WordsOfWisdom

But they've never won. The Leafs, despite their half century of ineptitude, still average one Stanley Cup victory every 10 years.

I've said this before in other posts/threads but the NHL's most successful franchises are the ones who have done something recently and continue to be successful, even if they haven't existed for 100 years. Teams like Pittsburgh and Tampa win Cups at an alarming rate. Toronto basically wins the Cup once every 10 years (on average)... just like Tampa and Pittsburgh. Montreal wins it once every 4 years on average.... although that average continues to plummet.

My prediction for the Final will be accurate! Yay! I'm the only one to pick Tampa in 5 (according to the forum poll).

What part of it is ridiculous? Agree on the first part, not so much on the second. And yet hockey's richest teams are Toronto, Montreal, and New York (Rangers)... in that order***. ***Forbes likes to stick the Rangers first but they're not first because the value of Madison Square Gardens doesn't count as value towards the New York Rangers hockey team. The venue is a general purpose facility that is separate from the team, even if both are owned by the same ownership group. Otherwise, if the Leafs were owned by Exxon Mobil, I could lump Exxon's entire oil business in with the value of the Maple Leafs and say the Leafs are hockey's richest franchise because they're worth over $1 trillion dollars. For an apples to apples comparison in a world of corporate bundling (where every company owns every other company), it has to be team versus team. Far more populated yes, but they do not put forth more of a financial backing to their respective hockey teams. There were hockey leagues already going on exclusively in Canada prior to the NHL, so I disagree. However, I will agree that for the NHL to be one of the "big four" NA sports, it needs a presence in the US. However, the NHL could also survive as a league with half of its teams in Canada and the other half in Europe, even if it meant having fewer teams and less revenue. It could be more international like soccer and have a presence in more than just two countries. I doubt the US would create a rival hockey league on its own to compete with the NHL if the NHL never entered the US to begin with. Their would be no desire/appetite for it. Hockey viewership in the US would be 0. We've already had all-Canadian hockey leagues that predate the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens predate the NHL. The NHL was created out of those leagues. Humble beginnings but that's where it all started. I'm convinced the only reason Tampa and (Panthers) got a team was because there are so many Ontario snowbirds spending winter in Florida that they constitute enough of a fanbase to make a go of it. When Toronto comes to town, that hypothesis is proven by the number of Leafs jerseys in the stands....... AND another hypothesis) is may be why Tampa changed their team colors to blue and white...... so that you can't spot the Leafs fans in the crowd when Toronto plays them! I may be reaching on that one.... but I may also be bang on. TFG is the only Lightning fan here in the forum, and she lives in Minnesota. There's no TBL fan here that lives in Tampa lol.

I really love the fact that the Stanley Cup is always in Toronto. Even if the Leafs haven't been close to it, the fans always are.

Imagine if they couldn't get the Stanley Cup across the border into the US! lol The Lightning celebrate their win at home but have no Cup to raise due to border restrictions lol. I think on the bright side, there are more TBL fans in Montreal than there are in Tampa (lol). So technically, they'll be playing in front of their fans in Montreal much like the Leafs have fans in Montreal. You're a TBL fan and you live in Minnesota, so you see my point! (Sorry, I'm just roasting everything today. My bad.) I think they'll try to win tonight (obviously), but if they don't, they won't lose any sleep over it and will quickly wrap things up in 5 at home.

That would have been an amazing final four. The only change I'd make is I'd rather have Colorado than Vegas. Then the potential Finals could have been Kadri on the Av's vs the Leafs, TOR vs NY (two big hockey markets), TBL vs NY, TBL vs COL (which I think would have been very entertaining). Not sure if the seeding would have worked out that way however. I think Montreal and Vegas getting through were the weak links here because expansion franchises don't draw well in other cities until they've been in the league a long time, and Montreal was a sub .500 team playing over their heads. The main attractions (in terms of star power) from the North division were the Leafs (with Matthews, Marner, and co.) and the Oilers (with McDavid & co.). I think there would be so much more hype and excitement right now if the Leafs were trying to end the drought than what we got but oh well. The Habs are underdogs in this series, but with 20+ Stanley Cups in their history, there are a lot of people who wouldn't want them to win just because they're the Yankees of the NHL. I always call the Leafs the Yankees of the NHL because financially it fits, but the track record of success makes the Habs the Yankees of the NHL. It's hard to root for an underdog that really isn't an underdog historically.

I guess the point he's making is that it should have been: Fleury Varlamov (the rest) We can split the difference on SV% and GAA and give the nod to Fleury for all the extra wins, but you can't be putting guys with a .922 SV% ahead of a guy that was .929. Save % is the most important goalie stat. GAA is already leaning towards being a team-based stat, and wins is almost entirely a team-based stat. Varlamov leads in the categories that most accurately measure individual goalie performance. I'd also argue that he played in a tougher division too, so you could argue that Varlamov's .929 SV% in the East division is more impressive than Fleury's .928 SV% in a relatively light West division.

Apologies for killing time in this thread but it appears it'll be over with tonight. I predicted 5 games, but it may well be 4. Can't say I'm surprised either way. This definitely lowers Toronto's stock because it shows how far the gap is between the Leafs and the soon-to-be-repeat-champs Lightning, a first round matchup we got cheated out of last season due to covid. I know I wanted to see TML vs TBL last season (the ultimate high scoring series) and not TML vs CBJ. @TropicalFruitGirl26

I think for the NHL to work in Europe, there would need to be a conference over there and no "interleague" play if you will. Teams over there play each other and teams over here play each other. Only in the Stanley Cup final would the NA team meet the EURO team. With 16 teams here, the top 8 could make the playoffs. That would give 3 rounds of playoffs before the NA vs EURO Stanley Cup final. I would certainly hope not. I know it happens to the Blue Jays in baseball though. Even the lowest of the low expansion team in the US draws more views than the Jays do when the Jays come to town. I'd have to look up the numbers but somewhere they have attendance for each team.... in the visiting team's city. So Toronto might draw 4 million+ fans at home in Toronto but only draw 1 million fans on the road. Agreed. To me, Montreal has exposed a weakness of the NHL playoff format. By allowing so many teams in, the NHL allows for the possibility that a weak team can fluke their way into a deep playoff run and then get exposed (eventually) and lead to a lame Final that nobody wants to see. If sub .500 teams like Montreal are never let in, then you're guaranteed a top team in the Final. A real top team that is proven over the whole regular season, not just a team that gets hot at the right time or gets puck luck, or whatever. Even though they were both eliminated in round one, everyone wanted to see Toronto vs Edmonton in these playoffs. That was the marquee matchup for the North. The NHL should take steps to ensure that every playoff team has at least a strong winning record to qualify for the playoffs.

I've never been a fan of using wins to measure player performance. They do that with starting pitchers in baseball too, and it means nothing. The pitchers with the most wins are top pitchers playing on great teams. What a surprise. Body of work does matter though. ie: MIN. By NHL voting logic, Andrew Raycroft should have a Vezina trophy lol.

Strippers lol.

But that's a product of overall population, not of general interest. The US has a bigger population than all of the other hockey playing nations combined. Hockey has always been powered by Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Russia primarily. The US does contribute players but until recently it was a small percentage. The metric I look at is where does hockey rank in each country. In Canada, hockey is clearly the #1 sport. (Although someday it'll probably be soccer as our culture is being replaced.) In Finland and Sweden, I'm guessing hockey is right up there. In Russia it's tennis, chess, hockey, who knows? I don't follow Russia much but hockey is certainly important to Russians. In the US, hockey is clearly not #1. The NFL is #1. MLB is #2. The NBA is #3. Then you get into golf, tennis, NASCAR, etc....... and somewhere way down at the bottom of the list is hockey. So when someone says that the presence of a Canadian team in the final will hurt viewership in the US, my first reaction is: What viewership in the US? My second reaction is: Why does it matter? Why do American viewers take issue with Canadian teams? The game is bigger than the US. Much bigger. Hockey is an international sport. What's the viewership like around the world? What's the viewership like in the countries that put hockey first? I think the NHL missed an opportunity decades ago to expand into Europe. When the first European players started entering the NHL and being successful, there was an opportunity to have teams in major European cities. There could have been a European division or European conference. Then it would make sense to have 32 teams if only 16 of them were in North America. The others would be in Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow, Berlin, London, Paris, etc....

They're just outmatched. Passion, hard work, and luck can get you far, but the Lightning have the talent, experience, AND the work ethic to match. They're a cohesive group, and they're just better than Montreal all around. You can see that Montreal is giving it everything but are just out-gunned and out-done. So on that note, with this series all but over now, I'm going to do my official "Team Rankings" (Boxing-style) and list who was best, and where everyone else fell by comparison. Spoiler alert: Montreal's performance in this Cup final makes the New York Islanders #2. So if Tampa is the "champ" (belt holder) then the Isles are the #1 contender. Montreal (if they were a boxer) wouldn't ever get another shot at the title based off of this performance. This would be analogous to a 1st round KO.

For the sake of the game of hockey, who cares? This sport isn't about the US. This is an international sport powered by Canadian, European, Russian, and American players, with American players being 3rd or 4th on that priority list / pecking order. The Canadian teams shouldn't be a novelty in the NHL, they should be the NORM. The NHL should have no more than 10 teams in the US and the rest of the teams should be in Canada and Europe. That's where the fans are, and that's where the teams should be. If it offends a US fan to watch a CDN team in a CDN sport then they need to go watch a different sport. /rant

This x100. I stopped watching after Toronto went out, but I've hung around the forums to chat. Hockey in the summer is just weird. So many other things to do right now outdoors to enjoy the nice weather. As for Hedman's record, it's not something I put any stock in. It's a product of pure circumstance. It's not a record of any high standard of achievement. We all know he's a great player, and it'll be a quirky bit of trivia that he has scored in every calendar month, but so would a thousand other NHL players if they played through these same circumstances during their career.

So happy that Toronto isn't one of those teams any more.

My prediction of TBL winning is 5 is looking pretty good. :)

More than likely Montreal will get clobbered in 5 games and that'll be it. If that happens, you could make the case that the Islanders were the 2nd best team in these playoffs. You can say that Tampa has accomplished more than Toronto in these playoffs. They've gone farther, and they've won more. But if you look at each individual series as being like a PRIZE FIGHT, then the 2nd best team in the playoffs is the toughest opponent that the champion had to vanquish, no matter what round that is.

lol My logic is sound. I assure you. Trust the WoW. I know we're conditioned to believe that deeper into the playoffs = more successful, but your opponent means everything. If you run into the eventual champion in round 1, it doesn't matter that you lost in round 1. You lost to the champion... just like everyone else did. When it happens is immaterial. All that matters is how close was the series. How much of a battle was it? Did you push the champs to the limit or fold up quickly? Montreal and Tampa are great teams in this playoffs, but hypothetically speaking, IF Tampa went down in 4 games or 5 games, could you really put them ahead of Toronto? You couldn't.

If Montreal ends up curb stomping the Lightning in 4 games, it'll be the Leafs who can lay claim to being the #2 team in these playoffs, not Tampa. If Tampa wins, the worst the Leafs can be is 4th best. (Behind Tampa, Montreal, and Tampa's most difficult opponent in these playoffs -- assuming Montreal presents no challenge to them.) There's no prize for being 2nd best, but it would prove that the Leafs are (despite a 1st round loss) on the cusp of a Stanley Cup victory with the group they currently have and only minor tweaking in the off-season.

Hey! What happened to my favourite stretching exercise? (Post got deleted.)

Of course I'm assuming Montreal wins and does so in less than 7 games. (For my previously mentioned logic to be true.) Which brings me back to the Leafs again: Imagine knowing that you had the champions on the ropes (down 3-1 in the series) and due to laziness, lack of effort, lack of guts, lack of heart, you didn't give it 100% to finish them off. Therefore, the Leafs players will always know that they gave away a Stanley Cup to their long time rival... a team they truly could have beaten.

What does this say about the Western Conference? 3/4 are East teams and it's an all-East final. And if Montreal wins it the Leafs can say they were up 3-1 and lost in 7 to the eventual Stanley Cup champion. In fact, the Leafs can say they pushed the eventual champions harder than any other team in these playoffs. That essentially makes the Leafs the 2nd best team overall in these playoffs.

IF Montreal gets to the finals (or wins the whole thing) it'll be bittersweet for Toronto. A championship in Montreal would probably make up for the one that was stolen by the NHL and given to Colorado in 1996. It's a shame that Montreal isn't playing Colorado right now instead of Vegas.