Leaderboard

What a first round we had! It was full of surprises with only one out of the top 6 seeds continuing to the second round. This definitely shuffles the pack around quite a bit so let's take a look at what the quarterfinals bring to us. We welcome you all to join the featured broadcast on Tuesday the 14th of January as we'll be covering Otukset vs Herlev Eagles. Pro Division Playoff schedule (BO7) Round of 16: January 6th – 9th Quarterfinals: January 13th – 16th Semifinals: January 20th – 23rd Finals: January 29th – 30th (4) POGGERS - (16) SSK ESPORTS (12-3-3-12) POGGERS Round 1: 4-1 vs The Oldtimers Poggers showed their experience in the first round and went through without much trouble. It was a good performance from the whole team with each of the attackers contributing offensively and @Terodee (LaurinHaavi) 3+6=9 providing strong support from the blue line. After allowing 3.47 GAA in the regular season it went down to just 1.8 GAA with @Samilandia upping his save percentage to 85.94%. SSK ESPORTS Round 1: 4-2 vs NOSTREETSPORTS After somewhat of a controversial series SSK managed to take advantage of their opponent's roster struggle. They continued their strong defensive play with two shutouts and were in control of the play for most of the series. They did allow two late-minute goals in two of the games which is something that they can't let happen going into this series. @zuppe_29 (8+7=15) is tied for the lead in points after round one and he will need to continue to lead their offense. Poggers are known as a team who are here to enjoy their time and have fun. When you add their skill level and experience into that it often turns tight games in their favor. They also showed their ability to adjust to playoff hockey. SSK will face yet another team that has high scoring power but now they won't have additional factors helping them. They will need to stay out of the box against the league's best powerplay and use their counter-attacking chances efficiently. Predictions: @Vamoux 4-2 Poggers @Pekedipeks 4-1 Poggers @hifk_FANI 4-0 Poggers @IJepuxI 4-2 Poggers (7) Otukset - (15) Herlev Eagles Otukset Round 1: 4-1 vs Bjorkloven Esport After a tough first game, Otukset found their groove winning four games straight allowing only 3 goals. @Roisto999 was their star of the round posting 86.96%, 1.8 GAA, and 2 shutouts. If their 5-0 victory in game 5 was a statement of what's to come they will be a tough team to beat. Leading the way offensively for them was @Miguli36 with 4 goals and 7 assists. Herlev Eagles Round 1: 4-3 vs DILAC Herlev Eagles was responsible for one of the biggest upsets in round 1. They managed to shut down DILAC in game 7 after a thrilling series which included 3 overtime games. Heading into the series a lot of expectations were set on @MartindalexC and he delivered leading the team with 7 goals and 7 assists. @Dreamickie also had a strong series posting 14 points as well. Both of these teams have been in the pro division for a long time but playoff success has avoided them. Now one of them will make their way to the top 4. They both have the offensive power needed but I will be looking at the goalie play in this series. @Roisto999 has seen it all on the highest levels and has been strong all season long. For Herlev, the situation is more open with @jubens_ getting the responsibility in round 1. He played well but @Provokacija has been their main guy throughout the season and was clearly stronger during the regular season. Predictions: @Vamoux 4-2 Otukset @Pekedipeks 4-3 Otukset @hifk_FANI 4-1 Otukset @IJepuxI 4-3 Herlev Eagles (10) Blackbirds - (13) Ismon Valinta Blackbirds Round 1: 4-0 vs Aspyre Blackbirds stormed through Aspyre and were the only team to sweep their series in round 1. Lead by @sopuli04 and @aomyo6195 (7+8=15 each) their offense was on a whole another level almost doubling their regular season numbers. They were able to generate a lot of scoring chances and used them very well with shooting percentage nearing 30%. Ismon Valinta Round 1: 4-1 vs Zenegeim Ismon Valinta played a tight and low-scoring series against Zenegeim before blowing them out 9-0 in game 5. @Hulkkol posted an impressive 87.88% with one shutout and gave them the support to win the tight games in the series. @xrikardo55 (7+8=15) was their highest scorer but 9 of those points came in the blowout win which leaves the question open whether they can find more offense in the following rounds. Either of these teams making it to the top 4 could be considered a slight surprise. Blackbirds have proven their doubters wrong again and again, and are making a great run on their first pro season. Ismon Valinta has one of the most experienced defense partners in the league and has made a successful switch from forward to defense for the playoffs. Ismon Valinta is the stronger side defensively and their hot goaltending gives them a slight edge heading into the series but I could see it going either way. Prediction: @Vamoux 4-3 Blackbirds @Pekedipeks 4-3 Ismon Valinta @hifk_FANI 4-0 Blackbirds @IJepuxI 4-3 Ismon Valinta (11) NOVA - (12) RYHTIC NOVA Round 1: 4-2 vs HC Lugano eSports NOVA had their season on the line after losing the first two games of their series in overtime. On the deciding matchday, something changed and they were dominating winning the last 4 games with a 14-1 goal difference. @Baranizer (90%, 1.17 GAA, 3 SO) was the best goalie of round one and was their most important player through the series. @Nester4343 continued to lead their offense with 3+11=14 points but the whole team was contributing with the lowest scorer having 7 points. RYHTIC Round 1: 4-3 vs Gotham Knights RYHTIC arguably got one of the toughest matchups for round 1 and came out victorious after the game 7 "bouncefest". Statistically, they might not have been the better team but the team used their chances and were solid defensively. Goaltender @JussinSisko had a great series with 84.38% and one shutout. @Limbe65 (6+2=8) scored some important goals including two game-winners and their powerplay was on point with 6 goals scored on 11 chances. RYHTIC has been in this position for multiple seasons in a row now and has been performing well. They're hoping that this could finally be the season they can take the step that would take them to Elite after being so close so many times. Their opponent NOVA found their form at the correct time but RYHTIC will still be heading into the series as favorites. If NOVA can keep playing the way they played the last four games of the first round, anything can happen. A lot will depend on whether @Baranizer can keep up his red-hot form. Prediction: @Vamoux 4-2 RYHTIC @Pekedipeks 4-3 RYHTIC @hifk_FANI 4-1 RYHTIC @IJepuxI 4-3 RYHTIC Follow the Playoff streams: Please post dates, times and links for streams in the comments of this news story and social media, to help everyone find your team streams. You can watch SportsGamer's live coverage of the quarterfinal matchup between Otukset and Herlev Eagles on Twitch, YouTube, and X on Tuesday, January 14th. Exact time is still TBC. Who do you think will win each series? Let us know in the comments!

Around three weeks ago LA received a report that @Keuschemisch was adding additional points to game reports that were not present in-game. After investigation, here are the findings: In order to carry out the investigation we cross-referenced SportsGamer match results with EA API metadata from seven tournaments stretching across two EA NHL titles. By comparing what we have on record vs. what EA says happened we can see if the stats line up. For instance, in the screenshot below we can see what it looks like when the stats between the two sources line up. All of the players listed have the same number of goals and assists on both the EA API, as well as what has been reported on the SportsGamer site after the games were finished. Generally speaking, people seem to be doing a pretty good job at maintaining the balance between accuracy and speed at which the reports are completed – so to the captains of the SportsGamer community, good work! That said, mistakes do happen and there are times when an extra assist gets added to one player that should have gone to someone else, however as shown in the screenshot below Keuschemisch is a major outlier. No other player across the seven tournaments worth of data is even close. To make matters worse, those 25 points came over the course of only four of those said seven tournaments. For completeness here is the list of players who have had points deducted by accident over those same seven tournaments. Furthermore, as seen in the overview below, a number of Keuschmisch’s additional points come by way of assists being granted when the EA API does not note one being recorded. In order for this to occur when reporting, the individual must edit the EA readout at the bottom of the page before then going back up to the dropdown box to select their name as one of the assisters on a goal. This means that it changes from a potential ‘misclick’ to a two-step process as seen below. Finally, when a game report is completed, it saves the username of the individual who did it, and in these games Keuschemisch was the user who completed the game reports. Therefore, we believe with the evidence listed above that the increase in stats seen on Keuschemisch is not by chance or an error and is in fact a conscious effort to boost their point totals artificially. Keuschemisch claims that the reason for this stats increase is a box score glitch. It is worth noting, that we have also seen video evidence of games where the alleged assists have taken place and been able to confirm that the player in question was nowhere near to getting an assist. Due to the scale of the stats manipulation across multiple tournaments and EA NHL titles, we have decided to suspend Keuschemisch from all SportsGamer tournaments from today’s date (10/01/2025) up to and including 28/02/2026, furthermore, Keuschemisch will receive a captaincy suspension that will run from today’s date (10/01/2025) up to and including 10/01/2030. Finally, for full disclosure, LA received the original report regarding this on the 20th of December 2024. To facilitate this investigation we had to create from scratch a tool to ingest and transform the data from EA’s API into a viewable account of all games from any tournament played on the SportsGamer platform, which we will now be using going forward to proactively scan for players manipulating statistics in a competitive environment. (Update: It should also be noted that from this investigation and the evidence gathered, LA is confident in saying that captains @Toneee9, and @Timasy were not aware of the stats manipulation that was going on, and as such should not face any public (or private) backlash.) League Administration