Dabura

People who believe in global warming are the same fools who believe the world is round.

As always, you're like this total newcomer to sports who hasn't quite gotten the hang of how this whole "rooting" and "booing" and tribalism and fan investment thing works. You want cold hard logic, all when you yourself are anything but objective in these matters. Bless your heart, you adorable child. Personally, I'm torn on parity. I think it's done some good and I think in some ways it's a sham. You get a lot of fans just ripping into it at every opportunity, and that's their right, and they're not necessarily wrong to feel the way they do and they're not necessarily mistaken in their convictions. On the other hand, you have an entire media-intelligentsia class that won't utter a word against it. (And, to be fair, maybe they're equally right, in their own way.) Or do we hear the NBC crews consistently going off on the cap? Is that a thing? Remember that time you complained in a hockey thread about how people were complaining about officiating conspiracies? Remember that time you complained in a hockey thread about how stupid people don't believe in global warming? Remember that time you complained in a hockey thread about how stupid people believe in Bigfoot conspiracies? Good times. I'm not going after you out of some sense of moral obligation. I'm going after you because you're a ****.

Are the games consistently more entertaining in the parity era? If so, Is that mostly because we have a cap in place? Are the matchups consistently more compelling in the parity era? If so, Is that mostly because we have a cap in place? Is it real parity if the Leafs organization continues to be a money-printing machine and can outspend other teams in any and every area except player cap hits? I don't necessarily have really strong answers to these questions. The point is that "Parity is awesome and if you don't like it, you're a hillbilly" is a weak take. Weak and boring. This series WAS an afterthought -- until the Jackets started embarrassing the Bolts. Just as a pre-parity first-round matchup between the Wings and the Mighty Ducks was an afterthought -- until the Ducks started embarrassing the Wings. If there's a meaningful difference in "attention being paid," I'd argue today's age of accessibility (TV packages, streaming, social media, YouTube fan channels) plays a big role.

Then you're talking about "parity" in the "I want a league in which 'vastly inferior' teams can crush 'vastly superior' teams" sense. Which is something we had prior to the cap. People accused the Wings of buying Cups, and in at least one case that was a fair accusation (2002), but the Wings also experienced a ton of postseason heartbreaks, often at the hands of plucky underdog teams. There's some decent symmetry between what's happening to this historically good Lightning team and what happened to the historically good 1995-96 Wings team. To which one could say the problem back then was that you had a small group of organizations like the Wings who basically dominated the league and it was all just money-driven and not rooted in good things like smarts and creativity and calculated risk-taking. To which I'd say that hasn't changed all that much (if at all). Chicago won three Cups. LA won a couple of Cups. The Pens have won three Cups. The Lightning have been a pretty good team for a pretty long while now. The Caps are almost always in the playoff mix. The Sharks are almost always in the playoff mix. The Oilers are consistently garbage. The Blues still haven't won a Cup. The Preds have made the finals once. I think "parity" is largely illusory. (Three-point games.) I think the system that's been put in place is brilliant, but not necessarily because it creates a truly level playing field that's bringing out the best in hockey (I'm not sure it does).

This was your entrance into this thread: So, you see people celebrating a lower-seeded team beating up on a higher-seeded team and you decide the best move here is to talk s*** on people because they dislike aspects of The Parity Plan. "Oh boy, Jackets are up 2-0 on the Lightning, better point out how stupid people are for knocking parity." The implication being that what we're seeing in this series is what parity is all about and that we should be grateful that we live in a time when this kind of miracle can happen. That knocking aspects of The Parity Plan while cheering on the Jackets is somehow necessarily cognitive dissonance. I'd give you the benefit of the doubt here and say "Parity is pretty cool" is a discussion worth having in another thread, but, like I've said, I've grown tired of your shtick. Kip vs the unwashes masses. People talking about Jarnkrok? Kip is here to tell you you're all petulant children for pissing and moaning about Jarnkrok, even though no one in the thread is actually pissing and moaning about Jarnkrok. Please, keep telling people how to fan. Keep telling people what petulant children they are.

Maybe you can stop bitching about people bitching. Maybe you can stop strawmanning. Maybe if you're going to play the "People are loving how this lower-seeded team is beating up on this higher seeded-team. Bet you all feel pretty stupid for complaining about parity now, dontcha?" card, we can reminisce about all of the times a lower-seeded team beat up on a higher-seeded team in the pre-parity NHL.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. So now, for the second year in a row, a Leafs team that struggles on the defensive side of the puck will have to find a way to win some games against the Bruins without the aid of their go-to shutdown centerman, because he did something stupid.

Speaking of past Wings teams...man does this Lightning team reminds me of some of them. Everything's come easy for them this season and it shows. The Jackets had been fighting tooth and nail just to get into the playoffs and that hunger and tenacity has carried over into this series. They're outworking the Lightning. They're outplaying them. Hats off to the Jackets, man. Hats off to Tortorella. Though, they haven't won anything yet and I'm sure they know that.

Narrator: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's awesome that we get to see lower seeds beat up on higher seeds. This never used to happen before. As a Wings fan, I know this to be true. Keep up the good work, Officer. I rest easy at night knowing you're always on duty. You hear that, CRL? You're one of The Good Ones. Blessed be The Good Ones, who are not among the unwashed masses.

https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/nyi-vs-pit/2019/04/14/2018030143#game=2018030143,game_state=final,game_tab=stats God, I miss the playoffs.

Knights last season. Isles this season. I'm kinda thinking the Wings should get in on this scrappy-underdog-that-doesn't-know-it's-supposed-to-suck action. Seems like a lot of fun.

https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/nyi-vs-pit/2019/04/14/2018030143#game=2018030143,game_state=live OK, I'm now officially in favor of pursuing Eberle in free agency.

Feels bad man.

I'm starting to compile a list of potential trade targets and a list of potential free agent targets. Just to chum the waters: Any interest in Alex Wennberg? 24 years old, big body, natural center, drafted 14th overall. Put up 59 points in 80 games in 2016-17 and 35 points (only 8 goals) in 66 games in 2017-18. This season was basically a disaster: 25 points (2 goals!) in 75 games. He carries a $4.9M cap hit until 2023, so his contract looks rough right now. If Kekalainen desperately wants to keep most of his pending free agents, I've gotta think he tries very hard to salary dump Wennberg. Even if Kekalainen doesn't feel the need to move Wennberg, this isn't a player who would cost you much in a trade. The real cost would be Wennberg's possible albatross contract. Maybe we could dump an expendable or two of our own.

Game 3 is now must-see TV.

Kucherov suspended one game: https://www.nhl.com/news/nikita-kucherov-suspended-one-game-for-lightning-vs-blue-jackets/c-306726328?tid=306186908

Holmstrom was a chirper, but no one could understand what he was saying.

edit

I remember the Kadri hit being worse. So I agree that that's not necessarily a relevant precedent. But I disagree that this doesn't warrant a suspension. Whether or not Kucherov was going for a head shot, the head ended taking most of the force of the hit and getting driven into the glass. And, I mean, you just don't hit a player when he's on his knees like that. (It was, of course, Kucherov who'd put him in that position by tripping him.) And it was very late in a blowout win/loss, and Kucherov was clearly frustrated and looking to stir s*** up. So, to me, this checks off pretty much all of the boxes for "things we want out of the game."

In the spirit of "We're trying to get unnecessary head trauma out of the game by penalizing players who act like dinguses and crush people's heads when they very easily could just not act like dinguses and not crush people's heads," I think he should get at least a game. A one-game suspension won't really send much of a message and it won't change anything for the better re: player safety, but not suspending him would be...well, it would be classic Department of Player Safety, I guess.

Now we wait.

Yo @JTrouba, come to Detroit. We have a rich history of not losing to the Blues in the playoffs.

Also: Yes, thank God for parity. Without parity, we'd never see a low seed jump out to a series lead against a top-seeded team. This never happened in the pre-parity NHL. Science is amazing!

It's always fun for me to watch kip talk MAD SH*T about "all those dumb people who are so much dumber than me, ha, look at those dumb people, they are so much dumber than me." There's a handful of kips in this thread that fall into that category. Let's turn every moment of joy into "Ha, I'm kip and all of you are so dumb. Ha, you dumb, dumb, stupid people and your stupid, stupid beliefs. Oh no, not me, I never lost control. You're face-to-face with the kip who sold the world." Your shtick is dumb and you are dumb. Don't think I've forgotten that time you went off on people here because they were complaining about refs and you ended up whining about global warming.