TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ARE THE CHAMPS 2020-2022 THE NHL 2020-2021 SEASON THREAD (INCLUDING LIGHTNING HANGOVER AND OFFSEASON SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)

?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/29/us/coyotes-mitchell-miller-trnd/index.html

https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/travis-roy-paralyzed-ex-boston-university-hockey-player-dies-at-45/

bobby orr, big trump fan

-___-

Have you seen those new Stars jerseys? Yikes

https://defector.com/zach-parise-designed-a-hat/

obligatory: fuck designing a hat

Hey @VancouverSun change the headline to "Former Canucks anthem singer." #wearamask https://t.co/UZX5agK4pl

— Francesco Aquilini (@fr_aquilini) December 5, 2020

Is it just me, or was this Jarome Iginla being interviewed at a rest area during storm coverage and Ch. 25 might not have realized it? @NicoleOliverio pic.twitter.com/F43BCYeqg2

— Jim Clark (@In_The_Slot) December 6, 2020

pic.twitter.com/v2yWlfUiXH

— Henrik Lundqvist (@hlundqvist35) December 28, 2020

The NHL announced on Jan. 5 that the new divisions will be named after league sponsors for just this season. So get used to hearing: Scotia NHL® North Division, Honda NHL® West Division, Discover NHL® Central Division and the MassMutual NHL® East Division

we the scotia® north

gross

The Cialis Stanley Cup Playoffs ®️

— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) January 5, 2021

Congratulations to the United States tonight. It was closer than you might have wanted, but when you get two and the other guys get nothing, that’s a well-deserved win. Good job, the future looks a little brighter for you guys.

— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) January 6, 2021

NBC Hockey Broadcast Replaces Asshole With Another Asshole

milbury out, babcock in

Yeah that's... weird

happy kelly hrudey's 60th birthday everyone

And we are underway

20 yo Joel Farabee on pace for 224 points in 56 games.

watched the first 2 oilers canucks games (im an oilers fan who lives in vancouver, so very relevant to my interests), pretty decent. mcdavid with a nice hat-trick last night after not scoring any points the night before. glad the hockey is back. will enjoy all the games against canadian teams this season.

Yeah, all canadian division is very cool stuff. I think some of the teams are a couple of years away (OTT, MTL), but they're all decent to good.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsCHtNVXUAMUF3I?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

this might be the closest to an all canadian league we'll ever get

north and east division probably the toughest, i'd say

it bums me out it happened right before seattle was about to get a team, because this happens to be probably my second favourite team vancouver has had

what's your favorite?

they really shoved a bunch of good teams into the east, the group of death. it will be hard to assess relative strength with this setup, it's like college football or something

just noticed st louis in the west and dallas in the central, which seems like wrong geography

Yes, that is the coronavirus on the goalie mask of @penguins keeper Tristan Jarry. @PensInsideScoop had the story: https://t.co/sce5HAOEjI pic.twitter.com/iUcrY5aEwU

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) January 13, 2021

Gotta say, I really love this format.

Who streams games these days? I can get an espn login but other than that idk if I can even get Wild games over the air in Mpls.

last night the penguins, for the third time in franchise history, scored while shorthanded two men. goalie casey desmith got the lone assist for his first nhl point

here's 16 minutes of 3-on-5 goals: https://www.nhl.com/video/5-on-3-shg-in-nhl-history/t-277350912/c-5385637

surprising number scored by defencemen. feels like half of them are either by the flyers (usually mike richards) or against the rangers. modano's was the most impressive imo

Yeah, Richards was a SH monster. My favorite Flyer for a couple years there.

welp

Capitals' Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov are all in quarantine. Laviolette just said he believes all will miss the next four games and then under review.

— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) January 21, 2021

Regrettable

In Russia, etc.

lol torts benched pierre-luc dubois for the last 45 minutes of the columbus game and it's gonna get ugly

oh boy.

h8 torts but i can't exactly blame him. this was dubois' last shift

Everybody: “How dare Torts bench him!”

The constant level of effort to battle for the puck: pic.twitter.com/5EJxBsmYph

— Mike (@mikebrucePT) January 22, 2021

Looks like a guy trying to stay away from the boards or any contact so he doesn't get hurt before he is traded.

what's your favorite?

― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Monday, January 18, 2021 8:52 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i guess this is the obvious choice, but definitely the sedin era

i'm younger so i lived through it and was able to experience all of the excitement, though

having said that, it must've been something else to see cpt canuck or the russian rocket play

what about you?

Who streams games these days? I can get an espn login but other than that idk if I can even get Wild games over the air in Mpls.

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Tuesday, January 19, 2021 4:15 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you google it on game day you can find a few trustworthy sites

The Columbus Blue Jackets traded center Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday for right winger Patrik Laine and center Jack Roslovic.

Who's the first to flame out with their new team?

Laine. one does not move from winnipeg to columbus and find it an upgrade

people seem to hate playing in columbus -- is it the city, or tortorella, or something else?

and management

Maybe it’s the cannon

what about you?

― Punster McPunisher, Friday, January 22, 2021 10:24 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

hard to say...the bure/linden/kirk team was very easy to love when I was a kid, the sedins/luongo era came with a bit more angst (and some incredible moments). Canucks always seem to have one or two transcendent players, and eventual heartbreak of course.

Team looks way better after playing Ottawa three times in a row huh

penguins have one regulation win

also they are 5-3-1 (and bad)

Wings are bad too

The story behind your favorite team’s highest PIM game

I think I know the Flyers without clicking: early 00s game against the Ottawa senators that is the highest PIMs of any game in NHL history.

Paywalled, but I was right: the game even has its own (long) Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Flyers%E2%80%93Ottawa_Senators_brawl#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20the,and%20the%20Minnesota%20North%20Stars.

Same game is the record for both teams. The whole thing is up on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS-39I9mzqM Lol @ Senators announcers calling the fight like Rob Ray didn't get ragdolled by Brashear.

Those early 00s Senators teams were such dirty weasals.

The rest of the game proceeded without any fights; the Flyers only had three players left on their bench, while the Senators had two.[9] The Senators tallied the final goal of the game with 13 seconds remaining, with Peter Bondra scoring on the power play to make the final score 5–3.[10] At the end of the game, it took the officials 90 minutes to allocate all the penalties that had been given to the two sides.[11] The two teams combined for 419 penalty minutes, an NHL record, breaking the previous total of 406 in a 1981 game between the Boston Bruins and the Minnesota North Stars. Philadelphia's 213 penalty minutes was also a new League record, as were the 409 minutes assessed in the third period. Interviewed after the game, Mike Fisher of Ottawa said that the Senators "knew [they] had to fight back. [They] had to stand up for each other."[1]

as an adult i cant fathom how fuckin dumb bench-clearing shit like this is. like im the goalie and im supposed to just go and be mad at the other goalie with whomst i have had little to no contact until now, its like getting drafted into the Hockey Team army no fuckin way

Oh, definitely, despite being a Flyers fan I'm not pining for the 80s-90s glory days of fighting, especially when so many of the heavyweights have had concussion/mental health issues later in life. I do find it amusing/amazing that the league let insane shit like this happen.

I did have more respect for a straight brawler like a Rob Ray than a little weasel like Havlat who would do sneaky stick (and skate) work and often get away with it.

have you guys seen ice guardians?

the first half is pretty interesting, but the second half gets really weird because they use some weird logic to justify the role of the enforcer

Team looks way better after playing Ottawa three times in a row huh

― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Friday, January 29, 2021 11:00 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

ugh look at us now lol

as an adult i cant fathom how fuckin dumb bench-clearing shit like this is. like im the goalie and im supposed to just go and be mad at the other goalie with whomst i have had little to no contact until now, its like getting drafted into the Hockey Team army no fuckin way

otm but i did enjoy the occasional exception when once in a while you would see goalies shrugging or laughing, or visibly checking with each other like "you up for this?"

ugh look at us now lol

― Punster McPunisher, Friday, February 5, 2021 8:02 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

36 shots against per game, worse than chicago, is suboptimal

There were some classic Red Wings - Avalanche battles that included good goalie fights.

vernon v roy, i memmer

yikes

Well this is something. Hearing Brian Burke will join Ron Hextall in PIT. Burke as president of Hockey Ops; Hextall as GM
Going to miss this teammate, loved working with you Burkie

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) February 9, 2021

Hextall arriving 2-3 years too early for the rebuild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPA-e7qHAI

haven't seen this in a while

ah yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkQJEkzULRg

malkin still playing in Big Oaf Mode, but pens finally looked like they wanna make the playoffs last night v isles. never paid much attention to matheson before this trade, but he is ruling it right now.

mighty, fallen, etc

Here’s a wild one. Sources say Mike Babcock will be announced head coach of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies next week.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) February 20, 2021

oops, the sun

those nordiques jerseys were popping

happy 1000th game to 87

This is one of my favorite Wings stories

It's been 67 years since the @DetroitRedWings played against inmates at the Marquette Branch Prison in 1954 - the first outdoor game on record featuring an @NHL team.

Doc Emrick has the story. pic.twitter.com/33KjDuHPig

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) February 19, 2021

Gary Bettman said that "sunshine has always been our enemy."

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) February 20, 2021

same

this is so beautiful that i've watched it like 40 times

Cale Makar's moves are 🤤 pic.twitter.com/WwBGqtXfvr

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) February 21, 2021

Jesus

bring back michel therrien you cowards

Wow at the Isles beating the Bruins three times in a row, including a blowout tonight. Pageau is worth every penny.

isles shut out the pens for the first time since 1986 (kelly hrudey), breaking a 189-game streak

oh my lord pic.twitter.com/jFwZBTUP9N

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) March 6, 2021

whoa dope

very good

:D

That might be one of the best goals I've ever seen. I just watched that 20 times.

keep your feet moving, rasmus

that's a bc boy there with that crazy goal

stick a fork in the rangers

man, the sabres

TIL Patrick Marleau is 25th all time in goals scored & 3rd all time in games played

Flyers are down 9-0 to the Rangers at the end of the 2nd.

Scorigami! (maybe)

TIL Patrick Marleau is 25th all time in goals scored & 3rd all time in games played

former penguins great

lol at the league’s outrage over tim peel saying the quiet part on a hot mic

Jack Eichel  21 GP, 2 G, $10m
Jeff Skinner 29 GP, 3 G (and 1 A!), $9m
Taylor Hall  32 GP, 2 G, $8m
Kyle Okposo  24 GP, 1 G, $6m
Eric Staal   32 GP, 3 G, $3.25m

sabres are distinctly better with eichel in the lineup, okposo and staal are old, hall at least seems to be trying/trying to avoid being a former MVP on a two-way tryout contract next year

skinner though, jesus

Yeah, not convinced that Hall can actually return to form. A little nervous that Isles might pick him up at the trade deadline. Someone must have put a curse on Skinner though, he sort of went from a 40 goal scorer to nothing practically overnight.

wouldn't sign hall to a long-term deal, but isles need a winger with lee out and hall should come pretty cheap (and the islanders have the cap space). seems like a good rental

gonna be embarrassing when all the sabres get for him is a third-round pick

sabres up 3-0 after two, manage to lose in OT for their 18th straight L

I have a feeling they will get the Flyers next game. Flyers have been terrible lately as well.

!

Transaction: We have placed defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere on waivers today.

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 30, 2021

He's been terrible for a while.

the good old stickless breakaway

Jeff Skinner stickless breakaway is all time. Buffalo’s season is being run by Vince McMahon. pic.twitter.com/y8Rk2zac8G

— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) April 2, 2021

penguins with their first win in boston since 2014 peaking way too soon

If you have a stickless breakaway idk why you dont just bury it in a corner

Just need to make your kicking motion non-distinct

Bullrush the goalie imo

This is just awful. "More than half of the players on the Vancouver Canucks have tested positive for COVID-19... there are a few who are in "rough shape"...In addition, many family members of players have tested positive and are experiencing symptoms" https://t.co/UOgfSzSxYj

— Dr Kathleen Bachynski (@bachyns) April 4, 2021

it's horrible. Vancouver is having its worst outbreak ever right now, with harsh variants spreading. a lot of people in the Canucks demographic have tuned out the health advice and think they're invincible

https://www.twitter.com/AGrossNewsday/status/1379945278430720005

Ok I like this more than a potential Taylor Hall trade

honestly curious to see how much money taylor hall makes next year

Lots of trades, lot of teams going for it.

lumbus did well for themselves

My one Caps fan friend seems to think they got taken advantage of but Mantha is a hell of a player so

never thought i could think less of caps fans

Kind of feel Foligno will sign back with Columbus next year anyhow.

Kinda surprised the kings’ big 3 didnt take a chance to be moved tbrr

Im assuming they were offered a chance to move

tough to gauge all the possibilities

i mean taylor hall is a former mvp who has two goals this season, a fat salary, and had a no-trade clause. buffalo got shafted (or did they?) because that was the market

his fault for wearing a single-digit (non-nine) number as a forward imo

sounds like the caps did well to get mantha tho

a bruins-caps playoff series would be intense

This is why the Leafs exist. For moments like this. #Canucks

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 19, 2021

<3

ffs the penguins were up 6-0 after two, at home, against new jersey, and managed a 7-6 win

also hey congrats patrick marleau i guess

yikes

happy 25th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLdh2yxXg7I

i was living in minneapolis, didn't have cable and couldn't get it on AM inside my apartment. so i was outside in my car at 1am because my car radio could pick up KDKA pittsburgh 900 miles away

almost had a skater (artem anisimov) forced to play in goal!

https://www.nhl.com/news/senators-anisimov-ready-to-be-emergency-backup-goalie/c-324014362

xpost that was a great game! I never tuned in until the OT began (and Lemieux was already tossed) but was happy with the 3+ periods witnessed

Not every tweet’s a winner. pic.twitter.com/jG0l8t5OWy

— Matt Porter (@mattyports) May 4, 2021

some ugly shit

I won't even pretend to understand why that's bad and just say fuck the Caps

the 'violence' tom wilson chose was punching a guy in the back of the head while he was lying face-down on the ice

...and when panarin stuck up for his mate, wilson grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head to the ice, injuring him.

I found video, smgdh

no suspension too, fuck the NHL. Panarin done for the season apparently

i read his injury had nothing to do with the hit?

still a travesty - permanently suspend wilson and charge him with assault

ok think i was mistaken, sorry!

bold statement from the rangers

pic.twitter.com/M7tw4YOeDF

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) May 4, 2021

wau

NYR have fired John Davidson and Jeff Gorton

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 5, 2021

(Shouldn’t they have just each gotten a $5,000 fine?)

— Alison (@AlisonL) May 5, 2021

guess it's gonna be that kind of night

pic.twitter.com/VyOlycWafC

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 5, 2021

I was thinking earlier this will be the biggest rumble since Wings Avs

100 PIM in the first period

upsetting that the jets' abject collapse may rob us of a leafs-habs series

leafs have got to win at least one series this year right

brutal: https://defector.com/guy-boucher-where-is-he-now-ottawa-senators

The highlight of Guy Boucher’s time as Ottawa Senators head coach, a job he held for almost three seasons, was getting to the Eastern Conference Final in 2016–17, then losing in double OT of Game 7. The lowest point of his tenure came in November 2018, when a bunch of his players laughed about how much the team sucked as they rode in a car to a hotel.

kunitz forever

$250K fine for that Rangers tweet

I mean, glad to see the NHL going after the real bad guy.

and they're probably gonna suspend buchnevich for the cross-check...

fuck this league

im a lapsed hockey fan and shit like this does not help at all

The NHL is like the junior high vice principal that watches some older kids beat up a 6th grader, then gives the 6th grader a detention for being late to class.

bunch of bootlickers: https://www.tsn.ca/new-york-rangers-expensive-statement-galvanized-support-for-george-parros-1.1635561

parros went to princeton and is supposedly a very bright guy, but it's pretty weird having a career goon lead player safety. at least he doesn't have a son in the league, i guess

They should put Bobby Clarke in charge of handing out the Lady Byng.

College
Parros played four years at Princeton University, where he totaled 52 points and 119 PIM in 111 games. He was named team captain for his senior season in 2002–03. While at Princeton, Parros majored in economics and wrote his senior thesis on the West Coast longshoremen's labor dispute.[3] In 2010, he was chosen as the fourth-smartest athlete in sports by the Sporting News.[4]

today maxime lagacé became the 66th goalie to play for the pittsburgh penguins (and the 19th of them from quebec)

i'm not sure if that's more or fewer than i would have expected

feels bizarre to say, but this florida-tampa series will be v. intersting

I agree. Panthers have been great this year.

Fun fact: Every time in NHL history that the Leafs and Habs have met in the playoffs, the winner has gone on to win the Stanley Cup. https://t.co/4beVrK9iqq

— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) May 12, 2021

I'm obligated by birth to have a rooting interest in the Toronto-Montreal series.

Not seeing a huge amount of excitement for the Toronto-Montreal series here in Montreal, I guess mostly because everybody expects Montreal to lose in 5.

having announced that they’ll wear their yellow third jerseys for all playoff home games, the penguins will likely be swept

feeling quietly confident for oilers' series with the jets. then likely get beaten by whoever wins out of leafs and habs (leafs are just better and oilers didn't do great over the season against habs)

apparently every single playoff game will go to OT

great pace in the first game of the florida series

what a game

Am really pulling for the Panthers, especially since they haven’t won a series in 25 years. Crowd was great though.

WAKE UP PANTHERS

Alas

honestly incredible that they're making the flames and canucks play out the string with no fans this week

Pretty funny imo.

My useless Oilers didn't lose a single game against the Jets during the regular season so of course they're currently losing game 1 to them with 5 mins remaining

real shame what happened to the caps last night

90s hockey in a nutshell

On this day in 1997, Eric Lindros scored his first career playoff hat trick #Hockey365 #AnytimeAnywhere pic.twitter.com/eWY72SPED0

— Mike Commito (@mikecommito) May 20, 2021

The game is better now

I hated Lindros so much for refusing to play for Quebec

Tavares--terrible.

https://www.nhl.com/news/maple-leafs-tavares-leaves-game-1-on-stretcher/c-324872014

Hope Tavares is ok.

Isles-Pens currently have 10 people in the penalty at the same time.

(Everyone on the ice got a penalty at the same time)

hockey is very crazy tonight

Great games happening at the same time

and also leafs-habs

amazing florida comeback

Did not expect that

That isles-pens 3rd period felt like a whole playoff series in of itself.

Never seen Montreal being less enthused by the playoffs than tonight.

this is a city that watches the playoffs together, not like in our living-rooms alone? spilling out of cafe olimpico onto the street etc. so the circumstances suck :(

oh no a short-handed game-winner, rip ontario

congrats to the leafs for not leafing

mcdavid better hats himself tomorrow

Good grief Oilers. You had a 4-1 lead with 8 and a half minutes to go...

today the Jets truly became canada's team

huge night tonight. pens/isles see who jumps ahead, and three teams on the absolute verge! (plus leafs-habs.) my nerves!

OMG that Bailey 2OT winner. Isles were basically bailed out by an amazing Sorokin performance, but what a game. Also, go Panthers! Barkov is so great.

ffs

huge respect to sorokin and the isles' D but damn as a pens fan i am crushed! i know it's not over but damn.

still can't believe edmonton got swept

welp.
fire bergevin, hire a young quebecois genius for their dream job.
fire ducharme, bring in joël bouchard,
give weber to seattle

well at least i didn't watch it

go jets

Wild making a series out of it instead of rolling over like I expected.

nine years into the dual parise/suter 13-year, $98m contracts and the wild have won two first-round series

not trying to rip on them; it's just disappointing. and tbf they kept running into the chicago buzzsaw in the first several seasons

ps i love the sweaters and the state and bill guerin but 'wild' is still a stupid team name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyDsF-Gp3o

let's just... hold for a couple days about my whole fire everything everyone comment

<3

It has been noted that Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who wears #15, was playing in his 15th playoff game. He scored the winning goal at exactly 15:15 of overtime, ending his night with a time on ice of exactly 15:00. The winning goal in overtime was also the 15th total shot among the two teams.

Simulation must be glitching.

I don't watch enough hockey to know how routinely this happens, but I watched that overtime and Toronto demonstrably outplayed them; checked the shots on goal and it was 13-2 for the Leafs. Which is worth nothing, I know, but I hope that's a positive sign for G7.

more shots give more chances for weird deflections and rebound opportunities, but Price seems to stop what he can see. i think coming off an OT win gives that team some momentum for at least part of the first period of the next game. i need to find a way to watch this

I use sportsurge dot net

tyvm

you don't often see a nine-minute power play

predicting a leafs blowout tonight, but youneverknow

anyway it can't be as bad as game seven against the bruins in 2013, right?

would be pretty funny if joe thornton's veteran leadership resulted in teaching the kids how to blow multiple-game playoff leads tho

I think they might squeak by, but they’ll have their hands full with the Jets if they can’t get their Marner or Matthews going.

Avs look pretty intimidating so far.

yeah they look amazing. some beautiful goals last night

o shit

Lol, never change Toronto.

14 shots through two ffs

Two goals feel unsurmountable at the moment.

Exhausting

"lwafs blowout" in which direction? Like a leafblower?

Someone forgot to put 2 coincidental penalties on the board during NYI-BOS, and they wound up playing an extra minute of 4-on-4 hockey before play stopped/the officials realized it. I don't know how something that sloppy happens in a playoff game.

lol!

glad the habs are looking like doing it but kind of would like the leafs to score to make it interesting

carey price still got it

the habs are looking good!

xxp hey hey!

wow. did not expect the goalie to be pulled at that face-off.

xp :))

Lol leafs. Never in doubt (that they would lose).

I knew it was bad, but not havent-won-a-series-in17-years bad for the leafs.

feel bad for the nurses doug ford condemned to watching that

every other canadian team has won like at least 3 or 4 series in that same time period (and those canadian teams have generally not been any good!)

🗣️ OLÉÉÉÉ OLÉ OLÉ OLÉ

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) June 1, 2021

Real Montrealers know no team will ever represent the city as well as the Maroons.

Having lived in Montreal since 1995 and hating the Habs has not, at all, made me bitter.

Glad I'm not emotionally invested in hockey--I feel bad enough as a bandwagon guy, I'm sure there are lots of people really shell-shocked tonight.

xp been wondering for a while but okay tell us why you hate them and bring it all

My dad raised me to hate the leafs and pity their fans.
I pity both tbh.

lol. This series is the first time I've watched full games in ages. Feeling bad for my dad who is hoping to see the Leafs win another cup...

xp been wondering for a while but okay tell us why you hate them and bring it all

― mookieproof, Monday, May 31, 2021 9:51 PM (fifty-six seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not all of it is rational, it's sports!

It's part that they are the Yankees of hockey, in that they have had enough success already as it is why bother more, but also as in their fans are pompous and always quick to remind them of their rings and their celebrations of the past is so tacky (admittedly not as tacky as the Yankees let me be clear). I can't with the flambeau anymore. I can't.

The other part is you are a kid and you see the Mario Tremblay and Patrick Roy moment played in loop surely for years to no end it can't help.

Speaking of which, being a kid with all those great teams and superstars like the Avalanches, Red Wings, Penguins, etc, they probably felt less essential. My family's team is essentialy the Girondins de Bordeaux, I was born in Montreal but really my first few years were in Houston, it didn't really matter that I liked Brian Leetch and the Rangers for whatever reason, I was free of not loving the Habs.

But the biggest part for me is the ethnocentric chauvinism of fans which was probably all fine in the fifties when you couldn't get a worker to speak to you in french on St-Catherine, and I am always mad when anglo pundits don't believe Maurice Richard is a top five player ever. However, nowadays that same nationalism is as ugly and short-sighted as the current political equivalent. The french speaking punditry around the Habs is medieval in thinking and speaking hockey, but also in other more important issues. And anyway, who is the latest truly great French Canadian to play for the Habs? It's not like they have been contributing to development of hockey in the region in a positive way anyway (Quebec just doesn't produce players like they used to), so one hand it's nous autres but on the other hand it brings not tangible benefits to Quebec culture.

So all of that and then you get to hear about them 24/7 because of Montreal has to be, of course, a one sport city, which in a way was mirroring the short sightedness of Quebec culture until recently, it just becomes this awful thing.

Oh also they turned the Meccah of hockey into a shitty mall (with a good cinema nonetheless).

Imagine if they had done that to Fenway or Camp Nou.

i hear you but tbf they haven't won anything in almost 30 years; they're less like the yankees than, idk, the brewers or something

i suspect quebec produces as many good players as it used to, but also there are 25 more teams and the league draws from a rather greater pool than it used to. i mean it's not lemieux's or fleury's fault they got drafted by the best club elsewhere

sports fandom is inherently conservative, though! every fan will look back fondly on the times of victory, and i'm pretty sure that if mike keane or chris chelios had delivered, they'd be as fêted as Patrick or the '70s teams.

anyway i'm maybe too drunk to suitably make the point, but i think you're being unfair! i like the penguins, because i'm from pittsburgh, and have reasons to be proud of them and reasons to hate, say, the flyers and capitals. if the penguins were the lone team in the league from a location that spoke my language, i can imagine being even more invested

Isles win in OT and I can finally breathe for the first time in an hour or so.

fwiw Québec *does* have a problem with forming hockey players these days, the french media discuss it a lot-

players per million inhabitants:
quebec: 7.189
finland: 10.692
sweden: 9.57
canada overall: 11.49

i don't share Van Horn Street's anti-Hab consternation, possibly as a non-Québecer who moved to Montreal as an adult; i think i also have more <3 in my heart for québecois culture than they might, for understandable reasons. imo there is some of the Yankees in the Habs pedigree, but it's mixed up with a long recent history of being shitty which makes for a very good sports/fan narrative

pk subban forever though

Yeah the treatment of Subban was the final nail in the coffin for me.

I do have love for Quebecois culture in my heart. Just none for chauvinism across the board.

When the habs traded Subban that was it for me as well. I remember watching a playoff game the year after and was surprised to find myself actually not caring whether the Canadiens won or lost. If the team wants to go with a safe and boring style of hockey that's possibly defensible as a winning strategy, but don't expect everyone to keep watching and be excited about the team.

They'll probably win me back someday, but I haven't watched an actual game in several years at this point.

kk, suzuki and caufield giving a lot more reasons to watch again these days

I'm not enough of a hockey fan to care enough to make excuses, but I heard five minutes on the radio today (not a Toronto station) that made sense to me--evidently something people have been pushing for a while, so maybe it's been discussed here before: the ice surface needs to be larger. They were saying that the dimensions have been the same for decades, going back to a time when it was rare for a player to be over six feet tall, and when the pace of play was much slower. (Like if there were still a Polo Grounds around, and some guy hit 100 HR.) It's too expensive to retro-fit arenas, so they stay with it. With a team like the Leafs, they do really well in the regular season, when things are more wide-open, but in the playoffs, they don't (or can't) adapt to being boxed in. Which was exactly the feeling I got last night when I watched them trying to make something happen the last period: so many bodies in such a small space.

I am not a huge hockey head either... but why don’t people get boxed in during the season?

do you mean boxed in emotionally?

I'm not an expert either but I remember really enjoying Olympic hockey when it was played on the wider rinks. Seemed like the game flowed much better.

(xposts) According to the guy who was on there, there's just a more open style of play in the regular season; during the playoffs, he said, it becomes about taking up space.

I see... it becomes sumo wrestling on ice.

The point about the size and speed of players made a lot of sense to me, and I'm sure a skill team like the Leafs is hurt worst of all.

championship teams need both size and skill really

Yeah the Leafs failings are purely mental anyway.

I'll defer to the hockey people here (I can think of a baseball guy who would scoff at the idea that the problem is in their heads; I don't discount such factors myself), but I'll mention the Polo Grounds again, and another obvious parallel is the way they've had to adjust golf courses to the reality that guys now routinely hit 350 yards off the tee. With golf, I don't think you have to necessarily lengthen the course, you can also punish errant drives more severely.

Oh I 100% agree that rinks need to be re-sized.

it's not like players exactly cruise during the regular season, but the playoffs have a different level of intensity. everyone is trying to finish every check all the time, and at the same time the refereeing becomes more timid (i.e., bad) because the stakes are higher

i agree that bigger rinks would be better, but an even cheaper way to improve play would be to actually call the penalties that allow worse players to neutralize better players

that doesn't let the leafs or oilers off the hook, though -- colorado is just as skilled and doing just fine

One other option in golf: you simply take what used to be a par 5 and change it to a par 4. I don't know if it ever happens that cleanly, but I was watching a tournament on TV recently, and they were playing a par 4 that I'm pretty sure was some ungodly distance of at least 550 yards, maybe even 600.

well . . . par is meaningless. make them all par 7 and give everyone double eagles and the results will be the same. golfers are playing against each other, not a made-up number of strokes

Right--good point.

It probably matters a little in terms of the record book--lowest score ever at the Masters and such--but in terms of winning or losing, no.

how much bigger are we talking, though? the bigger the hockey rink, the more you introduce pacing into the game. i'm not necessarily opposed to a bigger rink, but i would be cautious as to how big, because one of the defining features of hockey is its speed and why i love the sport. while i enjoy european hockey, it's a much less subdued version of the sport, for the most part.

more subdued*

jesus that was a brutal hit

Vile. That might be a series suspension.

hope vegas can win a couple and extend that series because that was Good Playoff Hockey tonight

(also <3 MAF)

this, btw, is real class

This fantastic photo of Nikolaj Ehlers doing what he can to protect Jake Evans has been floating around various social media outlets without any credit to the photographer.

David Lipnowski/Getty Images pic.twitter.com/ltWa1Iblb2

— Seth Rorabaugh (@SethRorabaugh) June 3, 2021

Was that hit really as dirty as it sounds? Because it sounded truly wretched.

about the only good thing you can say is that he kept his elbow in. but the point of contact was evans’ head and he literally skated 200 feet to deliver the hit. and he was too late to stop the goal anyway

mike commodore has already come out with ‘scheifele stopped striding at the top of the circles and evans should have had his head up’ but i thought we’d reached the point where people realized that just because you *can* give helpless opponent a severe brain injury doesn’t mean you *have* to

Isles/Bruins series has been pretty evenly-matched so far. Did not expect to see an 8-goal period happen with TBL-CAR.

My Jets bandwagonning looks to be short lived.

the time has come for me to officially renounce my post of May 25th

I feel like as soon as I start seriously paying attention to the Habs they are going to start losing, so staying away for now

i don't dislike the jets. i've enjoyed watching all these canadian teams play against each other in general.

right now, i'm more concerned that the knights are winning, fleury be damned.

Jets are not even mounting much of a fight so far.

poor tukka

I think Tukka has been good this series in general, and is pretty adept at being able to block out all the Boston media/fan complaining. Did not realize how banged up the Bruins' D was, but was very surprised to see Isles get three power play goals.

Also, wow Habs--7 wins in a row.

funny how now the canadiens will now wait for the american teams to finish up their series

as every single canucks fan is saying right now, we really should have kept tyler toffoli

toffoli was good in the canucks. we lost so many good players this season, it's frustrating. we'll see how that blue line does next season

the habs get some time off and the knights-avs series is intense, so hopefully they go into the semifinals with a bit of an edge

honestly very very curious about how the MTL-COL/LV series will play out

COL/LV will be beat up
MTL is confident and will be rested

COL/LV seem like the better teams - but so did the Jets and Leafs

more importantly, the Habs this year are - in the words of their GM - "enigmatic." Not clear to me that the opposing coaches will have an easy time cracking the code of how to beat them since they themselves have only been playing this way for like a week!

Islanders <3 <3 <3

Bruins kind of disappeared tonight.

:( RIP MTL-BOS final

so in the semis we've got two four-seeds, a three-seed, and whoever wins the west

not sorry to see the bruins get fucked but . . . i don't think the habs or isles are really worthy. tampa is good but i am against them. so i guess i'm for the west winner (even though montreal is my second choice)

btw that was quite a shot by mark stone last night eh?

bit of advice for goalies: before you join the nhl, have a name that's long and multisyllabic, like vasilevskiy or hellebuyck, not an easily chantable, two-syllable name like TUUUU-KKKKAAAA or JAAAA-RRRRYYYY.

this is some game

never win the president’s trophy

it does seem cursed

three conference finals appearances in four years. that's almost an appearance every year since it was founded in 2017.

bettman must be grinning from ear to ear

sad that we (presumably) won’t have trophies for the third-round winners to touch/not touch

go Habs imo

never mind!

forget the Cup; i’m pretty sure the habs have never won the campbell bowl

The #StanleyCup Semifinals are set.

In addition to a spot in the Stanley Cup Final, the winner of the @GoldenKnights vs. @CanadiensMTL series will claim the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, while the @NYIslanders and @TBLightning will battle for the Prince of Wales Trophy. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/l8tMHf1yaz

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) June 11, 2021

isles, man

Great defensive game by them, capitalized on the surprising amount of Tampa giveaways/turnovers.

i caught the last period and i was pretty impressed by the isles

come on, habs. you're our country's only hope

In support of the @CanadiensMTL's pursuit of the Stanley Cup, as Canada’s last remaining team in the 2021 @NHL playoffs, the Canadian Horseshoe Falls will be illuminated tonight in Red, White and Blue from 9:30 to 10:00pm., the night before the team begins its next series. pic.twitter.com/BzwmRgbCoc

— Niagara Parks (@NiagaraParks) June 13, 2021

the game is pretty physical so far. i feel like it's on the edge of turning nasty

Hold on nowpic.twitter.com/T2mYhwJCzP

— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) June 15, 2021

three goals from defencemen tonight

It's 115 degrees in Las Vegas tonight -- the hottest game-time temperature in @NHL history, per an announcement inside @TMobileArena. @GoldenKnights @NHLNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) June 17, 2021

hottest gametime temperature SO FAR

i was posting on another hockey forum because i think posting here last time was bad juju.

price was on fire, the puck dropped perfectly most of the time for the habs, and they seemed in control for a good portion of the game.

the pietrangelo goal was a fluke. it went right through three players. the knights have killer momentum, though, but the habs d kept up.

also, happy birthday to juice. i love listening to his analyses.

nhlpa player poll: https://www.nhlpa.com/player-poll/2020-21

oops

TIE GAME! #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/zRtUJs6swv

— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) June 19, 2021

That's the playoff Fleury I know.

indeed

habs magic

c'est incroyable

Haiti goalkeeper Josué Duverger with possibly the best/worst own goal in history against Canada 🙃

(via @onesoccer)pic.twitter.com/JW0Z2IC7HI

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 16, 2021

Here’s the @Sportsnet replay pic.twitter.com/ocw0JYMWEc https://t.co/lbhpTUsRZD

— The Hockey News (@TheHockeyNews) June 19, 2021

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

i don’t at all mind cory perry bleeding per se, but it’s the NHL in a fucking nutshell that all four officials ‘miss’ that but god forbid the puck goes over the glass

Pesky Isles. Pelech & Pulock are lifesavers.

Chris Lee with a front row seat to Brayden McNabb punching Nick Suzuki in the face. Nothing.

I don't see how the NHL can continue trotting these two guys out. IT IS THE THIRD ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS.

— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) June 21, 2021

What is even happening with the islanders right now

Sure seems like the worst game they’ve played under Trotz.

it's one game; shake it off

while giving braden point the conn smythe tho

Point is on a incredible run.

Céline Dion, a traitor, poses in Vegas Golden Knights attire https://t.co/zJNdBD5qZy pic.twitter.com/Ag30mMi9j1

— Montreal Gazette (@mtlgazette) June 23, 2021

wow

Rude

photoshop

lol

ffs braden point

OMG

that photoshopped image is in bad taste. there's a certain type of team that would do that. the la kings are one of those teams, as well.

i don't particularly care who celine dion supports, but there's something kind of evil for wanting to give the appearance of your own people turning against you, for lack of a better phrase. yes, i know dion wore a knights sweater when performing in vegas, but that's what entertainers do for fun, so that's different.

the kings did the same thing when they said "you're welcome" to the "rest of canada" for beating the canucks.

sorry, this is probably just a pet peeve of mine.

also, stoked the isles won this one. both series have been so intense and fun to watch.

Pandemonium

Wow Habs

Bonne St-Jean!

I can't believe it

it would be so awesome if price gets a cup

https://i.imgur.com/sPHI0NG.png

that's a beautiful face right there

If the Isles pull it out it will be quite the underdog final. Pretty sure no one had that in their bracket.

Shows how the regular season is useless.

Habs were 24 and 32 and goal differential of -9.

They managed to outshot the opponent 4 times out of 17 games (includes one tie).

This is the 1999 Sabres.

yeah habs had fewer points in the regular season this year than the rangers and the stars. 18th in the league overall, I think

i am a habs fan and i cannot understand this at all except through the lens of "dom ducharme's system really did take a certain amount of time for the players to integrate into their play."

nah, Carey Price is Jesus and that's about it.

danault and kotkaniemi are pretty damn good

If it’s against Tampa I hope they win, fwiw.

anyway 2021 habs >>> 1991 north stars

go habs go

GO HABS GO

Sigh. Go habs, do the impossible.

i see that no one has the hart to discuss that first game. i get it. pretty dire for the habs. kinda concerning. now i'm worried about a sweep, which would be a boring way to end what's been an absolutely wild playoffs. so, please, habs, make a go of it! also, i hope gallagher is ok. hopefully he just got his head scraped across the ice rather than bashed into it. the slo-mo looked scary. but he looked more annoyed than concussed after, just bloodied. so hopefully that's a good sign.

agree that the Habs look outclassed, maybe Price can save them but idk how

my main hope these past couple of years is that Stevie Y does as great a job rebuilding the Wings as he did building the Lightning

Still a bit stung by the Isles game 7 loss. Isles-Habs would have been so exciting and unexpected. Tampa seems unlikely to be fazed by the Habs, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Tampa seems unlikely to be fazed by the Habs, but I hope to be proven wrong.

same

i thought the habs looked quite overmatched in their first game against Vegas. Hoping they can find matchups/get a lucky bounce tonight. When they get that first goal they're almost like a different group

the lightning illegally circumventing the cap has given them an edge. if the nhl is going to turn a blind eye, i kind of hope all teams start doing it. but putting kucherov on LTIR, and only activating him recently, thus not counting his $9.5 million salary toward the cap, allowed them to get savard

I don’t think it’s technically illegal? Kind of a loophole. I assume any team in the same position would do the same thing. Should probably be a rule that a person has to play a game in the regular season in order to qualify for the playoffs.

it's not illegal, sorry. i guess this just has me upset over how this league operates

This is just LTIR? This has been a part of the CBA since the first lockout in 04-05.

So maybe shooting less than the opponent was the best strategy.

So you're telling us we've seen this before from Blake Coleman.... 🤯 #StanleyCup

(🎥: @Sportsnet) pic.twitter.com/Jx2Xz3h1CX

— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) July 1, 2021

welp

Yeah this is gonna be over soon

Fuckin Sun Belt franchises

- edmonton carolina
- ottawa anaheim
- mtl tb

- calgary tampa

I’ll add Buffalo - Dallas

i didn't even remember these ones this is how dead to it ive become

idk i live in montreal and hockey isnt my sport but any other year idve been swept up in it? but not seeing people & also it not feeling "real" and also being all-in on ottawa and edmonton those years (i lived in ottawa just before that year, and ryan smyth was a great mascot) i just... i can't

but ill tell ya

i watched a video of quinn hughes skating yesterday and it almost was enough to reawaken the hockey fan in me. unreal

in more trivial matters, victor hedman became the first player to score a goal in all 12 calendar months

and

At 19,786 days, the @MapleLeafs have officially tied the @NYRangers for the longest @StanleyCup drought of all time. #LeafsForever #NHLPlayoffs

— Since Leafs Last Cup (@LeafsIastCup) July 2, 2021

better than coleman's

🤯🤯🤯#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/xVA5FC498i

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) July 6, 2021

☺️

just as well they choked in '16 and '19 or we'd have an honest-to-god dynasty on our hands

even so . . . pretty fucking impressive

congrats florida! you have a good team, especially when you egregiously bypass the cap

i kind of hate this team, because a younger team like tampa winning it three times symbolizes such a disgusting trend. horrible, undeserving fan base to boot. all business over love of the sport.

kudos to vasilevskiy, though. he was out of this world. he looked possessed whenever he was on the ice.

i also noticed this was probably one of the few times i didn't hear people booing bettman. the sooner he is out, the better this league will be.

Lol @ egregiously bypass the cap. They are only like the 50th team to ever do that in the last 17 years.

what they did is legal per the rules, like it or not.

had few illusions that the habs could dig themselves out of that hole, but was really hoping for one more win for them. oh well. was kind of fed up with caring about this season anyway. ready to move on. bring on the expansion draft so we can get that over with too! maroon to seattle, kraken win the cup, maroon gets back-to-back-to-back-to-back!

totally legal! totally common! but egregious, and this habs homer will not let the Lightning forget it. given how much the cap constrains (most) top teams, it is literally unfair (although definitely not illegal) for that roster to have played.

the purpose of the salary cap isn't to create parity (which the nhl has more of than any other pro league I follow anyway), it only exists so team owners can avoid paying their employees their actual worth

agree! but better parity's clearly one of the side-effects, and there are clearly a slew of rules surrounding the cap that are meant to maintain that. (the LTIR loophole remains baffling - best i can see it's from the lack of a super easy fix?)

it's not all black and white. there's levels to circumventing the salary cap that are more acceptable than others. the LTIR loophole that the lightning found and abused of is on a bigger scale

Habs should have circumvented the cap too.

That being said I don't mind younger teams winning it 3 times, hockey has room to grow, I just wish it was Winnipeg, or Nashville, or San José, or whatever, just not Winterbirdopolis.

Where does this Tampa team rank against the greats? They seem pretty tough.

"Winterbirdopolis"?

Hillsborough County (where Tampa and Tampa Bay is located) has a median age of 37.2, which ranks 58th of 68 counties in median age in FL, in fact is below the median age for Florida as a whole (42). snowbirds don't go to TAMPA, they go to places like Sumter County

this tampa team is one of the best. the players themselves are extremely skilled.

neanderthal, it's a reference to a lot of canadian snowbirds vacationing anywhere in florida, i assume, not moving there. also, i imagine canadian snowbirds visit anywhere where they can stretch their canadian peso, so you even get people going to the less popular parts of mexico

still don't think 'Tampa' is their destination but

snowbirds definitely go to clearwater, st petersburg, tampa etc.

yes, it doesn't define the city, the probably make up a perishingly small % of the population in the winter. although i imagine they're overrepresented at hockey games

A lot of the snowbirds I know congregate around Tampa.

But in the context of hockey, where Tampa and Sunrise share the division with Toronto, Ottawa, in no small part because of the snowbird audience.

At any rate, I have my doubts Tampa will ever become a hockey city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfwEHN7rEvY

Nikita gueule.

Too bad he doesn't have a legion of cheering drunk fans to talk to

this is all steve yzerman's fault

Love it. Best presser cap space can buy.

lol the sens hired pierre mcguire as a vp of player development

also the oilers traded actual assets for the right to pay the ghost of duncan keith $11m over the next two years

that's some peter chiarelli shit, despite him being gone for two and a half years

You have to feel bad for McDavid (until you remember he's making $11M a year or something like that).

nine years into the dual parise/suter 13-year, $98m contracts and the wild have won two first-round series

welp

I was in MN when both were announced, and I can still remember Dan "The Common Man" Cole chanting:

Winning the Cup will be easy
Now that we've got Parise

you thought he was done

incredible pic.twitter.com/B4aSRzOfkK

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) July 12, 2021

there's more where that came from

https://nhl.nbcsports.com/2021/07/11/kucherov-continues-glorious-stanley-cup-celebration-with-18m-over-cap-shirt/

https://i.imgur.com/zjanzF9.png

People who have figured out how to live.

oh man that shirt

Things are about to get interesting this week with the expansion draft + actual draft + free agency. Do we need a new thread?

get to work jimmy mod

crazy times in montreal

Ya

8 ARMS TO HOLD THE STANLEY CUP THE NHL 2021-2022 SEASON THREAD (INCLUDING LIGHTNING HANGOVER AND KRACKEN SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)