The Everything NHL Thread

tennisace

not quite too old for this, apparently
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well that was a quick "i care about hockey" streak gg caps have fun in r2 where ovi will continue blowing dicks (15 minutes in g7 of a playoff series lol)
 
where ovi will continue blowing dicks (15 minutes in g7 of a playoff series lol)
He had the most points for our team in this series. He gets no time because there is almost no point in putting him out there when Chara and Seidenberg are so dominating. I think they were trying to keep him fresher than Chara/Seidenberg to give him some kind of a chance to make something happen. He had a lot of great chances tonight that lesser goalies/defensemen wouldn't have stopped.

Good series. If Boston got rid of Marchand and played all of their games as clean as they did the last four they'd be both great AND respectable.
 

Carl

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He had the most points for our team in this series. He gets no time because there is almost no point in putting him out there when he's been a defensive liability. I think they were trying to keep him off the ice to give him some kind of a chance to not help the other team score.
I fixed that part for ya..
 
holy shit what do you mean there's rounds after the first one

Also Ovie's ice time wasn't that low, basically every forward on the team was between 14.5-16 minutes at even strength because of the way Hunter was rolling lines, it just winds up being lower than many other players' since he doesn't kill penalties (which there were 3 of) and there were few powerplays (1, which he played 1:10 of). He definitely looks lost defensively sometimes, but 5 points in 7 games the way that series went isn't bad... though even +/- isn't comforting. He still winds up tied for most points in the series.



EDIT: Additionally, I know I'm in the minority here since most of you only care about what the Caps are doing from a fantasy and entertainment perspective, but the strategy shift works for me, and the way they played Ovie in this series does, too. I don't necessarily think they couldn't have won a cup if they'd kept playing run and gun but it's a lot more vulnerable to teams that play trap hockey than any other team strategy, and if you haven't notice, every team that's made it to round 2 but Philadelphia plays trap hockey, and if we get a Florida win we'll add another(Devils, Rangers, Senators all play reasonably aggressively most of the time, though Rangers aren't afraid to turtle up, either). Unless the NHL decides to revert back to the version of post-lockout hockey that actually had rules it just makes more sense to play defensively in the lawless wasteland that is this era of hockey, and Ovie playing 20 minutes doesn't work for that strategy, even looking at fatigue more than ability(though he can't seem to figure out the concept of covering his Dman). It's sad the Caps had to do what they did to what was probably the most interesting team in hockey to have a better shot at the cup, but that's what the discipline and officiating have led us to.
 

New World Order

Licks Toads
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Holtby's gotta be the early Conn Smythe favourite

hahaha ive seen that, the best part is i went to seguins highschool / saw him around which makes that even funnier
Shoulda asked for his autograph when you coulda. ;)

And by "I've seen that" do you mean you've seen the sign or you're seen Seguin get sucked off. jkjk
 
Any of the three would get it if their teams won -- kinda silly to argue beyond that since none of them would get it if they didn't. Though I kinda wonder if it shouldn't be Sutter/Tippet/Hunter getting the Conn Smythes in those cases given how much of those goalies' stats are from their systems. I don't mean to knock them too much by saying that -- they've all been there when it's counted and made some amazing individual plays -- but all three teams are designed for the goalies to be the stars(especially Phoenix). Though after how frustrating it was to watch Detroit and Chicago while I was rooting for them(and I imagine Pittsburgh for fans of that team) because of their shitty tending even on very savable shots, maybe I shouldn't be downplaying the goalies so much.



As a Caps fan I sure do love Holtby, though. He was always supposed to be the future -- even more so once Varlamov was shipped off, though Holtby was always projected to be the better of the two -- but listening to the guy in interviews it's just so easy to believe in him. Great attitude, seems intelligent and composed, focused on the end goal of the cup... hard not to imagine him being one of the leaders of this team in a couple of years. Feel bad for Vokoun, though: while he ran out of options on some level I admire players who take short, cheap deals to try to win, feel bad for him driving his own value down by doing it and ending up on the bench.
 

jrrrrrrr

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Fluke ending to a terrible series, can't say I'm surprised. Every game was uglier than the last. I'm almost glad the Bruins lost, now I don't have to suffer through another month of this unwatchable playoff season with 0 teams that anyone would ever want to root for. It's saying something bad when a Philly team is the only entertaining team left. First the league gets embarrassed with their handling of on-ice incidents, now all of their major markets except possibly New York are eliminated, leaving only the most boring "put 5 guys in front of the goalie and pray they make a turnover" teams...these playoffs could not have gone any worse from the league's standpoint as well as a fan's. it's too bad all of these teams can't lose.
 
Fluke ending to a terrible series, can't say I'm surprised. Every game was uglier than the last. I'm almost glad the Bruins lost, now I don't have to suffer through another month of this unwatchable playoff season with 0 teams that anyone would ever want to root for. It's saying something bad when a Philly team is the only entertaining team left. First the league gets embarrassed with their handling of on-ice incidents, now all of their major markets except possibly New York are eliminated, leaving only the most boring "put 5 guys in front of the goalie and pray they make a turnover" teams...these playoffs could not have gone any worse from the league's standpoint as well as a fan's. it's too bad all of these teams can't lose. #butthurt #salty
The Capitals used to be one of the most exciting teams in the league but that just doesn't work anymore. The officiating has been bad but it seems like it's getting better. There wasn't a bad call at all last night. Maybe you could have given Lucic a penalty for the interference on Chimera coming off the bench in the 1st. Other than that it was good.
 

PK Gaming

Persona 5
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So... did you guys see this yet?(checked the last 3 pages and found nothing of the sort so...)

http://chirpstory.com/li/6781

A bunch of racist tweets directed towards Joel Ward after his goal. Pretty enlightening... I doubt they'd act this way in real life, but the anonymity of the internet can drive people to do some crazy things. Keep in mind that this isn't representative of ALL bruins fans, but it's definitely a head shaker.

the story=> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...caps-bruins-racist-tweets-fans_n_1454495.html

Hockey isn't my jam, but I just wanted to let you guys know.
 

alamaster

hello
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^ yeah, I read the same thing from some Pens fans on tumblr making racist comments towards Wayne Simmonds when he scored in...game 3 I think?? There was also the incident where somebody threw a banana on the ice when he was participating in a shootout in London, ON but that guy got charged thankfully. People need to grow up.
 

Eraddd

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My respect for Thomas grew after he gracefully conceded a loss and told a fan to smile after the game. Pretty damn hard to accept loss for such a competitive guy like Thomas, and to do that shows a lot of character.

As for the racist comments, the vocal minority will always overshadow the majority. There will always be assholes on the internet.
 
Turns out hockey fans in general aren't as educated and cultured as we like to pretend they are.



In news that involves people who are slightly less despicable, apparently Luongo is demanding a trade. Not that him getting moved after Schneider finishing the series and him getting harassed for years is really a surprise to anyone, but it kind of plays the Canucks hand for them(as well as weakens his own trade value). For all the shit Luongo gets he could make a lot of teams better and should get some interesting assets back for Vancouver, interesting to see how that plays out.
 

jrrrrrrr

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A bunch of racist tweets directed towards Joel Ward after his goal. Pretty enlightening... I doubt they'd act this way in real life, but the anonymity of the internet can drive people to do some crazy things. Keep in mind that this isn't representative of ALL bruins fans, but it's definitely a head shaker.
Actually it is not representative of Bruins fans at all. Almost all of the tweets singled out by news media were from people living far away from Boston. And even if it was mostly from Boston, which it's not, I'd rather have a knee-jerk reaction to the guy's race on twitter than have my city being burned to the ground like certain other fans of certain other losing teams did. It's not like he's getting death threats.

So i guess it was a fluke that the bruins won the cup last year.....
The Red Wings and Devils are the only teams with 2 Cup wins in the last 15 years. If last year was a fluke then you could say much worse about almost every winning NHL team from our lifetimes. I'm kinda glad there aren't any dynasties at the moment in the NHL.

The Bruins made the playoffs 5 straight years with only 2 first-round exits, and every series they've lost has gone 7 games. The Bruins are going to be a legit contender for the next several years, their success under Julien is no fluke. Most of their core players are already under contract for next season, and most of their big-name talent is still very young. This is the end of a season, not the end of the team.
 

jrrrrrrr

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I can't find any reports of them, and the only reports about the tweets are from less-than-reputable sources scrounging up crap from the lowest seeds of the internet. No real news stories about racism from people actually in Boston. The crowd at the Garden didn't really seem to care about his race either. This is not a real problem, just a handful of worthless internet blogs trying to make a big story for page views.

Everything I found about the issues were from obvious Boston-hating writers with no journalistic integrity using it as a soapbox to insult the entire Boston fanbase. This is evidenced by the fact that I couldn't find any articles without the words "Boston "fans"" with "fans" intentionally put in quotes. I think that is more pathetic IMO. Trying to make money from the soapbox by inventing news is way more immoral to me than a handful of frustrated fans who know one word that annoys people.

I am actually seeing more reports of people who posted the tweets getting death threats than Ward himself.
 
Round 2 Predicts:

Capitals over Rangers in 6-Just a feeling that Caps will finally break through and move onto the ECF. Didnt like how the Rangers were outplayed at times against the Sens and the Caps are deeper than Ottawa.

Flyers over Devils in 5- Devils look tired and banged up and are against a rested Flyers team. If Florida can score 9 power play goals versus the Devils I hate to see what the Flyers will do. Flyers are too deep.

Kings over Blues in 7- Really hard to choose since both teams are so similar. The Kings wont be frustrated by the Blues system since they are so used to playing low scoring games. The Kings power play and more talented forwards give them the edge.

Preds over Coyotes in 6- Not hard to pick. Preds are much better in every area and Rinne can match Smith. Preds looked really good against Detroit and was not impressed at all with Phoenix in round 1.
 

Aldaron

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My predix...

Caps over rangers in 7
devils over flyers in 7
kings over blues in 7
preds over coyotes in 7

ya that's right, super exciting r2
 

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