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Neomaxizoomdweebie

2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

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4 hours ago, Buppy said:

Fluke. Half the team having career/breakout years. I mostly expect they'll regress next year, and wouldn't be at all surprised if they missed the playoffs. Even if you assume that all the players are really as good as they've performed this season, it's still a flukey amount of luck to have them all suddenly "get it" at the same time.

No doubt Gallant is a good coach who well deserves the Adams, and a great deal of credit, but only so much.

In fairness to Chaps, many of those deals wouldn't have been made if teams had more protection slots. Take away a few of Schmidt, Miller, Sbisa, Haula, Tuch, Perron, Neal, Karlsson, McNabb, Theodore, or Fluery...hardly a stretch to think Vegas would be drastically worse under the previous expansion format.

Florida is the only team that looks particularly bad. Some look bad in hindsight, but were reasonable enough.

Giving up a 1st and 2nd to get rid of Clarkson is pretty steep (easy to say when it's not my $15 million), but Karlsson had 18g, 50p in 180+ games. No good reason to think he'd be any major loss, and if he'd had another 8g, 25p season it would look like a decent deal to dump some dead weight and protect Anderson.

Haula was nothing special either. Tuch was a good prospect, but not a huge price to protect Dumba.

Anaheim was going to lose a good youngish defenseman no matter what, and it could be argued that all of Fowler, Lindholm, Vatanen, and Manson were as good as Theodore this year. Theodore allowed them to get rid of Stoner. Worth it or not is debatable, but with the defense the Ducks have I don't think they'll miss him too much. 

I don't disagree with you. I do think Vegas will win the cup this year for a variety of reasons, but I don't think they'll be a perennial contender like the Hawks or Pens were/are. I easily see them missing the playoffs next year, wouldn't be surprised at all.

But that doesn't change the fact that I think Gallant managed this team magnificently. I really don't pay a ton of attention to the coaching side of the game, but Vegas actually sparked my interest in it this year, I think this is the most well coached team this league has seenn in a good while. Gallant was meant for this assignment. I dont think it can be overstated.

2 hours ago, kickazz said:

You're just pissed no Canadian team made it to the finals.

 

He loves Mrazek and hates Vegas... see where those choices get you in life...

He's also an admitted Flyers fan who consistently trolls this board. Gotta hand it to him thou, he's a decently talented troll, he's no Axe thou...

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8 hours ago, chaps80 said:

But expansion teams being ass for awhile is how it should be. Earn it. You get a roster of cast offs, and build through draft and free agency. How does is it remotely make sense to give them a better roster to be competitive with established teams who have had to claw their way to get to the top for years? It doesn't. Whether you think they weren't supposed to be this good or not is irrelevant. They are, and that's the problem. 

Why should expansion teams be ass for years? For a league that's goal for the past several years is parity, it makes perfect sense why they would change the expansion draft rules. You're acting as if they were given a bunch of all-stars. They weren't. They were a bunch of cast-offs. Of course they weren't as bad as players selected in previous expansion drafts, nor should they be.

Expansion teams being relevant out of the gate is a good thing for the league. Like I said, Vegas being as good as they have been in their inaugural season is a one-off. You can be guaranteed Seattle won't be half as good under the exact same rules. Like Buppy said, there's a lot of luck that has gone into this amazing run. They were never supposed to be this good, and likely won't be next year...

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19 hours ago, krsmith17 said:

Yeah, Florida, Columbus, Minnesota and Anaheim made some of the worst "deals" in the expansion draft. They're the reason Vegas are in the position they're in now, not the new expansion protection format.

Penguins deserve some credit for Vegas’ success too. Not that it was a dumb move, I would’ve protected Murray too. But Fleury is playing some of his best hockey for Vegas. 

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9 hours ago, chaps80 said:

 

I still don't get why Vegas got a 2nd from Pittsburgh if they selected Fleury when Fleury was their known main goalie target leading up to the draft. You'd figure the Pens would have to told Vegas to go pound salt, unless they threatened to take another player instead, but they wouldn't have passed up Fleury.

Maybe the second wasn't to take Fleury but rather incentive to not take someone else.  Just because everyone thought Fleury would be their selection from the Pens doesn't mean GMGM didn't tease that he might take someone else... 

Anyway... good for the Golden Knights. The team. The management. Their fans. ALL OF IT. 

I love watching other "more deserving" teams and their playoff drought, no Cup, "long suffering" fans crybaby their way through the playoffs and offseason. BOOFREAKINHOO.

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19 hours ago, chaps80 said:

But expansion teams being ass for awhile is how it should be. Earn it. You get a roster of cast offs, and build through draft and free agency. How does is it remotely make sense to give them a better roster to be competitive with established teams who have had to claw their way to get to the top for years? It doesn't. Whether you think they weren't supposed to be this good or not is irrelevant. They are, and that's the problem. 

Not anymore. The league learned from past expansions that putting a bad product in a new market is a recipe for failure from which some teams never recover (see AZ, CBJ, ATL). They remedied that problem by giving Vegas a more competitive roster. It has turned out to be a huge success for that market and exactly how you grow your brand.

If you are expanding your business into a new market, how successful do you think it will be if you only send your worst employees from other locations to operate it? Obviously you don't take your best guys and hurt your current locations. You send some of your solid, if not remarkable, employees and younger, less experienced guys with promise in the hopes that they turn into "all stars". I don't know why people think that the NHL shouldn't follow basic business principles.

10 hours ago, amato said:

Penguins deserve some credit for Vegas’ success too. Not that it was a dumb move, I would’ve protected Murray too. But Fleury is playing some of his best hockey for Vegas. 

I wouldn't. Fleury has been the better goalie. He has been really good for a long time. I was never completely sold on Murray.

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19 hours ago, chaps80 said:

Some. But some were not. In past expansions they were ALL true castoffs if you look at the rosters, and side deals were few. SJ made deals with Columbus and Minnesota to not take Nabokov, but what they gave up in return was more cast offs and low draft picks.

I still don't get why Vegas got a 2nd from Pittsburgh if they selected Fleury when Fleury was their known main goalie target leading up to the draft. You'd figure the Pens would have to told Vegas to go pound salt, unless they threatened to take another player instead, but they wouldn't have passed up Fleury.

Stuff like that is just ridiculous. 

Fleury is the definition of a cast-off. Older, expensive, relegated to backup, never been much more than average and coming off a sub-par season. Good playoff that year but still finished as a backup and had a history of weak playoffs before that. Barely anything more than Howard. Pens couldn't afford him, even if they had wanted to keep him. (And they may easily have wanted to dump him even without the cap to worry about). The only reason he was "known" to be a Vegas pick is because the trade was known. The only reason it only cost a 2nd to get Vegas to pick him is because Pitt's other options weren't that good either. All in all a very similar situation to the one that put Vanbiesbrouck in Florida.

Marchessault  and Smith, Perron, and probably Neal, were money saving moves. Theodore and Karlsson were at least partially motivated by money. All of them might have still happened under the old rules. (Albeit Theodore and Karlsson highly unlikely.)

Haula, Tuch, Schmidt, McNabb, Miller, Sbisa, and Engelland probably don't happen under the old rules, but all those guys (and Karlsson) were 4th line/3rd pair players. Tuch and Theodore weren't even full-time NHL players yet. 

While it's true that things almost certainly wouldn't have turned out as well with the old rules, suggesting that they were guaranteed (or even at all likely) to have any notable success is what's ridiculous. If all their selections had performed at the levels they had prior to this year, Vegas would have finished near the bottom of the league, and no one would have been at all surprised or considered them a failure.

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1 hour ago, Neomaxizoomdweebie said:

...I wouldn't. Fleury has been the better goalie. He has been really good for a long time. I was never completely sold on Murray.

Revisionist history. Fluery has been around average for his whole career. No GM in the league would protect a 33yo backup with a .912 career save%, .908 in the playoffs, over a 23yo with a .925/.928 who had just won them a second Cup in as many tries. Maybe if Fluery had been an actual star in the past (though still doubtful), but he wasn't. The only ones who would have protected him are you, his mom, and around 50% of a large enough group of chickens.

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13 hours ago, Neomaxizoomdweebie said:

I wouldn't. Fleury has been the better goalie. He has been really good for a long time. I was never completely sold on Murray.

The guy won back to back Stanley Cups as a 21 and 22 year old rookie.  What more do you need to be sold on the guy? lol  I mean, Fleury was their goalie for 13 years, got them to the Finals twice, won once and melted down several times in the postseason when they had Cup caliber teams.  If Fleury had played for the Pens in the postseason, the way he's playing for the Knights right now, they would have been a dynasty.  Fleury's playing really well right now, probably the best hockey of his career, but I would've held onto Murray too.

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22 hours ago, Buppy said:

Revisionist history. Fluery has been around average for his whole career. No GM in the league would protect a 33yo backup with a .912 career save%, .908 in the playoffs, over a 23yo with a .925/.928 who had just won them a second Cup in as many tries. Maybe if Fluery had been an actual star in the past (though still doubtful), but he wasn't. The only ones who would have protected him are you, his mom, and around 50% of a large enough group of chickens.

You are just plain wrong. I don't think his mother would have.

10 hours ago, xtrememachine1 said:

The guy won back to back Stanley Cups as a 21 and 22 year old rookie.  What more do you need to be sold on the guy? lol  I mean, Fleury was their goalie for 13 years, got them to the Finals twice, won once and melted down several times in the postseason when they had Cup caliber teams.  If Fleury had played for the Pens in the postseason, the way he's playing for the Knights right now, they would have been a dynasty.  Fleury's playing really well right now, probably the best hockey of his career, but I would've held onto Murray too.

  1. Murray is playing in only his 3rd NHL season and he has already missed significant time to injury 5 different times (including the playoffs) from a broken hand, a lower back injury and concussions. This would greatly concern me.                              http://pittsburghhockeynow.com/matt-alytics-matt-murrays-durability-stack/
  2. Murray had help in the playoffs. He only won 7 games in the 2016-17 playoffs to Fleury's 9. The fact that Murray isn't playing as well since MAF left makes me wonder if his early success was a benefit of having a tandem goaltending situation.                    http://pittsburghhockeynow.com/matt-murray-bad-season/
  3. Because Murray is so young, I am not convinced that his success will be long term. It wouldn't be the first time a young goalie stormed into the league for a year or 2 and then fizzled out. Fleury may not be spectacular (I never said otherwise), but I know what I am getting there. The Pens reached the Cup Finals 4 times while he was there. He has his name on the Cup 3 times. That's LONG TERM success IMO. Murray's is not certain.         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carey_(ice_hockey)         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ward     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Boucher

That doesn't mean that going with Murray wasn't the logical choice. It was. I just would have tried to keep Fleury a little longer until I was sure that Murray was my long term solution.  I would have made a deal with VGK not to take either goalie in the expansion draft. Then I would have traded MAF later for a good return. Right or wrong, it's just how I would have done it. Even if I am the only one (among humans anyway).

Edited by Neomaxizoomdweebie

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I have a story to share, a TRUE story, no BS. I used to play driveway hockey with Tom Wilson in Canton when he was growing up. He was best friends in Canton with my godson who was a rather accomplished young netminder but yes, we'd play driveway hockey with tennis balls and so when i see him go off on Coburn I just laugh and laugh. Good game, go get your juice boxes, LOL

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8 minutes ago, Wheelchairsuperhero said:

I'm amazed that hit on Oprik wasn't a penalty. He appeared to be completely knocked unconscious after hitting the boards. I won't lie I'm hoping to see someone lay a good hit on Paquette before this one's over.

I wonder if the league will look at it.

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