Things That Caught My Eye

The Nashville Predators are the betting favorites to win the Stanley Cup, with the team accumulating the most overall points this past season. What’s remarkable about the Predators is that they don’t have a single offensive star; seven forwards finished with at least 35 points but none of them had more than 64 points. That’s the fewest points for an NHL Presidents’ Cup winner’s top scorer in more than 30 years. [FiveThirtyEight]

Angels phenomenon Shohei Ohtani is the superstar he was touted to be; he got three homers and two wins as a pitcher in his first 10 games, the first time a pitcher has pulled that off since about 1920 and the dead ball era. He’s got the fourth highest strikeout rate and the 17th lowest walk percentage this year. [FiveThirtyEight]

Through Monday, LeBron James has made 52.3 percent of his shots from 28 feet or further from the hoop. That is the best deep ball percentage since at least the 2000-01 season, when such play-by-play data is first available. That success is outpacing Steph Curry’s death-from-above three pointer season in 2015-16. [FiveThirtyEight]

Try out our interactive, Which World Cup Team Should You Root For?

A consortium of investors is offering FIFA $25 billion for the rights to FIFA’s club competitions and a potential global league for national teams. This eye-popping figure wasn’t enough to overcome a tabling of the matter ahead of additional research — European representatives worry that such a competition would compete with UEFA Champions League. But come on, money is offered to FIFA you think they can push that off forever? [The New York Times]

There are 18,201 total seats in the Toronto Maple Leafs arena. There were 672 of those seats available to an exclusive pre-sale for their first home game. After the pre-sale, there were a mere 96 available seats left to the general public. I’m beginning to get the idea that the biggest city in Canada may like hockey. [CBC]

As of right now, FiveThirtyEight’s model gives the 10-1 New York Mets a 50 percent chance of making the playoffs. Eleven games ago, during the preseason, the odds were half that, with a 24 percent chance of making the playoffs. Heck of a start for the Mets. Meanwhile, a bit uptown, the 6-6 Yankees’ odds of making the postseason have fallen around 10 points in the same period to 65 percent. [FiveThirtyEight]

Big Number(s)

150/1

Those were the Las Vegas preseason odds of the expansion team Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup. As of March 18, those long odds had steadily dropped to 6/1, and now the William Hill sportsbook puts them at 13/2. [Darren Rovell]

Leaks from Slack

neil:

@Neil_Paine today isn't an official sports equinox, but I do think it's close to the most games you can get in one day: 15 MLB

12 NBA

3 NHL

1 MLS — zachary (@zvazda) April 11, 2018

kyle:

and champions league

surely counts more than mls

neil:

MLS fans get in my inbox every time I’ve written about the Sports Equinox

tony:

LA derby > Manchester Derby

cwick:

El Trafico is such a great name for a derby

Predictions

Oh, and don’t forget