Here we go again, the regular season has ended and it's time to turn our heads towards the playoffs. After the long winter we are now slowly also in spring time up north. Who will shine? Who will fall? Time will tell.
Structure & Prize Pool
Lainaa5.7 ECL Lite Playoffs
In ECL Lite, 8 out of 16 teams from each group will make the playoffs, in which they will be seeded against all playoff-bound teams in ECL Lite from best to worst according to the system detailed below, as well as with the general tiebreakers mentioned in 11.3.
• Group winners are seeded #1-4
• Group runners-up #5-8
• Teams that finished 3rd #9-12
• Teams that finished 4th #13-16
• Teams that finished 5th #17-20
• Teams that finished 6th #21-24
• Teams that finished 7th #25-28
• Teams that finish 8th #29-32
The winner of ECL Lite will be instantly promoted, along with the runner up, and the bronze-game winning team. Teams finishing from 4th to 9th in the playoffs will be placed in the Pro – Lite qualifier for the ensuing ECL season. Teams that finish 15th and 16th in their group will be directly relegated to Core, whilst teams that finish 13th and 14th will find themselves competing in the Lite – Core qualifier for the ensuing ECL season to secure their position in Lite.
Schedule
Lainaa10.6.3 ECL Lite
Playoff Schedule
• Round-of-32: 08.05 – 12.05 (BO7)
• Round-of-16: 15.05 – 25.05 (BO7)
• Quarterfinals: 30.05 – 02.06 (BO7)
• Semifinals: 05.06 – 08.06 (BO7)
• Finals: 15.06 – 16.06 (BO7)
Arkham Asylum topped the regular season groups. Conceding less than one goal per game in the regular season is impressive and achieved through good team defence and final lock @PCJP (Pelkonen-I92I) had been solid throughout the season.
Even though hockey is a goal scoring game, defence always plays a big part especially in the playoffs. Teams that defend tight and shut down opponents' scoring chances will always go far in the postseason. Good examples of this are the aforementioned Arkham Asylum (group2), Bastu (group2), Södertalje SK (group3) and Project X (group4). In the midseason report I noted that even though Destiny was at the top of the standings, they conceded much more goals than other top teams and that continued throughout the regular season. Let’s see if they can continue scoring goals when the teams start to defend tighter.
When looking into the stats there are a couple surprises to be found. @Jusa (JusaSoLow) scored 50 goals in the regular season but if you have played against his team HC Shh you'll know where those numbers stem from. The overall top scorer came from Spirit in the form of @Toivonen_, who topped the player stats. The best defenseman on the scoring sheet was @Eemil (eKoski_) from Tadpole, the strong team definitely helps, without even going into the skillset of the man himself. In terms of goaltending, @Jiihooo86 was on a level of his own - the captain of the Resurrection was a key player for them to advance to the playoffs. His impressive SV% and GAA shows that he still is one of the best goalies around. Let’s see how he will perform in the playoffs.
Resurrection had a slow start to the regular season and almost didn’t make it to the playoffs as I predicted on the midseason report. They proved me wrong and showed that they belong in the playoffs with the lead of their veteran captain.
The first playoff round usually is a bit slower and there's an adjustment process going on, so it doesn't always show the complete diraction of the playoffs. Some teams may have slow starts to the runs and some teams may outperform in the first round. There are interesting matchups so let’s try to predict a little and speculate who will continue from the first round. Here's a few predictions on a couple of the first round marquee matchups:
Arkham Asylum - Frölunda HC Academy 
4-1
Even though Frölunda have skilled individuals, Arkham’s defense is so good they shouldn't have any problems to advance. Maybe they take this series in four games but I'd like to see that Frölunda can steal one game.
Tadpole - Pata Hellalla 
4-0
Former Pro team Pata haven’t found their game this season. They clinched a spot in the playoffs in the last round of the regular season. I don’t want to ruin anyone's day but I don’t see them in the second round.
4-2
Offensive power meets the solid fast puck movers. In terms of defense these teams are even, but Destiny has the fire power and shouldn't have any problems to advance from here.
Spirit - Resurrection 
4-1
If JiiHooo86 can shut the net they can make it more even. Still Spirit’s offense is the key to their success and I'd expect them to run over Resurrection.
Synergy Hockey - Neptune Hockey 
4-0
Synergy's former Pro and Elite players didn’t shine too much in the regular season but now playoffs are a different beast. Neptune Hockey played well in their first Lite season but the experience from Synergy Hockey will take them to the next round.
Socials
Here's an update to the social media instructions. Our sponsors this season are Kouvolan Lakritsi, St Hockey & Wilhelm.
Twitter:
When posting tweets of your lineups, matchups, recaps, clips, articles - or any other content you might want to create - please make sure to tag the following accounts and hashtag:
@SportsGamerGG
#ECL22Spring
#NHL22
#esports
#kouvolanlakritsi
#MukanaWilhelm
Instagram:
When posting on Instagram, please make sure to tag the following accounts and hashtag:
@SportsGamerGG
#ECL22Spring
#NHL22
#esports
#kouvolanlakritsi
#MukanaWilhelm
Note: It is very helpful and critical for us to succeed in getting our partners tagged, so they get the necessary mentions and interaction to validate their participation in the future. That being said, it is understandable that there may be circumstances due to your other partners where you are unable to tag competition etc. Your support is appreciated.
As there are quite a few hashtags by now, especially from a Twitter perspective with limited characters, we recommend using at least #ECL22Spring in the text part of the tweet and leave the sponsor tags for the end. If you need to cut out tags, remove #esports and #NHL22. For Instagram this shouldn't be an issue.
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