Champa Bay is one win away from another championship. I'm happy for Ryan McDonagh. On a side note, my daughter will be starting her freshman year at the University of Tampa in August. Should be a lot of fun.
This Stanley Cup Final has been tough to watch, but the good news is the NHL Off-season is near! Nice! Congratulations to her!
Looks like the Kraken can put together a solid team from this list: https://www.si.com/hockey/news/nhl-expansion-draft-lists-revealed I am happy the Capitals protected Eller and Oshie. I was worried one or the other would be gone.
Vegas trades Fleury to Chicago for a minor leaguer. Quite a shock for the reigning Vezina winner who single-handedly got them to the Cup finals a couple of years ago. Amazingly, he found out about it on Twitter. It appears that Lehner will be the clear #1 now.
Yeah, that was a very interesting move yesterday. Ovechkin signed his 5 year extension with the Caps too. Now today? The league has gone nuts. Too many moves to even mention!
The VGK front office claims they discussed the possibility of trading him with him in their exit meetings so it shouldn't have been too much of a shock. Not sure why they made that leap though. Lehner redeemed himself a little versus Montreal after getting his dick kicked in against the Avalanche. The move to start him against the Avs made no sense after he last played a game 20 days earlier. This does feel like they're trying to do what the Tampa Bay Rays do in getting rid of a guy a year early rather than trying to offload him a year late.
Looks like the Chicago Blackhawks got a black eye: Kyle Beach. EDIT & P.S.: I put this here because I didn't see a more recent general hockey thread.
Hockey is like the Vatican, they are very good at hiding things. I love to play hockey and watch it, but it’s too clean of a sport if you get my drift. We never hear of anything wrong being done behind the scenes. However we all know that similar behavior exist, mysoginy, racism, domestic violence, drug abuse and now this.
Haven't posted much about hockey this year. Ovechkin tied Hull last night for 4th all-time in goals scored. 25 goals away from Jagr for 3rd all-time. Pretty impressive. Caps are filled with injuries though (Backstrom, Oshie, Mantha, Dowd) so it is a youth movement at the moment. We will see if they can stay afloat.
Interesting possible developments regarding NHL players playing in the Olympics. After negotiating for the right to play, the players are now worried about going to China and potentially being put into COVID quarantine by the Chinese government for five weeks. If the players think they can trust what the Chinese government says will happen, they're pretty stupid. So far the only player who has pulled out is Robin Lehner for Team Sweden. https://www.espn.com/olympics/hocke...ey-team-notes-questions-olympic-participation
VERY tough loss for the Capitals last night. It reminded me of 2015 against the Rangers. They had the lead in Game 5 to close them out, then blew it and lost Game 6 and Game 7 too. Caps had a 2-1 lead with 2 minutes left. Hathaway missed a wide open empty net, seconds later the Panthers tied the game at 2-2, and eventually the series at 2-2 in OT. Not good. As for other series, The Predators are the first team eliminated as my Stanley Cup favorite Avalanche swept them. Pittsburgh is somehow dominating the Rangers and Igor looks awful. Not sure what is going on there. Definitely some fun series right now. Oilers-Kings are tied 2-2 with Game 5 tonight. Same with Lighting-Maple Leafs. I'll make sure to post in here more as the playoffs continue!
The Wild have been eliminated and join the Predators at home. Game 7's for Boston-Carolina, Tampa Bay-Toronto, and Los Angeles-Edmonton. Tonight the Rangers, Capitals, and Stars are on the brink of elimination and trying to force Game 7's. Very exciting first round of the NHL playoffs!
I want the Rangers/Pens to go 7 just to see how many penalty minutes will get dished out in that game. Been a very contentious series. Leafs should have won game 6 and ended the series last night, which means they get to do what they seem to love to do: lose game 7 in the opening round.
You got it. Pens-Rangers Game 7 it is! 5 Game 7's actually. Pretty crazy. I am taking the home teams in all 5 with the Rangers, Flames, Hurricanes, Maple Leafs and Oilers moving on. Last night the Capitals blew a lead for the third straight game and lost an overtime on home ice for the second time in a row. Normally in a #1 vs #8 series, the 8 seed can feel good about pushing the series to 6 and making it interesting, but for the Caps it is the opposite. They gave the series away and blew it multiple times. Very disappointing effort. Now they have to decide what to do. An aging team with a roster who doesn't win when it matters. Time to blow it up? We will see. The only players who showed up at all this series were Oshie, Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson. Not good enough. They need a goalie and way more youth and speed. As for the Florida Panthers, they won the President's Trophy and have a lot of talent, but they did not impress me very much. I could see Toronto or Tampa Bay eliminating them in the next round. Or maybe they can build off this series and start to put together a playoff style game. We will see.
Yeah, tough series loss for the Caps. I think they led in all four losses. Panthers are too good of a team so I’m going to chalk it up to the Caps stifling them and it not projecting on to how they play against the Leafs or Bolts. I’m going Rangers, Bruins, Bolts, Oilers and Stars.
I’m just glad Toronto is out, I’m rooting for Rangers, Stars to win their first round series. I’m rooting for Tampa to win it all again.
