2019 NHL playoffs

[kirbivore]

Patriots fans have become entitled and country club and basically have become Super Bowl win or the season is a failure and fhe season doesn’t start till the second week of the playoffs.

 

[Ghost]

This was a travesty .. bs major penalty on a nothing cross check leading to FOUR PP goals ?

This call may be one of the first I've seen in sports that seems to have brought on universal outrage - as in, everyone I've spoken to, or read online has pretty much said, "if that happened to my team I would burn the world to the GROUND!!!!"

Horrible call.

 

[Cowtown]

Bruins are legit favorites now

I'd wait on that call until I see what happens tonight.

 

[Cowtown]

The more entertaining team has lost every series. Brutal.

And McDavid and Kane didn't even make the playoffs.

 

[creatorsgam]

Down go the defending champs. Great game.

 

[Alsacs]

6 of the 8 teams with home ice advantage lose in the first round.
Only NY Islanders and Boston won with home ice advantage in the first round.
The West is wide open.
Colorado vs. San Jose and Dallas vs. St. Louis.

East is
Columbus vs. Boston and Carolina vs. NY Islanders.

 

[OburgOrange]

I'd wait on that call until I see what happens tonight.

Like I said.

 

[OburgOrange]

6 of the 8 teams with home ice advantage lose in the first round.
Only NY Islanders and Boston won with home ice advantage in the first round.
The West is wide open.
Colorado vs. San Jose and Dallas vs. St. Louis.

East is
Columbus vs. Boston and Carolina vs. NY Islanders.

Amazing

 

[Cowtown]

Like I said.

Okay! It's safe now!

 

[Cowtown]

Amazing

Bettman is having acid reflux.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Bruins are legit favorites now

I think the Islanders are alot better than people think.

Out West, I also think Colorado is legit despite their low seed. They have for sure the most dangerous line in the game right now.

 

[creatorsgam]

After sweeping the Pens, the Isles drop an OT game at home vs. a team that came off a game 7 2OT game 2 nights ago.

Can’t do that.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

After sweeping the Pens, the Isles drop an OT game at home vs. a team that came off a game 7 2OT game 2 nights ago.

Can’t do that.

When one team had a relatively long layoff and the other just came off a tight series that went the distance, the long layoff team is often times not ready game 1. As the series progresses, the rest advantage will show up for NYI

 

[creatorsgam]

When one team had a relatively long layoff and the other just came off a tight series that went the distance, the long layoff team is often times not ready game 1. As the series progresses, the rest advantage will show up for NYI

Maybe, but these are pro athletes. That rings true more in Conference/Cup Finals. Dropping game 1 in hipster paradise is a body blow.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Maybe, but these are pro athletes. That rings true more in Conference/Cup Finals. Dropping game 1 in hipster paradise is a body blow.

Barlcays not near the home ice advantage that the Naussau Mausoleum is.

 

[creatorsgam]

Barlcays not near the home ice advantage that the Naussau Mausoleum is.

^^^ this.

 

[Cowtown]

Barlcays not near the home ice advantage that the Naussau Mausoleum is.

But new, gentrified Brooklyn is a lot more fun than Uniondale.

 

[Cowtown]

And Charlie McAvoy has become yet another Boston dickhead.

 

[CanadianSU]

Barlcays not near the home ice advantage that the Naussau Mausoleum is.

Must be frustrating for the fans.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

what if we end up with a carolina, columbus, dallas san jose final four? can't think of a more boring situation. i hate boston but I want them to get to the finals and lose to colorado..the only two interesting teams left.

 

[Cowtown]

what if we end up with a carolina, columbus, dallas san jose final four? can't think of a more boring situation. i hate boston but I want them to get to the finals and lose to colorado..the only two interesting teams left.

Just IMHO. Two big problems: First, the officials have been told to throw the rule book out for the playoffs. So while you need a faster, lighter team for the regular season, you need a different team for the playoffs. Second is Bettman's salary cap. To begin with, several of the league's stars didn't even make the playoffs (Kane, McDavid, Price). The teams with the high profile talent have to pay them so much so they don't have enough left for the third and fourth lines. So the teams with a little better balance run 4 lines at top speed, all through the game. This means teams with any remaining talent (Tampa, Washington, Toronto, Calgary) have their elite lines worn down by relentless waves of basically C+ players, journeymen and rookies.

So Ottawa has already dumped all their talent to rebuild, and Toronto won't have enough $$$ to re-sign their up and coming kids. Chicago's decline began when they couldn't hang on to their second-line players and then signed Toews and Kane to huge contracts.

So the league has a problem. Its profile is at an all-time high, and the owners are making shtloads of money but they don't want to pay anyone other than a couple of high profile stars per team. It's like France in 1789 .

 

[Alsacs]

Just IMHO. Two big problems: First, the officials have been told to throw the rule book out for the playoffs. So while you need a faster, lighter team for the regular season, you need a different team for the playoffs. Second is Bettman's salary cap. To begin with, several of the league's stars didn't even make the playoffs (Kane, McDavid, Price). The teams with the high profile talent have to pay them so much so they don't have enough left for the third and fourth lines. So the teams with a little better balance run 4 lines at top speed, all through the game. This means teams with any remaining talent (Tampa, Washington, Toronto, Calgary) have their elite lines worn down by relentless waves of basically C+ players, journeymen and rookies.

So Ottawa has already dumped all their talent to rebuild, and Toronto won't have enough $$$ to re-sign their up and coming kids. Chicago's decline began when they couldn't hang on to their second-line players and then signed Toews and Kane to huge contracts.

So the league has a problem. Its profile is at an all-time high, and the owners are making shtloads of money but they don't want to pay anyone other than a couple of high profile stars per team. It's like France in 1789 .

Salary caps are tied to league profits.
If the league is making more money the cap goes up.
It’s just like the NFL.
Edmonton’s problem has to do with the fact Peter Chiarelli ruined their cap paying people like Milan Lucic 7 million a year.
You can’t sign bad players to big money.

Montreal will be a playoff team next year they barely missed this year.

Chicago’s core got old and those guys got paid. Chicago is struggling because they never drafted well enough to overcome the fact their vets got old.

Red Wings just hired Yzerman they will be fine now.

The cap is fine. It’s just don’t overpay players who aren’t good.

 

[Cowtown]

Salary caps are tied to league profits.
If the league is making more money the cap goes up.
It’s just like the NFL.
Edmonton’s problem has to do with the fact Peter Chiarelli ruined their cap paying people like Milan Lucic 7 million a year.
You can’t sign bad players to big money.

Montreal will be a playoff team next year they barely missed this year.

Chicago’s core got old and those guys got paid. Chicago is struggling because they never drafted well enough to overcome the fact their vets got old.

Red Wings just hired Yzerman they will be fine now.

The cap is fine. It’s just don’t overpay players who aren’t good.

Montreal is a middling team at best that has no goal scorers. Yzerman doesn't score goals or block shots. Chicago finished at the top for so long there was nobody left to draft at 8 years of no. 30 picks. But we can play point-counterpoint all day and it won't really prove anything. And neither of us will see a line-up of NHL GM's outside our doors.

Anyway consider last year when an expansion team with no real stars almost won the Cup with their no stars, 4 lines model. Why is it they can get to the Cup final in their first year while other teams have been struggling for decades chasing success via the old model? That was the flare, this year is proving the warning out. The game has changed substantially and it's SO much faster now than even 10 years ago.

And finally, The NHL can't survive without success among the American teams. But at the same time, American sports fans want a few stars on their teams, and there aren't enough to go around. Success will come to the teams that are ahead of the curve.

edit: and we still haven't addressed the problem with the officials. The playoffs are fun to watch during the first round, and even into the second. The semis and the final are boring, check-check-check, dump-and-change games. I expect this year it will be even more so.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Salary caps are tied to league profits.
If the league is making more money the cap goes up.
It’s just like the NFL.
Edmonton’s problem has to do with the fact Peter Chiarelli ruined their cap paying people like Milan Lucic 7 million a year.
You can’t sign bad players to big money.

Montreal will be a playoff team next year they barely missed this year.

Chicago’s core got old and those guys got paid. Chicago is struggling because they never drafted well enough to overcome the fact their vets got old.

Red Wings just hired Yzerman they will be fine now.

The cap is fine. It’s just don’t overpay players who aren’t good.

If you have several elite young talents , you’re hosed .leafs have marner, Matthews , nylander ...this makes it difficult to even have one not so good contract with the cap .. the margins shouldn’t be so razor thin .. owners def owned the players after the last work stoppage

 

[ForCuseSake]

Salary caps are tied to league profits.
If the league is making more money the cap goes up.
It’s just like the NFL.
Edmonton’s problem has to do with the fact Peter Chiarelli ruined their cap paying people like Milan Lucic 7 million a year.
You can’t sign bad players to big money.

Montreal will be a playoff team next year they barely missed this year.

Chicago’s core got old and those guys got paid. Chicago is struggling because they never drafted well enough to overcome the fact their vets got old.

Red Wings just hired Yzerman they will be fine now.

The cap is fine. It’s just don’t overpay players who aren’t good.

Good examples, I agree with your take.

There's a lot wrong with the NHL but the salary cap doesn't limit the ability to stockpile talent. Dumb personnel decisions, usually FA signings, are suicide in today's game.

There is no better example than Buffalo.

Tim Murray took a huge swing and miss with FA signings like Kyle Okposo, Matt Moulson when trying to emerge from the tank years. They've crippled the Sabres by tying up over ~$12M per year in cap space for what they thought were 2 top two line players.

Neither of them came close to their production with NYI and have played no better than 3-4th line grinders.

NHL teams need to scout like crazy and draft extremely well to build a consistent contender. Sure there's a little bit of luck involved but there are ways to do it right.

I do believe coaching makes a gigantic impact and there are fewer top flight coaches in today's game than in year's past. Maybe it's the fact that NHL teams fire coaches almost as quickly as European soccer clubs.

I'm impressed with how Trotz turned the Islanders around after Tavares' departure. Lamoriello is a master architect. If only the Pegulas had half a brain to hire a President of Hockey Ops and leave him alone.

Nobody wants to work for Kim.