GDT: 2018 NHL Playoffs

[Steazy Doo]

An lowly catipals lucked one out. An big deal, let's see em beat perennial an-star team an golden nights

 

[Felonious Python]

the SCF is sponsored by html5zombo.com. You can do anything. Anything at all.

 

[Master P]

Entertaining game 1 and i'm glad Vegas won. Hope they win in 4 tbh. Also, caps fans have now officially taken the mantel as whiniest fan base in the nhl and its not even close. Good lord are they bad.

 

[berlin]

Entertaining game 1 and i'm glad Vegas won. Hope they win in 4 tbh. Also, caps fans have now officially taken the mantel as whiniest fan base in the nhl and its not even close. Good lord are they bad.

They’re the ONLY reason i’m rooting for Vegas.

 

[The Macho King]

Entertaining game 1 and i'm glad Vegas won. Hope they win in 4 tbh. Also, caps fans have now officially taken the mantel as whiniest fan base in the nhl and its not even close. Good lord are they bad.

Dude I've been saying that for ages. Seriously you won't find a bigger group of victims.

 

[Sky04]

Dude I've been saying that for ages. Seriously you won't find a bigger group of victims.

Then they talk big in the regular season about how nobody knows anything about hockey, this years caps are so much different then past years etc etc

Vegas in 4.

 

[Steazy Doo]

Dude I've been saying that for ages. Seriously you won't find a bigger group of victims.

Not to mention they're a bunch of fatties. Go for a flippin walk

 

[Blue Liner]

Entertaining game 1 and i'm glad Vegas won. Hope they win in 4 tbh. Also, caps fans have now officially taken the mantel as whiniest fan base in the nhl and its not even close. Good lord are they bad.

And that's really saying something because it's a whiny ass league of fan bases.

 

[Hoek]

Bruins fans were waaaaaay whinier than I expected. Wow.

 

[These Are The Days]

Methinks the lot of you have forgotten Red Wings fans. I have never.... EVER seen a group of people whine and cry about officiating the way they did. It was almost synchronized like watching a symphony or like choreographed swimming

 

[Hoek]

Knights outshot 9-2 after taking the lead tonight. Sounds familiar.

 

[These Are The Days]

Capitals looking good

Meanwhile Lightning fans be like...

 

[Felonious Python]

I think there's less of a fan mandate to fire Coop after letting Bowness and Lauer go.

 

[Stammertime91]

Nice to see another year of the West completely forgetting how to play hockey after we fail to win a game 7.

FML.

 

[Hoek]

Let's see if Gallant can coach his way out of this. So far they look just like us.

 

[These Are The Days]

Nothing to see here folks. No versatility here. No team that defends as well as it scores. No world class goaltending by Holtby. A goal 62 seconds into the game and our defense being so bad at shooting the puck we have to send a forward up high is nothing but the result of coaching failure. If anyone can correct Hedman's Fulton Reed like accuracy, improve Gourde's net front presence, Stralman's puck control and Kucherov's traditional game 7 disappearance it's better coaching.

Return to your homes so we can all get on the interwebs and bash our coaching staff some more.

 

[These Are The Days]

Point is folks this was a damn good team we ran into and we are mad that we could not beat them using the fundamentals of a system we have been struggling to execute since Babcock/Red Wings 3 years ago and are not well built to execute. I'm pissed at Cooper it's for somehow not being able to push the right buttons with Kucherov this year. Stamkos at least kinda tried sometimes but it's looking more and more like they can't handle late postseason pressure late in a series.

 

[Stammertime91]

Nothing to see here folks. No versatility here. No team that defends as well as it scores. No world class goaltending by Holtby. A goal 62 seconds into the game and our defense being so bad at shooting the puck we have to send a forward up high is nothing but the result of coaching failure. If anyone can correct Hedman's Fulton Reed like accuracy, improve Gourde's net front presence, Stralman's puck control and Kucherov's traditional game 7 disappearance it's better coaching.

Return to your homes so we can all get on the interwebs and bash our coaching staff some more.

I don't know why you keep defending Cooper. He made an adjustment to bring a forward high so the next time you tag me like you did the other day and put "iirc" just flat out say "I think." Cause we didn't bring another defender up, we brought a forward up high to the blue line. That is the dumbest thing I could even think of doing. That's coaching. Bad coaching. That is not a player or personnel decision or discussion to have. Cooper made that decision, even Pierre McGuire said it during game 7. It backfired. We got nowhere with Cooper making an adjustment like that.

The coach who you hang your hat on is burning through assistant coaches and is on his last leg.

You're saying Kucherovs traditional game 7 disappearance when hes probably without looking, the closest to Crosby in playoff production the last 4 years. I don't know who you think you're fooling. We have a mobile enough defense in comparison to what has won in the past and a better one. We failed to win because of a culmination of issues, but coaching certainly is one of them. Yzerman even believed it because he's already done away with Lauer and Bowness. The only bright spot in Richards is remaining because his area didn't f*** it all up.

Gallant made it further and he doesn't have Kucherov, Stamkos, Hedman. He has William Karlsson/JAM, Neal/Perron, Schmidt and Fleury.

We would have won the cup if he was our coach. We would have a coach benching or skating players that don't go to the net or hit the net. Gourde not crashing the net, just a safe bet, wouldn't have boded well under Gallant. Cooper styled hockey rolled out 20 players incapable of getting one goal across 8 periods.

But yeah, Cooper is St. Jon.

 

[Stammertime91]

Point is folks this was a damn good team we ran into and we are mad that we could not beat them using the fundamentals of a system we have been struggling to execute since Babcock/Red Wings 3 years ago and are not well built to execute. I'm pissed at Cooper it's for somehow not being able to push the right buttons with Kucherov this year. Stamkos at least kinda tried sometimes but it's looking more and more like they can't handle late postseason pressure late in a series.

You sound like a guy who once said, "It's their time. Not ours." We are a good team as well that got smoked because we rolled the same game plan across 21 periods and got slapped like a red headed step child in 18 of them. If it wasn't for TKO beating Detroit and Vasy extending this to 7 when it could've ended in 5, he wouldn't even be here right now. Cooper is a big part of the problem. Just like you said, Gourde not going to the net is a problem. If a coach gets on a players ass, its get to the net or youre benched/scratched. Thats part of being a coach, not popping in a Spearmint and tapping three guys to jump over the board. Lighting a fire under their asses and constructing a style to attack the Capitals with is something he didn't even do. We won TWO of three games SOLELY because of Vasilevskiy. Put any other goalie in the entire world in between our pipes and we don't make it go 7. Cooper is here primarily because of the key timing from Tyler Johnson and key saves from Andrei Vasilevskiy spanning from 2015 to 2018.

I hope this is his last in all honesty.

 

[These Are The Days]

@Stammertime91 Fine then. I don't know how to make it any clearer but we are not built to win the way necessary it takes to beat the Caps. If you can tell me in detail how a Lightning team was gonna win with 5 defensemen who suck SO BAD at getting pucks through traffic that we had to assign a forward up high to take shots, and has Killorn as its biggest forward then I will shut up and apologize. How on earth were we gonna pull this off against a team of that caliber when we barely managed it against Detroit? Detroit 3 years ago and any time this year should show you how bad that is. This isn't because Cooper can't coach against a trap, we need a roster versatile enough that can also execute against dead puck era hockey. We don't have one. We have a great team, but it's not built to win that way. I don't know how different ways I can explain it. We are built for speed and we ran into a team that takes it away from us. Benching players and telling them to play harder doesn't work against it. If you advocate us completely turning our philosophy on our head and winning when somehow Hedman can makes a shot through traffic for Callahan to tip in then I admire your boldness and optimism that such a thing could ever happen because we have yet to win that way often.

Tonight makes it abundantly clear that the Knights have their work cut out for them and how lucky we really were.

Tonight I watched my first game of the SCF and for 60 minutes I watched Vegas pull harder and harder on the Chinese finger trap just like we did. This is not the mark of coaching failure. Gallant seldom gets out coached because he's had this team bought in playing 200% since game 1. You have to have a lineup to counter it and the Capitals controlled everything all night long because they have damn near the perfect blend. What is Gallant gonna do? The Knights got this far BY playing harder than everyone else. I hate to say it but it's not gonna work anymore unless they plan on winning dirty. "Winning dirty" is not in the Lightning vocabulary and anyone who thinks it is, is lying to themselves. Lightning fans as a whole need to accept that for as talented as we are, we still have fundamental deficiencies to our team. That's why mentioned things like Hedman's shooting, Gourde's net front presence and Stralman's puck handling. Little things like that gets us to the SCF.

Edit: In regards to Kucherov, if he's not a late series performer then I don't understand why his bad games tend to be late in series. I watch him go from killer to puppy dog in a matter of a week and I see a guy who can't handle the pressure when I watch guys like Ovechkin somehow manage to get into another gear as the series goes on.

 

[These Are The Days]

If the Knights want to win they have to win it the hard way. Speed and finesse is gonna go out the window. It's gonna be won in the trenches for Vegas

 

[Stammertime91]

@Stammertime91 Fine then. I don't know how to make it any clearer but we are not built to win the way necessary it takes to beat the Caps. If you can tell me in detail how a Lightning team was gonna win with 5 defensemen who suck SO BAD at getting pucks through traffic that we had to assign a forward up high to take shots, and has Killorn as its biggest forward then I will shut up and apologize. How on earth were we gonna pull this off against a team of that caliber when we barely managed it against Detroit? Detroit 3 years ago and any time this year should show you how bad that is. This isn't because Cooper can't coach against a trap, we need a roster versatile enough that can also execute against dead puck era hockey. We don't have one. We have a great team, but it's not built to win that way. I don't know how different ways I can explain it. We are built for speed and we ran into a team that takes it away from us. Benching players and telling them to play harder doesn't work against it. If you advocate us completely turning our philosophy on our head and winning when somehow Hedman can makes a shot through traffic for Callahan to tip in then I admire your boldness and optimism that such a thing could ever happen because we have yet to win that way often.

Tonight makes it abundantly clear that the Knights have their work cut out for them and how lucky we really were.

Tonight I watched my first game of the SCF and for 60 minutes I watched Vegas pull harder and harder on the Chinese finger trap just like we did. This is not the mark of coaching failure. Gallant seldom gets out coached because he's had this team bought in playing 200% since game 1. You have to have a lineup to counter it and the Capitals controlled everything all night long because they have damn near the perfect blend. What is Gallant gonna do? The Knights got this far BY playing harder than everyone else. I hate to say it but it's not gonna work anymore unless they plan on winning dirty. "Winning dirty" is not in the Lightning vocabulary and anyone who thinks it is, is lying to themselves. Lightning fans as a whole need to accept that for as talented as we are, we still have fundamental deficiencies to our team. That's why mentioned things like Hedman's shooting, Gourde's net front presence and Stralman's puck handling. Little things like that gets us to the SCF.

Edit: In regards to Kucherov, if he's not a late series performer then I don't understand why his bad games tend to be late in series. I watch him go from killer to puppy dog in a matter of a week and I see a guy who can't handle the pressure when I watch guys like Ovechkin somehow manage to get into another gear as the series goes on.

You admitted to having watched your first SCF game this year when Vegas kept one upping them and came back in game 1. They also held their own and if it wasn't for that ridiculous save by Holtby late in game 2, it could've gone into OT. Tonight was a mirror image of what we did against them, and that's the one you tuned in for.

We are absolutely built to win it all, vs this game style or not, but we aren't led by a staff that knows how to adjust. Game 1 against Boston was bad. Game 2, Cooper made some adjustments, Bowness primarily on handling the rest of the series and tightening the blue line and we won 4 games in a row. I gave them credit then, I'll give them credit now. There were two noticeable adjustments all series long from my eyes. A forward high and in game 2 or 3, we started sending pucks Hail Mary style through the neutral zone and it completely negated their trap and stacked blue line. We stopped doing it because it must have been too ugly or too effective. We would have had a better chance air mailing pucks from zone to zone rather than trying to pass through a line of red jerseys at the blue line and then hanging a forward high just to forecheck? It's completely asinine to even bring a forward up.that high. It went from situational 3Fv2D to two of our guys taking on their defenseman while guys like Beagle, Eller, Backstrom just have to block one shot. And that's what happened. In any league, in any country, and in any situation that is completely ineffective. Bring a guy to the circle for tip ins or a quick shot moving down but why you would bring a forward up to your blue line is completely ridiculous. Said it then and I'll say it again, that was a white flag in my eyes from Cooper. He had no idea nor did he have any resolve on how to breach them.

His own words of "it's their time. Not ours." are a really good representation of how he approached that game 7. Words of recognizing you were defeated, a game plan setting yourself up for defeat and it all resulted in defeat.

Kucherov turned into a puppy. So did everybody not named Vasilevskiy. They all went to dog crap. All of them. I think you are really high on what they've done lately because for 13 years Ovechkin couldn't handle the pressure and "get it done." Nor could Backstrom. Or Holtby. The list goes on. (Albeit Ovechkin has great playoff numbers and doesn't deserve the flak he's gotten in the past.)

When you lose an ECF after being up 3-2 TWICE, I don't think it's on the construction of this team. Sure personnel like 91, 86, 77 can be miles better, but this is a Cooper led team and it's a Cooper style of hockey. A style that involves minimal changes. I think Yzerman has put together the best team in the league and a coach like Mike Sullivan would get this team into the SCF - with ease. Gallant as well. Trotz would probably even have put up a better fight - as a team and not just our goalie - in a best of 7.

 

[TampaJay]

I don’t know why this is an either/or debate when both are true. Cooper got outcoached (nothing new) and we don’t have the personnel to withstand a long playoff run or to counter a team like WSH. Watching that absolute physical beat down we took in game six, I’m not sure what a coach can do except pray. We don’t have the forwards who can endure the net front battle to capitalize on some of Holtby’s juicy rebounds and we have only one Dman who is an actual threat from the blueline, and he didn’t play enough (again coaching). Maybe a new assistant can correct for Cooper’s deficiencies, and the roster only needs some minor tweeks. Some can come from within (Katchouk, Erne, etc.) but looking at our next three D prospects – Foote, Masin, Cernak – all good but not exactly the offensive threat we are missing, so, we need at least one trade to get a PMD with a wicked shot.

 

[These Are The Days]

You admitted to having watched your first SCF game this year when Vegas kept one upping them and came back in game 1. They also held their own and if it wasn't for that ridiculous save by Holtby late in game 2, it could've gone into OT. Tonight was a mirror image of what we did against them, and that's the one you tuned in for.

We are absolutely built to win it all, vs this game style or not, but we aren't led by a staff that knows how to adjust. Game 1 against Boston was bad. Game 2, Cooper made some adjustments, Bowness primarily on handling the rest of the series and tightening the blue line and we won 4 games in a row. I gave them credit then, I'll give them credit now. There were two noticeable adjustments all series long from my eyes. A forward high and in game 2 or 3, we started sending pucks Hail Mary style through the neutral zone and it completely negated their trap and stacked blue line. We stopped doing it because it must have been too ugly or too effective. We would have had a better chance air mailing pucks from zone to zone rather than trying to pass through a line of red jerseys at the blue line and then hanging a forward high just to forecheck? It's completely asinine to even bring a forward up.that high. It went from situational 3Fv2D to two of our guys taking on their defenseman while guys like Beagle, Eller, Backstrom just have to block one shot. And that's what happened. In any league, in any country, and in any situation that is completely ineffective. Bring a guy to the circle for tip ins or a quick shot moving down but why you would bring a forward up to your blue line is completely ridiculous. Said it then and I'll say it again, that was a white flag in my eyes from Cooper. He had no idea nor did he have any resolve on how to breach them.

His own words of "it's their time. Not ours." are a really good representation of how he approached that game 7. Words of recognizing you were defeated, a game plan setting yourself up for defeat and it all resulted in defeat.

Kucherov turned into a puppy. So did everybody not named Vasilevskiy. They all went to dog crap. All of them. I think you are really high on what they've done lately because for 13 years Ovechkin couldn't handle the pressure and "get it done." Nor could Backstrom. Or Holtby. The list goes on. (Albeit Ovechkin has great playoff numbers and doesn't deserve the flak he's gotten in the past.)

When you lose an ECF after being up 3-2 TWICE, I don't think it's on the construction of this team. Sure personnel like 91, 86, 77 can be miles better, but this is a Cooper led team and it's a Cooper style of hockey. A style that involves minimal changes. I think Yzerman has put together the best team in the league and a coach like Mike Sullivan would get this team into the SCF - with ease. Gallant as well. Trotz would probably even have put up a better fight - as a team and not just our goalie - in a best of 7.

I bolded the major talking points

1. Our big adjustment was dumping Miller off the Stamkos line and staying with the Point vs Bergeron matchup. Our D tightened up because the Bruins rarely had quality offensive chances against that line because they were negated by the forecheck of the Point line. You can't counter attack if you don't have the puck much. I could not have been more wrong about the way it played out. The Bergeron line dropped 11 points on us and I thought that was the end. Turned out we were rusty.

2. And the Capitals were sufficiently able to negate us after game 3 while we still attempted them. Failure to execute this goes up and down the line, perhaps none more notably by the Point line that was suffocated. The only people who stopped Hail Mary's were the speedy ones who would have rather taken their chances to try to get behind the defense instead of footraces to the wall. Pick your poison. This is the whole reason Trotz was hired to begin with

3. Let's just skip to #4 here it'll kill 2 birds with one stone

4. Again, who was gonna make that shot for a tip on? Coburn? Girardi? When? As they were backing up as not to get caught flat footed while their shots got blocked by the first person in front of them? They can't f***ing skate sideways and open a shooting lane. Who else? Stralman? The guy who manages to bobble it BACKWARDS every time he handles it? Hedman? The guy who shoots wide 9 out of every 10 shots? All you have left is the seldom effective McDonagh and a Sergachev who is too young to play the 20+ minutes required for that adjustment to work. Pray tell who was gonna tip that in? Callahan? Kunitz? Again.... Cooper did the only rational thing left with that maneuver and with any luck at all we score twice in game 7. We had chance after chance after chance when it was 1-0 whether anyone wants to admit it or not. It only makes sense to assign a forward to shoot from up high. It didn't work but it was helping at least marginally as opposed to game 6 where our players would've had better luck arguing with a brick wall. If you don't agree then it is what it is. I see a Lightning team with fantastic forwards and a defense that lacks fundamental hockey skills that cannot be cured by coaching. Cooper isn't gonna clap his hands and suddenly our defense can fluidly cycle. No. His ass is gonna stand there like the stone he is and pray he doesn't get caught flat footed. That's the whole reason why we put a forward up high and put a defenseman on the circle during the cycle.

I'm pissed too and I know why you are. But I'm not surprised this happened. Our defense is not versatile compared to other playoff rosters. Teams like the Penguins can get away with having defenders who aren't as good at defending because they have guys like Schultz and Letang who can shoot the daylights out of anyone and are fluid skaters. We have Hedman who shoots wide almost every time and a rookie who isn't ready for big boy minutes. No matter what way you slice it Sullivan is afforded a luxury that we do not have.

Not to play you a fool but do you seriously think I'd be saying all this if I genuinely thought we had a way to win this?

5. "It was their time" was in reference in how we couldn't catch a break. Watch game 7 over and you tell me we didn't deserve at least a tie. Any luck and it's 2-1 Lightning by the 2nd period. Otherwise it's a blanket statement by Cooper.

6. Point and Cirelli were phenomenal what are you talking about? The only time it went to dog shit was around the time Burakovsky put the game out of reach. The Lightning knew they weren't coming back.

7. Understatement of the century. Let's cite Pittsburgh again. How many bad nights do Crosby and Malkin have when Sullivan needs them the most? This is the 3rd time in 4 years our top guns fell silent while other players were better than them. Cooper has us playing the most favorable style of hockey this team can play. Detroit game 7, NYR game 7, PIT game 7, WAS game 7. Absolutely nadda for 4 years from both players while still we managed to win half those games. How is Cooper supposed to win if he can count on is goose eggs from his 2 most important players when it's game 7 time? I'm sorry but I'm not sold on Kucherov and Stamkos. I see guys like Point and Cirelli and see a killer instinct and craving for pressure that both men do not possess. Cooper trudged them out with every chance to succeed and they didn't.

I hope this series was a massive wake up call to everyone. Even Yzerman. In today's NHL you need players who can do it all not just a team full of would-be mini Yzermans and a Killorn and Callahan at forward and a defense whose greatest mobility is on the backcheck instead of with the puck on their stick. Cooper got a massive shot across the bow last year and it paid dividends to the best season we've ever had. If we're lucky it's a Cup next year.

 

[Hoek]

Not looking good for Vegas right now. Down 2-0 in the first of a critical game.

Make that 3-0.