JR Ewing

-Dreadful game.

-The travel for Western teams is bad enough, so I'll happily take the much shorter distance to Vancouver.

-Neither the Canucks or Preds played well at all in the first round.

This is absolutely one of the worst games I've seen this season. I would love to say that some awesome offense was being negated by better defense, but that would make me a filthy liar. This is straight up terrible to watch.

4 hours ago, Tomdog said:

Watching the Oilers PP with all the rotation and movement was pretty impressive. 
Most teams PP has players scattered around and moving side to side or front to back but everyone moving really creates confusion for the defense.  I don’t think you really need the best player on the planet to make it work. 

 

The NHL is a very unoriginal league, and coaches soon copy what they can reproduce. My guess is that if it was as simple as mimicking what the Oilers do, most of the other teams would be running a similar system, since they've been doing the exact same thing for five years.

3 hours ago, Tomdog said:

I think you’re right about this and I think half the of the NHL fans underestimate Mcdavid’s talent because they don’t stay up late enough to see him. 
I hope the Mn Wild watched that PP so they can emulate it. 
Just so scary good on the PP. 

See; that's the thing. It's not as if the Oilers have big brain energy going, with a genius PP design. In the words of Guy Carbonneau, their primary tool is a "guy that’s out of this world. He’s by far the best player on the planet. He’s got all the tools." As the PP coordinator, Glen Gulutzan has just been smart enough to make everything flow through McDavid. Hockey Psychology did a good break-down of the way the team uses his skills:

So, other teams can emulate it, but nobody else has a guy with his unique combination of abilities. Even if they have a guy who's close, they probably don't also have a guy like Draisaitl who, apart from being a repeated 50 goal scorer who can regularly put them in from a ridiculously acute angle, has also been voted as the best passer by the NHLPA.

26 minutes ago, RBGordie said:

It's a bummer that the Kings lost with the help of the refs. Like Jack Edwards might say, when the Oilers had a power play it was 9 against 4, LOL!

I thought there were some iffy calls last night, but Kevin Fiala has dived before, and with Gord Dwyer reffing specifically. Dwyer has seen the tape and, I'm sure, was waiting for an opportunity to nail Fiala for embellishment call and got his chance last night:

https://streamin.me/v/f3df8673

Either way...

-The Kings lost because they only scored four goals in the last three games, and one of them was a fluke off the stanchion for an empty-netter.

-Didn't score a single power-play goal in the entire series while running a PK of about 50%.

-Nobody complained in the previous two years when the Kings got more power-plays and still lost those series, too.

There's not much to say about this one... The Kings were never really in it, and when they tried to press, generated next to nothing. One thing remains obvious, considering the times these games start: Gary Bettman will gleefully lose hundreds of millions in the desert to try and secure a big TV audience...but then he'll have Connor McDavid playing at 10:20 est.

1 minute ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

At least the Oilers, who seem to be playing rope a dope right now, are remaining calm in their own end and aren't 'panic swatting' the puck away which usually leads to tons of icings or egregious turnovers.

It was the same in the 1-0 shutout in game 4. The Kings didn't even get a shot on goal for the last 6 minutes, and that was with a PP and then an empty net.

14 minutes ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

Up a bit late here....house is quiet.
Husband, kids, dogs....everyone down for the count.

And I am up seeing if the Oilers are gonna move on to Round 2!"

They are 20 minutes away from doing that.
Kings have a pretty good team, but they really are not set up to make miracle comebacks....especially if the Oilers decide they aren't done scoring.

We will see.
An Oilers at Canucks series looks like it is in the works, however, Edmonton still has to take care of things here, and Vancouver, well, they seem to be having a bit of trouble with the Predators now.

What would be best is another insurance goal or two so they can sit McDavid and Draisaitl. There are some cheap shot and low bridge artists on that team.

On 4/30/2024 at 2:10 AM, Brewin Flames said:

 

 

I guess the players in said locker room felt different, at least that's what the street rumor is....

 

Many players stated during exit interviews that they were not willing to continue to play for this organization as long as he was still head coach.

It's possible, but this also came out today:

I have no idea, of course.

1 hour ago, mojo1917 said:

I think Foerster's ceiling might be a 60- 75 pt player if everything goes well. 

Mark Stone light? 

He is the projection that most readily comes to mind, size, skating, shot.

Stone was in his 3rd year when he "took off".

Foerster has a season plus a couple of games and is close to being a .5 ppg player 40/85.

Caveat is he has to keep getting better.

 

Brink might become something too, he has a longer road because of his size and the coach doesn't like something about him, but that's a guy I can see being a 60+  point player too. He finds space, he has the ability to make something out of nothing. He needs to be doing it consistently.

I get that you're not necessarily saying that he will be like Mark Stone, but I don't think he'll be close, to be honest. Stone has been a lot more productive at every level of hockey. I dunno... I see Foerster as a 0.5ish PPG game player.

Essentially, we agree. I just think it's really far from Mark Stone.

I find it amusing every time the play-by-play announcer pronounces Seguin like his name is Carl Sagan.

About 20-25 years ago, the Stars made an annual habit of eliminating the Oilers from the playoffs, so it just feels weird to cheer for them.

Go Stars!

I watch more than my share of Kraken games, and I never had the idea that the team's shortcomings were on the coach, and consider this  a pretty tough firing for Hakstol. He had them in the top 10 in Scoring Chances Against and High Danger Against, but they just don't have offensive players, and that's not on the coach.

Between he and Lindy Ruff, that makes two of last year's Jack Adams finalists fired this year.

-------

This has got to be Todd Nelson’s year.

He has a good chance of winning the Calder Cup two years in a row, and his 3rd overall. The Capitals were able to bring up young D from Hershey late in the year who contributed to the Capitals push to the playoffs. Lapierre also made the jump.

Get on it, Seattle!

2 hours ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

Heh...Pierre Luc Dubois.

Amazing that a single player (and a talented one too!) can be such an albatross to a team!
I mean, I could be wrong, but hasn't EVERY team that unloaded him (wait, excuse me, gonna pilfer JR's word), FOISTED, him on someone else improved once he was gone?? I do believe so!

And I'd say the Kings would do well to try moving him, but, ummm, I think the 'secret' is out now

It's the damndest thing... He has all the ability in the world: tremendous size and strength, skates well for a man his size, hard to move off the puck. When he's not happy (which seems like a lot of the time) he barely moves and his effort can be lacking. Not a single team improved by bringing him in, despite his talent. Either way, I think the Kings are mostly stuck with him, because $8.5M isn't the easiest thing in the world to move. They would have to risk another team's bad contract or buy him out. If they go that route, just look at the damage:

I was, and remain delighted by the trade-and-sign Rob Blake made that day. You didn't need to be Carnac the Magnificent to see that it wouldn't work out.

Quote

Oilers just about on their way to Round 2 no matter how you slice it.
Wouldn't an Edomonton-Vancouver second round be fun to watch, eh? I'd like that one!
All we need now is for the Oilers to finish the job, and the Canucks to do the same in their series.

Draisaitl and McDavid have royally feasted on both Vancouver and Nashville, but I greatly prefer the travel of a Vancouver series than one back and forth between Alberta and Tennessee.

Game 5

1-0 EDM

-The Kings outshot EDM heavily, 33-13, but I couldn't recall a single 5-alarm chances generated by Los Angeles and, by eye, it was mostly a lot of "wing and a prayer" attempts from the blue line and sharp angles.

-The morning after, SportLogiq backed up what I saw. Of the 33 shots by the Kings, 26 were perimeter shots, and the High Danger Chances were 7-4 in favour of EDM.

-Stuart Skinner has been strong in games #1, 3 and 4.

-PLD continues to be The Invisible Man. He was credited with a goal in game 1, which went off the skates of Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse. That's it since then, and Jim Hiller has him parked on the 4th line now... $8M on the 4th line.

21 minutes ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

@OccamsRazor
@Brewin Flames
At any rate, Toronto really doesn't look like they have the right recipe on that team, despite the talent.
And if there is some squabbling behind the scenes between certain players, well then, I expect we may see some big movements in the offseason or the one after.
Particularly if Boston goes on to squash the Maple Leaf like dried plant life on the drive way...

I think they need to change pieces of that core, but it will be difficult. They're all very expensive, signed to long-term deals with no-movement clauses, and the only teams that could afford to take their salary will be weak, and the players almost surely wouldn't waive to go there.

The Leafs are quite stuck.

-Auston Matthews is 56th in playoff scoring with 1 goal and 2 assists in 4 games. Listening to eastern media talk about him as though he's in the conversation for being the best player in the game is an insult to everybody who watches hockey.

-Seeing the Sportsnet panel talk about how the Leafs are playing so bad and how Marner needs to stop whining... Oof.

-As a fan of a team in this country that, like all non-TO teams, gets a fraction of the coverage of those guys... The cherry on the top so far: Kevin Bieksa saying how the Leafs stars like Marner, need to be more mature, like Draisaitl.

-The Leafs don't have a single pisscutter at the top of the batting order. Management can bring in guys like Ryan Reaves until they're blue in the face, but guys who only play 8 minutes a night won't get you there.

-I'd say that management needs to change the mix, but they all have no-movement clauses, so they've hamstrung themselves.

33 minutes ago, Buffalo Rick said:

I’m stupid, remember?  I don’t know all of these abbreviations and I just hate the financial goings on in sports even though I’m aware there is no escaping it

I'm sorry. LTIR = long term injured reserve. LTIR is a very complex system, but the simplest way to describe it is to say that it allows teams to take plays who will be out long term and set aside their cap hit, allowing the team to acquire replacement players. The last few years, right before the trade deadline, Vegas places Mark Stone and his $10M cap hit on injured reserve and then acquire players equalling that cap hit. This year, it was Tomas Hertl, Noah Hanifan and Anthony Mantha.

The moment the regular season ends, Vegas then reactivates Stone and so, in the case of Vegas vs Dallas, it's one team with a payroll of $83M up against a team with a payroll about $10M over the salary cap...

And they do this every year.

Brendan Dillon suffered a very serious laceration during a scrum at the end of the game last night. He'll be out long term.

6-1 EDM... This one was never close.

-The first two periods of game three were the template: score first, skate like hell, don’t back down, wait for the Kings to get frustrated and try not to get hurt when they start to slew foot, lowbridge and take headshots.

-It was 4-1 when the Kings ran headlong into penalty trouble, and Knoblauch was able to rest McDavid and Draisaitl other a couple of 5-on-3 powerplays to make the score 6-1.

-Evander Kane was a force in this one. Took a headshot from Andreas Englund, popped up and beat him in a fight. Gordie Howe hat trick.

-The PLD trade is the gift that keeps on giving.

It's one of those things that, as Crash said in the movie, is a dubious honour, but I respect it. Fred Glover could play hockey, but he was trapped in the minors because, when he was in his prime, he was buried by the likes of Sid Abel and Alex Delvecchio.

1 hour ago, Buffalo Rick said:

This is the series I’m most surprised by so far.  I really don’t care about either team but I did not see Dallas losing first two at home.  No doubt a must win for Dallas is game 3.

When you abuse the LTIR system like Vegas does, the real surprise would be if they weren't off to a commanding lead.

Yeah, that's a record which is safe, since it's infinitely more difficult to win a Cup now. I say that not to diminish his accomplishment, but to state something as it is.