Topic: Hockey Discussion: The Leafs Would Like To Borrow Taylor Hall's Horseshoe

[Adrock]

I thought the menacing red eye was a tongue at first so now all I see is a happy snake.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Stanley Cup Qualifiers are underway, and even though we're just one game in, and not even that for some teams, there have been some surprising results so far. My Flyers beating Boston today wasn't exactly shocking given how they played them during the regular season, but just how thoroughly they did it was surprising. Carter Hart was nearly flawless in goal in his first career playoff game, with Boston's lone goal not being his fault, and the Flyers depth really showed, with the 4th line scoring two goals. They're picking up right where they left off as the hottest team in the NHL when things shut down.

[Ian Sane]

Canucks lost game one.  Waiting months to see hockey again and five years to see your team in the playoffs (though maybe I should write it as "playoffs" for the qualifying round) only for them to get shutout is very disappointing.  In the context of a whole season the odd shutout isn't that deflating as you've probably watched lots of games throughout.  But I realized as the third period was wrapping up that there was no moment where I was excited and cheering and after such a delay that was a real letdown.  The Canucks fell behind pretty early on as well so that initial beginning-of-game buzz wore off quickly.

Hockey works quit well without an audience.  Baseball is uncomfortably silent if crowd noise isn't piped in but hockey is very loud on it's own with all the skating sounds and voices echoing.  The game sounded like if you went to your kid's game and the audience is just the small group of parents.

[NWR_insanolord]

Lol, Penguins.

EDIT: Lol, Oilers.

[Ian Sane]

In my work playoff pool we're including the qualifying round and the round robins.  So a safe strategy would be to only pick players from the round robin teams because they will stick around at least to the first round of the "real" playoffs.  But I was thinking that maybe they wouldn't try as hard and the teams in the qualifying round would score more because their games were more important.  Plus the goal is to pick who goes all the way so if I thought a team was good enough to do so I should pick players from that team regardless.  And my thinking also was that some weak teams that were not going to make the playoffs pre-covid would be matched up with clearly superior teams.

I had some players from Pittsburgh, Nashville and Edmonton - 10 players from my 20 player roster - and they all got eliminated tonight.  That's all the players I had that were in the qualifying round as I split my roster evenly between that and players from round robin teams.  Well it looks like my strategy was the shits as I'm now probably doomed after one bad night.

But on the bright side my Canucks made it to the next round and can be considered a proper playoff team.  I didn't pick them in the pool because I never do.  If I did then if (or let's be honest, WHEN) they get eliminated it then is a double-shot of bummers - my team is out and my playoff pool is screwed.

[Shaymin]

Today we are all Peter Mansbridge.

Though really, peak Leafs is blowing game 5 the same way they blew game 3. I think the "beat Columbus, go to the Finals" thing ends this year.

[NWR_insanolord]

#1 seed, baby! Bring on the Canadiens, and everybody else, Carter Hart's got ice in his veins and all the other kids are up for this too!

[NWR_insanolord]

That was a little more nerve-wracking than I was hoping for, but a win's a win. Carter Hart, who turns 22 tomorrow, out-dueled Carey Price, his idol growing up, in game 1. Flyers got annihilated territorially in the 2nd period but managed to answer right back 16 seconds after Montreal leveled it, and that turned out to be the difference.

[Ian Sane]

That was a little more nerve-wracking than I was hoping for, but a win's a win. Carter Hart, who turns 22 tomorrow, out-dueled Carey Price, his idol growing up, in game 1. Flyers got annihilated territorially in the 2nd period but managed to answer right back 16 seconds after Montreal leveled it, and that turned out to be the difference.

Carey Price is old enough to be another player's idol growing up?!  But I'm older than Price so that must mean...

Canucks won game one so I'm happy.  In the first two periods they would get a lead and then let the Blues tie it up like a minute later due to a boneheaded turnover but in the third they got that out of their system and put them away decisively.  They were never behind so I didn't spend any time stressed out of my mind (watching sports where you care about the team is surprisingly stressful for something that's supposed to be fun).

[NWR_insanolord]

That was an incredibly ugly series, but the Flyers survive. Montreal is just a bad matchup for this team, they struggled against them in the regular season too, but they got it done. The Flyers have gone from a trendy pick to win it all to people completely writing them off after that performance, but I think they'll look a lot better going forward, even if the Islanders aren't the best matchup either. The Habs' speed is what really gave them fits, though, and that and the opposing goaltending should be less of an issue.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Demonstration of the Power of the Platform people.

This is why the NBA should continue in my opinion (and i realize that's the opposite of my oiriginal position, but I explained it in the NBA thead)

NHL post pones ALL GAMES on Thurs & Fri in solidarity

[NWR_insanolord]

Evander Kane, one of the most high profile black players in the NHL, was hitting the league pretty hard yesterday for their lack of response to this issue. Glad to see they've come around.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Evander Kane, one of the most high profile black players in the NHL, was hitting the league pretty hard yesterday for their lack of response to this issue. Glad to see they've come around.

I saw that. But that wouldn't have happened if the NBA didn't flex it's influence.
and the NBA wouldn't have had the balls or support to do that, had it not been for the immense uprising of support from the community at large.

This is the time we've been waiting for to finally demand the change that we've been "promised".
I'm glad we've come far enough as country to gather such support from all walks of life to demand that we all be seen as equal and all have the same rights and privileges as the next person.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Flyers were down in the series 3-1 and facing elimination. Then they won game 5 in overtime. Now tonight they won game 6 in double overtime to force game 7 on Saturday night after both Western Conference semifinal series have their own game 7s tomorrow. A fun stretch of games for neutrals.

[Ian Sane]

Double game sevens!  Unfortunately I won't be able to watch it tonight.  D'oh!  No way I could avoid spoilers either.  If the Canucks win then I'll hear horns honking and if I don't hear them that it will mean they lost.

All things considering though, I wouldn't have expected this group of players to be one game away from the conference finals in their first playoffs so whatever happens there is lots of optimism for the future.  Hughes has really impressed me and he's a rookie so he should only get a better.  Pettersson and Horvat have been great.  Boeser was disappointing me at first but he's picked it up the last few games.  I was really happy with Markstrom's goaltending and was worried that he would leave in free agency.  But he's been "unfit to play" (ie: presumably has covid) and Thatcher Demko has come in and killed it.  So maybe we can let Markstrom leave if his asking price is too high.  Though I notice Demko gives up a lot of rebounds which hasn't gotten him burned yet but is something I hope he improves on over time.

The Canucks seem quite overmatched against Vegas so I'm blown away they were able to force a game seven.  It's a nice situation because the pressure is on the Knights.  They lose and it's a choke.  Vancouver loses and it's an underdog team going down after a strong effort.

[NWR_insanolord]

Hockey season is back and in the first game of the year the Flyers beat the Penguins 6-3, so take that, Khush!

[Khushrenada]

Hahaha! Pittsburgh teams on a losing streak right now. Good thing I forgot about the game and just played SNES games instead. However, this reminds me of something I was going to suggest to you a couple days ago and change the Honk!/Honk!! system to Browns/Steelers. You got the admin powers. You should be taking advantage of things like that!

[NWR_insanolord]

They play again on Friday, so I've got a chance for 4 in a row.

Beyond just the win, tonight's game was super promising for the Flyers. Going into the season there were a few things that seemed like they could be the difference between the Flyers being a good-to-really-good team and being a true Stanley Cup contender, and at least for one game a lot of them look pretty nice. Getting Nolan Patrick back after missing all of last season was big, and tonight he had a goal and generally looked good. Improving the power play after an awful showing in last year's playoffs was hugely important, and they went 2 for 3. And Joel Farabee showed some signs of a potential breakout season coming in, then scored 4 points tonight. All in all a very nice start.

[Khushrenada]

Now I'm no fan of the Philadelphia Flyers but, man!, are they starting to win me over this season. A 10 game losing streak which they later followed up with a 13 game losing streak?! Letting Crosby score his 500th goal against them! Be still my heart. They've got one more game against the Penguins this year and I hope they keep up this goodwill by losing once more and giving the Pens a 4-0 season sweep on them.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm just mad they took it to overtime last night. Beating the Penguins would have been fun, and they really should have given the lead they had, but if you're going to lose, lose in regulation. Can't be needlessly hurting our draft position like that.