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Hockeytown0001

ECSF : New York Islanders vs. Tampa Bay Lightning

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Lol. After game 1 everyone was going on about how bad Tampa is and they'll be lucky to win a game. Now still without stralman and stammer and they have made easy work of the islanders

I feel like a lot of people want TB to lose because then it strengthens their argument of us being awful. Losing to a bad team creates a narrative of being a very bad team. Losing to a SC Champion or even a conference champion just means you are not the best in the NHL or the best in your conference which I dont think anyone is arguing the Wings are.

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The East hasn't played the West yet in the playoffs. Has the play in the Stars/Blues or Preds/Sharks series really been that much more impressive than Caps/Pens? I don't think so. If anything I think this is the season the East has started to finally close the gap. I would take the Top 3 in the East (Caps, Pens, Tampa) against the Top 3 of the West (...which is who, exactly? Blues, Stars, and Hawks, maybe...?)

I think both San Jose and Nashville possibly St. Louis would beat any of the teams left in the East. Dallas plays a really high tempo sloppy brand of hockey so it's hard to judge how good St. Louis is because the games are kind of ugly. San Jose and Nashville is the best hockey to watch right now without a doubt

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I think both San Jose and Nashville possibly St. Louis would beat any of the teams left in the East. Dallas plays a really high tempo sloppy brand of hockey so it's hard to judge how good St. Louis is because the games are kind of ugly. San Jose and Nashville is the best hockey to watch right now without a doubt

I think St. Louis and San Jose have been the most complete-looking teams in the playoffs so far. I wouldn't be surprised to see either of them win the Cup.

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Steve Yzerman gets his team to yet another Conference Finals. Just keep making Kenny look stupid.

Without his best forward and second best d-man no less. Jim Nill has done pretty well for himself too.

Kenny hasn't upgraded the blue line in five years though, so we have that going for us. And a pointless playoff streak.

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The East hasn't played the West yet in the playoffs. Has the play in the Stars/Blues or Preds/Sharks series really been that much more impressive than Caps/Pens? I don't think so. If anything I think this is the season the East has started to finally close the gap. I would take the Top 3 in the East (Caps, Pens, Tampa) against the Top 3 of the West (...which is who, exactly? Blues, Stars, and Hawks, maybe...?)

I think what he means is that the West has a lot more legit contending teams, where as the East has 3 at best (Caps, Pens, Bolts). You look at the teams in the west that made it and outside od the Wild any one of them could have found their way to the finals. And either one of those teams can give the best of the east all they could handle in a best of 7.

But regardless, I do hope this particular series put things into perspective for a lot of folks. We have missing pieces yes, but our new core is very young and under contract control. Over the next 14 months the Islanders will have to fight to keep theirs together, all while being no better than the Wings are. Period. Just imagine where guys like Mrazek, Larkin and AA will be in 3-4. Likely dominant. We acquire one top dman and a brand new core is in place. Once that happens, the right pieces will be put with them to go for it.

Edited by marcaractac

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Without his best forward and second best d-man no less. Jim Nill has done pretty well for himself too.

Kenny hasn't upgraded the blue line in five years though, so we have that going for us. And a pointless playoff streak.

It seems a bit ironic that you bash the streak while having it as your avatar.

Yzerman has done good (maybe great) work in TB, granted he has had issues with star players, but overall a TB fan should be pleased.

Nill has done a good job in Dallas, but really hasn't accomplished anything yet. What both of these two have in common, is they took over a team at rock bottom and worked their way up. Yzerman in particular had a pretty solid core in place when he took over. Holland had a team that was headed for a decline, and it did just that. The true test for Holland is how the current re-build works out. Not really fair to compare Holland in the midst of a decline to GM's in the midst of a rise. If anything compare their complete bodies of work, or allow Holland to complete his re-build. If it fails, then I get it. But you cannot expect a team to be cup contenders for 25 straight years.

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Agreed, very good move.

It's not just the big moves like the Bishop one (which seemed small at the time). It's also being able to make other similarly smaller moves to acquire role players and other guys who can step up in the playoffs. Comparatively, seemingly everyone we've picked up recently does nothing for us in the postseason.

Stamkos and Hedman obviously are the key players and are high picks that preceded Yzerman, but he's made his own mark on the team by bringing in surrounding players.

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It's not just the big moves like the Bishop one (which seemed small at the time). It's also being able to make other similarly smaller moves to acquire role players and other guys who can step up in the playoffs. Comparatively, seemingly everyone we've picked up recently does nothing for us in the postseason.

Stamkos and Hedman obviously are the key players and are high picks that preceded Yzerman, but he's made his own mark on the team by bringing in surrounding players.

I dont disagree with anything you are saying. My exact statement about Yzerman was:

Yzerman has done good (maybe great) work in TB, granted he has had issues with star players, but overall a TB fans should be pleased.

My point was that comparing Yzerman and Holland just using 2010-2016, is a bit unfair as one team was on the assent, another was on the decent. Both are natural part of the cyclical nature of sports. If you compare any GM's accent to any GM's decent, its going to to great for one, and horrible for the other. If you are erasing Hollands past, and just talking 2010 and on, to truly compare them, you need to let Hollands re-build complete. At that point he will have either failed, or succeeded.

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While I would rather see a Bolts vs Caps series, I would LOVE to see the Bolts knock off the Pens. After TB eliminated the Wings, so many Pens fans were celebrating saying "Go Bolts! Great job!" "Woooo Lightning!! Yay!". I would love to throw all their comments back in their faces.

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While I would rather see a Bolts vs Caps series, I would LOVE to see the Bolts knock off the Pens. After TB eliminated the Wings, so many Pens fans were celebrating saying "Go Bolts! Great job!" "Woooo Lightning!! Yay!". I would love to throw all their comments back in their faces.

There isn't one fanbase that didn't want Tampa to beat the Wings. The Wings are not very popular and nobody is sorry for their demise.

I dont disagree with anything you are saying. My exact statement about Yzerman was:

Yzerman has done good (maybe great) work in TB, granted he has had issues with star players, but overall a TB fans should be pleased.

My point was that comparing Yzerman and Holland just using 2010-2016, is a bit unfair as one team was on the assent, another was on the decent. Both are natural part of the cyclical nature of sports. If you compare any GM's accent to any GM's decent, its going to to great for one, and horrible for the other. If you are erasing Hollands past, and just talking 2010 and on, to truly compare them, you need to let Hollands re-build complete. At that point he will have either failed, or succeeded.

And how long should we give him for that to happen?

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And how long should we give him for that to happen?

Typically a non tanking re-build that works takes about 3-5 years (this if off the top of my head, I'm not exactly running statistics here). I feel like our re-build started in 2013 so by 2018 I think we should be making some noise.

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Typically a non tanking re-build that works takes about 3-5 years (this if off the top of my head, I'm not exactly running statistics here). I feel like our re-build started in 2013 so by 2018 I think we should be making some noise.

Truth. It's when Goose started to tear it up that the team truly started to move towards the younger players.

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Hard to read Tampa. They had a very easy road to the conference finals, because of the schedule, they were lucky to avoid both WSH and PIT. You have to believe they'll be a huge underdog in the next round. That said, they'll be the fresher team and they have a very good goalie, so anything can happen. PIT still has a question mark in goal, we'll see how that goes, WSH can still come back if Holtby keeps playing like he did in game 5.

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