers mentioned in 11.3. The top 4 teams of these seeded ones will also advance directly round 2. This leaves 32 teams playing in round 1, where the top seed plays the 32nd seed, 2nd seed will play 31st etc. The winning teams will be merged with the bye teams and play the 2nd round, making a total of 32 teams competing in round 2. Tiebreakers (ECL 8 Rulebook 11.3): Wins (including OT-wins) Head-to-head record (points in mutual games) Goal difference (across all games played) Scored goals (across all games played) After the first round, all remaining teams are again re-seeded. Every series are played in best of seven games and the highest seeded team will play the first game at home. (10.7.2 ECL Rules). Here are the matchups for round 1 of the ECL 8 Lite Playoffs: (17.) Mighty French Roosters vs. Atomic Hamsters HC (48.) (18.) Chatbox vs. Uncle Dens (47.) (19.) Suomen Sonnit vs. Stayhard Stallions (46.) (20.) Vesa Pompa HC vs. Niederrhein Canucks (45.) (21.) Finnish Hockey Legends vs. Pink Panthers HC (44.) (22.) Reaperr vs. K A R H U T (43.) (23.) Kaukosen Luistin vs. Korpens Finest (42.) (24.) EV Fuessen eSports vs. Campo De Juego (41.) (25.) Me Carvoset vs. UnderRated Lekstuga (40.) (26.) Farminaattorit vs. Kouvola Screaming Eagles (39.) (27.) Beast Hockey vs. Polarbears HC (38.) (28.) LammasLauma vs. Red Devils HC (37.) (29.) North Pole Huskies vs. Poston Fruits (36.) (30.) SKA vs. SKA Hokurit (35.) (31.) Western Express vs. Rusty Bulls (34.) (32.) Nordic Nosebleed vs. Club Savage (33.) Play hard and fair out there, see you on the ice! ECL Lite Writing Team, @Tonimo92 & @Willander97

Many games have been played this past week. Passes have been made and goals have been scored and it is time for us to reveal our POTW. This week we have chosen @Klassikko_ of Perttilan Kommandot. The finnish defensman had 3 goals combined with 10 assist in 6 games and a spectacular +/- of +25! PSN-ID: Klassikko_ Team: Perttilan Kommandot Position: Right Defenseman Games played this week: 6 (North Pole Huskies, Scrubs of Sweden, FarmiNaattori) Goals: 3 Assists: 10 Points: 13 +/-: 25 @Willander97 had a chance to catch up with the man in such great form lately. Congratulations on being named the Player of the week! How are you feeling about that? - Thank you. I have to say that I wasn't expecting it so I feel very surprised. In the past you have been playing as a forward, what made you start playing as a defender? - We have many players who played last season in Perttilan Kommandot also. One defender wanted to try to play forward this season and I was interested in playing defense. Perttilan Kommandot is currently leading leading their group in Lite with a record of 20-3-1. What makes your team so good? - Like many other teams we also try to play as a team as good as we can. Every guy participates in defense as well as in offense. We also have a team captain (Jarmonen) who knows how to boost up the team before the games. He also possesses great tactical vision which helps us to win tight games. If you have to pick a player from the Lite division and add him or her to you roster, who would it be and why? - There are many good players in lite but I have to say @ahonaattori from The Dudes. This guy makes everything for his team so he would be a good addition for Kommandot also. Last question. How far will you guys make it in the playoffs? - We will go as far as we deserve. Hopefully we can use the marketplace which our captain has already booked to celebrate our rise to ECL Pro. Thanks for your time Klassikko_ and we wish all the best for PeKo and yourself in the postseason! ECL Lite Writing Team @Willander97 & @Tonimo92

Hello NHLGamers, For this season of ECL Elite we are tweaking the recurring segment that looks to detail the ‘hottest’, ‘coldest’ and… ‘mildest’? teams in Elite over the past week. There will be more of an emphasis towards the quantitative approach, so expect more graphs and fewer walls of text. Each article in this series will be released on Mondays and will thusly be based on the days in between each power ranking iteration. In addition to this it should be noted that each ranking will invariably be in some way biased as it is, at the end of the day, a subjective list. Note: Each article will be based off of results starting from the Monday, all the way up to (& including) Friday. Ergo, any games played over the weekend will generally end up being a week 'late' so to speak. The logic behind the ranking is admittedly a sort of internal subjective ranking that weighs up results, opposition 'strength' as well as thoughts on the general play during some games. As such a ranking is not 100% quantifiable in nature there will be some bias that creeps in. One thing I would like to make abundantly clear however is that points are not the be all and end all within these rankings; for instance, just because 3 teams have the same record does not mean they won't be ranked wildly differently, as the context behind said results are of great importance and simply cannot be understated. Previous rankings: Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 - 1. FILADELPHIA (4-0-0) [+2] 2. Symphony (7-0-1) [+6] 3. Deadly Phantoms HC (3-1-0) [+3] 4. Rusty Blades (4-2-2) [-2] 5. Dynasty (3-3-0) [=] 6. Team Frosty (3-5-0) [-2] 7. Butterfly Effect (5-0-1) [+2] 8. Northern Stars (3-2-3) [+2] 9. AIK Hockey (2-1-1) [+5] 10. Almost Famous (5-3-0) [+3] 11. Bucketeers (3-3-0) [=] 12. Written in the Stars (0-0-0) [-11] 13. Unlucky Boys (1-3-0) [-6] 14. HC Wildcard (0-6-0) [+1] 15. Synergy Hockey (1-2-1) [+1] 16. Resurrection (0-4-0) [-4] Standings Timeline *The "playoff cut-off point", as well as the "relegation zone" lines are rough estimations of where the respective areas of Elite will fall once the regular season has been wrapped up. So, in other words, if a team is able to get over the green line, they 'should' stand a very good chance of making the playoffs, whilst if a team cannot make it past the red line, then there is a good chance that they will have to fight a relegation battle in order to assure their Elite spot for next season. Analysis As we enter the home stretch of the season it appears as though the ‘blocks’ outlined last week have remained somewhat, albeit with some notable differences. For instance, Symphony have moved up into the upper bracket off the back of a very strong surge as of late, consequently joining the likes of Written in the Stars, Dynasty, FILADELPHIA & Rusty Blades. Regarding the final playoff spots however we find some stark development. For instance, despite a week to forget from Team Frosty, they still remain within the group of 4 (Butterfly Effect, Deadly Phantoms HC, Almost Famous) who harbour the best shot at clinching a berth. Time is running out for Frosty however, as they are sitting on the cusp of 8th/9th thanks to a great performance over this past week by DPH who are now nipping away at their heels. If any of these teams fail to find traction and cannot gain any more points from the remaining games on their schedules then they may be in for a rude awakening as, whilst the group has thinned slightly with Synergy effectively being out of contention now, the pace of the teams trailing them cannot be written off. AIK Hockey, Northern Stars, Unlucky Boys, Resurrection & even Bucketeers all have had a noticeable uptick as of late and could conceivably put on a late push, of course some are more likely than others (e.g. AIK still have a couple games in hand compared to most), nevertheless, all of this just makes for perhaps a more interesting end to the season than years past. Projection The section looks to, well, project where a team will finish based off of all the games they have played thus far. -- And with that, we can now conclude the fourth edition of ECL 8 Elite's power rankings. Hopefully next week we will see the stratification continue so that we can pick out any further trends with ease. ECL Elite Writer @MartindalexC

NHLGamers! We've gone three fourths of the way through the qualifiers of the Capitals Esports Face-Off. We're happy to announce that we will see plenty of European colours in the final event, as @Eki and @Eken45jr paved their way through in the first qualifier as we already wrote. It is also with great pleasure we bring the news that @MrNipsuli managed to make it through on the second qualifier weekend, the other finalist from that qualifier was Regs84. The third qualifier was played last weekend and unfortunately no European players made it through that time, but 3 out of 6 is a great record nonetheless. @PleeMaker has been a goal away for qualifying, and it seems like he won't be pursuing another run at this tournament as the Bolts Chel Challenge qualifiers are hosted simultaneously as the fourth qualifier next week. Confirmed Capitals Esports Face-Off Finalists: Eki eken45jr Regs84 MrNipsuli- THEY_SPEAK_OF_ME Cheez Whizzzzz A short recap of what the Capitals Esports Face-Off is all about: The Esports Face-Off is a versus tournament open to both EU and NA players on PS4. The tournament is played in a double elimination format alike the NHL GWC. Four online qualifiers will be organised prior to the final event. On top of competing for a $10,000 prize pool, the top 3 players will have the chance to attend the 2019 Chel Classic, representing the Washington Capitals in a 3vs3 showdown against the top 3 players of the Bolts Chel Challenge. The Capitals Esports Face-Off will continue as follows: February 2nd - Fourth Online Qualifier February 22nd - Final Event March 19th - 2019 Chel Classic More info and registrations over at https://smash.gg/tournament/capitals-esports-faceoff/details Congratulations to Eki, eken45jr and MrNipsuli- on behalf of all of NHLGamer! Your NHLGamer Editor, @jahajaha93