WordsOfWisdom

Ah so it begins....... #ScrapTheCap

So what about all the teams that won their Xth playoff game on the Yth day of the year (where it didn't match)? What you're demonstrating is simply the fact that if you add enough teams, and play enough playoff games, eventually you'll have an outcome like that. It's not magic, it's inevitable. There are 31 teams and the upper 10 teams always finish with somewhere around 100 points. Someone is bound to get 101 points. What happens in season #200? Am I to expect a team will finish with 200 points? You're reading probability & statistics exactly backwards. It's very strange. Would you be willing to donate your brain to science when you die?

I watched the video for the Leon Stickle offside call. It looked inconclusive.

Out of curiosity, why can't they review the goal at the actual location? Why "Tronno"? What happens if they lose their communication link? LOL.

Did the player collapse to the ice and split his head open after being hit in the nuts? Which is why I think we should leave it to the refs on the ice and ditch the video reviews. All it took was ONE blown call against Vegas and this became a topic... which always happens a year or two after a league implements video review for the very first time and proudly proclaims that penalties will not be reviewable. Once you start down the dark path (video review), forever will it dominate your destiny. lol.

They never have. The league has always reviewed game footage for questionable plays after the game ended and used that to determine suspensions.

We're at the point now where you might as well delete the referees and just have people in the control room calling penalties. They can watch the game on video and catch everything. During a play stoppage, they can call out penalties that occurred on the previous play so nothing will ever get missed again and every call will be right. Although, it will make the game very different than it has been up until now. My stance on video review has always been "no" and my opinion hasn't changed. I think it ruins the flow of the game and I think it exists only to exploit advertising space and extend the length of games. It's a cash grab, plain and simple. I'm fine with the refs getting it right 95% of the time and missing calls. The occasional blown calls make for interesting discussion.

True, but the rules haven't changed much. Oh whew! We're on the same page. Should we replace the referees altogether and just use video review for everything? I think that's the next move the league makes.

Aaah! But I'm wondering if the referee saw the actual infraction or simply called a penalty after seeing the player laying on the ice. Since they had to have a "meeting", I'm guessing nobody was watching the initial hit. The rule of thumb is that you can't call a penalty if you didn't see exactly what happened. This is like the Wayne Gretzky high stick on Doug Gilmour from 1993. The play stopped. Gilmour was laying on the ice bleeding. Nobody saw what happened (or at least not definitively). No call was made. I agree that it's a 2-minute penalty for cross-checking, but since the ref missed it, it shouldn't have been a penalty at all. It should have been a missed call.

Game Management and Penalty Calling for Hockey Referees Want to be learn from professional officials? Check out www.teamstripesacademy.com for online courses taught by top instructors. Game management is a term you will hear often repeated, especially as you progress to the higher levels. This is central from the opening puck drop to the final buzzer. A good referee will work to ensure that he or she does not “kill a game” by calling too many penalties, nor letting it get out of hand by letting infractions go. It’s finding that right balance that can be so crucial. What that often can mean is to set your standard early in a game. You set a standard of play early so that the players can get a sense of what limits they need to play into throughout the game. That way, by the 3rd period they will know what they can and cannot be doing. . . . Full link here: https://goteamstripes.com/blogs/team-stripes-blog/game-management-and-penalty-calling-for-hockey-referees My two cents: A GOOD referee would call it by the book. The rules are absolute. The PLAYERS control the game, NOT the referee. The number of penalties in a game depends SOLELY on the actions of the players. This idea of "game management" (which the NHL is in love with) is the notion that the referee is determining the outcome and not the players by deciding arbitrarily what rules will be called in a game, how, and when.

Is there a tinfoil hat emoji?

Have we ever had a conspiracy theorist in the forum before? This is so strange (and also entertaining).

The NHL doesn't use technology to alter games. They use the REFEREES to alter games. It's called "game management". Former NHL referees have made this information public already. What you're talking about (and I watched some of the edited highlight videos you posted) is crazy.

But what I'm saying is that the refs called a penalty based on the RESULT of the play..... without having SEEN what happened. They saw an injured Sharks player laying on the ice and thought: "well that OUGHT to be a penalty.... WHATEVER it was". It was a blind penalty call. As for "degree of violence", there was no real violence on that play at all. Two run-of-the-mill crosschecks to ping pong the player around. The only thing violent was how the player fell. If he lands differently, chances are there's no penalty on the play at all.

Then you have to ban ALL hitting. That's where we're at. If you so much as touch a player and he lands sideways on the ice, it's a 5-minute major now. The league is killing itself with terrible penalty calls and bogus suspensions. What if that was a CLEAN BODY CHECK that ping ponged him between the two players and the same result occurred? It would have been the SAME penalty! The league is trying to wrap the players in bubble wrap and it's a contact sport. Injuries WILL happen.

Here we go again........

You're back!!!

No but if you're up 3-2 in the series and you lose two straight games, that qualifies as another collapse.

Unbeknownst to the crew, the Enterprise is caught in a time loop where they are continually reliving the same day. The Enterprise approaches a temporal distortion from which another Federation vessel is emerging. The evasive action action they take - using the tractor beam to push the oncoming vessel away from them - is unsuccessful and the Enterprise is destroyed, at which point the time loop brings them back to the beginning and they relive the sequence all over again. Several members of the crew however begin to have a serious case of deja vu and become convinced that they are reliving the same day, over and over. Data has an idea that might get them out of it.

I agree with what you said, but at some point failure can no longer be acceptable, regardless of whether it's first or second round. We can't keep excusing annual failures to roughly equally matched teams. At some point you just have to break through and make it work. If everyone else can do it, the Leafs can do it. No more excuses for this Leafs team. Boston is better than the Leafs every year because Boston fans demand better, and they get it. It's time Toronto fans expected more out of their sports teams than mediocrity. This mentality of just being slightly over .500 and making the playoffs being "good enough" has to stop. This team needs to be great for a change. There are no more excuses for this team. The expectation is Stanley Cup or bust.

Someone needs to make a meme of the Leafs vs Bruins game 7 with that episode of Star Trek TNG where the crew is caught in a time loop that keeps repeating over and over again.

The Leafs have one more chance to get it right. One more chance to exorcize playoff demons that have haunted the franchise for several years now. If not, I think Babcock will be fired after a game 7 loss against Boston. Look, the core group of this team isn't leaving. The Leafs have an outstanding forward group, a decent defence, and the best goalie you can get. By all accounts, they're UNDER-PERFORMING if they lose again in round one, especially if they lose a series they were leading 3-2. Another collapse will not be tolerated. In a parity-driven league, the Leafs have enough to win a Stanley Cup with the roster they have. They're no worse than any other team that remains in these playoffs. They're not "building" any more. They're "built". The window of opportunity is open, and this is the time to win. It now comes down to coaching. It comes down to the little things like ice time for star players, who plays with who, etc.

I feel the same. I knew Pittsburgh/New York was a gamble, and I'd probably lose on that one. I had no idea Tampa was going to disappear in round one. Makes you wonder how they feel about their regular season now. Probably something along the lines of "why bother". A team that dominated the league for 82 games is about to be eliminated by a team that shouldn't even be in the playoffs to begin with.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the last time a Canadian team entered the Stanley Cup playoffs as the favourite to win it all was probably the ~1989-90 Edmonton Oilers? (Somewhere around there.) Even that Montreal team that won in 1993 was an average playoff team. They weren't a juggernaut during the regular season. Unless I'm missing someone. Where did Vancouver finish during their Cup final season? How about the Sens from ~2007?

Also, if your arena is 25 km outside Ottawa, did you ever really play in Ottawa to begin with? (ie: How can a team leave a place it never played in?)