Flyers pull goalie approximately 1 minute after being eliminated, gift Caps playoff spot

[IamNotADancer]

You think they didn't have someone on the bench paying attention to that? It was the dumbest time to pull your goalie.

I've got some news for you.
In many sports where the outcome of a different game can affect your own fate the coaches ban anyone to communicate the current events with the players as to not to interfere with their own play and attitude.

It really isn't far fetched to think Torts has instructed staff to not say a word and pretend that no matter what Philly needed the reg W.

 

[wgknestrick]

People are upset because the optics on this game result are very suspect of game manipulation. It made no sense and is pretty naive to assume Torts is woefully misinformed of other game results when he has a vested interest in them.

Surely all teams eliminated can point to past games, etc. of why they didn't make it, but that isn't an excuse for what was done here. It is very weird.

 

[MOGlLNY]

People are upset because the optics on this game result are very suspect of game manipulation. It made no sense and is pretty naive to assume Torts is woefully misinformed of other game results when he has a vested interest in them.

Surely all teams eliminated can point to past games, etc. of why they didn't make it, but that isn't an excuse for what was done here. It is very weird.

It wasn’t. They happened within 30 seconds of real time of one another and Torts was in the dying time of his game as well. He was likely focused on coaching.

Not sure if you know who he is but he was probably in “we need to win this f***ing game” mode. Not “what’s going on in the Detroit game with 3 minutes left in my game” mode

 

[PaulD]

Detroit fans must be irate

edit: proof of 1 minute delay, aside from me watching both feeds live:

Washington Capitals vs. Philadelphia Flyers | April 16, 2024 | NHL | Hockey | Recap

National Hockey League - Scores, Stats, News, Rumors, Videos, Standings, Teams

www.thescore.com

Caps got a gift from the ref too.
Perfectly good flyers goal waved off by idiot ref.

 

[Pavels Dog]

There are plenty of good teams, they’re just not fighting for a historically bad WC2

WC2 last season was 92 points. In 18-19 it was 90 points (Western). In 15-16 Minnesota made it with 87 points.

You really sure about the label "historically"?

 

[PaulD]

Do you think the Flyers are watching the box scores while in the middle of a f***ing game?

no. they only need one guy in a track suit to do that.
With the gang of assistants, trainers, stick boys teams have onnthe bench and upstairs .......one of them could have done it rather easily.
It ain't rocket science

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

The Wings lost twice to the Caps in the last month of the season, once on the road and then again at home. The Flyers didn’t gift Washington anything (though I’ll take the ENG for sure, thanks Philly).

 

[sennysensen]

Do you think the Flyers are watching the box scores while in the middle of a f***ing game?

They have coaches updating them from upstairs.

Notice Detroit celebrated like crazy when they tied the game, then no celebration after the shootout winner? The coach upstairs told them they were eliminated, which is good, as they would have looked stupid if they had a wild celebration after Kane's goal when they were already eliminated.

I'm sure Philly's upstairs coaches told them they were eliminated, they just took too long. Or maybe Torts heard while play was ongoing with the goalie pulled. If there was a whistle, he probably would have put the goalie back in, as once eliminated, they'd still want to win the game, best best in that case would have been to take the game to OT and score.

 

[ToDavid]

Was Philly actually mathematically eliminated here?

Is there not some scenario where Detroit is forced to pull their goalie in OT to win like Minnesota did and therefore risking an ENG against themselves and losing their OT point?

Tortorella made the right call to pull the goalie either way. You can't fault him for that.

No, Washington had the tiebreaker on everyone already. Every other team was just looking for points.

 

[Bowski]

This applies to the entire handful of EC WC2 pretenders who were fighting for playoff table scraps.
Very few brass balls amongst that entire collective to truly compete.

Torts and Philly just happened to pull the most recent/final pathetic spectacle.

 

[Toby91ca]

Was Philly actually mathematically eliminated here?

Is there not some scenario where Detroit is forced to pull their goalie in OT to win like Minnesota did and therefore risking an ENG against themselves and losing their OT point?

Tortorella made the right call to pull the goalie either way. You can't fault him for that.

Philly was mathematically eliminated as soon as Detroit got into OT

 

[JediOrderPizza]

It's a bit annoying but the Wings March play was the real coffin. They just had to beat the Yotes once.

 

[hoglund]

Philly was mathematically eliminated as soon as Detroit got into OT

Tort should have been following this game closely because he knew that it was important in them being able to quualify for the playoffs.

 

[Susannah]

That's what I'm saying. The coaching staff on the ice isn't looking at scores on their smartphone. They didn't pull the goalie knowing they were eliminated.

Just remember that you should not bring logics to HF Board. We need to keep this discussion totally illogical.

 

[Toby91ca]

Tort should have been following this game closely because he knew that it was important in them being able to quualify for the playoffs.

Yeah, but pulls the goalie and losing in regulation didnt really mean much for their season anyway….would he really have been watching closely just so he doesn’t pull the goalie if it doesn’t make a difference and therefore have a negative impact on some other team? He’s going into the 3rd period knowing his only chance is to win in regulation, so if tied late, he’s pulling the goalie regardless

 

[gtrower]

Another aspect of all of this is say Torts gets the message about Detroit going to OT, decides not to pull the goalie, and the Caps/Flyers go to OT. Now you’ve got a dejected Philly team lining up against a desperate Caps team in a gimmick. Odds are the Caps are taking this game anyway.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Was Philly actually mathematically eliminated here?

Is there not some scenario where Detroit is forced to pull their goalie in OT to win like Minnesota did and therefore risking an ENG against themselves and losing their OT point?

The scenario was something pretty close to this:

Philadelphia needed a win in regulation and regulation losses by Detroit and Pittsburgh to get in. [Pittsburgh plays ... well, it's tonight now.]

Detroit needed a win and a loss by Washington to get in, or an OTL, a Washington regulation loss and a Pittsburgh loss. [Detroit lost the 1st tiebreak, it had to beat everyone outright on points.]

An argument might be Detroit would have had to pull the goalie in OT to get the 2 points but it would have had to know that an OTL wasn't good enough. It didn't. It was playing ahead of the Washington game, so it had to get whatever result it needed, which meant "win the game, even if it's in the shootout."

Tortorella made the right call to pull the goalie either way. You can't fault him for that.

100% this. Don't blame Philadelphia for "screwing Detroit out of a playoff spot." Detroit had 54 other opportunities this season to improve its position in the standings such that it didn't go into Game 82 needing a win and then some help from others.

* It could have won any of the 32 games it lost in regulation, or dragged a couple of them to OT and picked up an OTL there. Or, dragged it past regulation and won it in OT or the shootout.
* It could have won a few of the 9 games it lost in OT or the shootout.
* It could have won in regulation more of the 40 games it had a W for going into last night, instead of just 27.

Own your failures instead of blaming someone else for it, especially when you had time to put success into your hands and you chose for whatever reasons not to take it.

 

[MilkofthePoppy]

Detroit and Pittsburgh have nobody to blame but themselves.

 

[gtrower]

Philly was mathematically eliminated as soon as Detroit got into OT

@895 is pointing out that technically they weren’t. If Detroit pulls their goalie in OT and loses then they forfeit the loser point and are sitting on 90, and Philly would jump them and the Caps with a regulation W. Semantics as Detroit shouldn’t have had a reason to do that, but a situation arising like the Detroit staff screwing up the math and doing just this while Torts decided to lay down - would we be having threads about how stupid Torts was to worry about other games when he knew had to beat the Caps in regulation first to even have a chance?

 

[nothingbeatshockey]

One of the most self-obsessed posts I've seen in awhile.

A Detroit fan actually thinks Torts is sitting on the bench, with his team in the midst of the last 5 minutes of a game that might get them in the playoffs (that they have to win in regulation to have a chance) and the fan thinks that Torts is so in tune with the Detroit game that within about a minute of the Detroit game going to OT, he rapidly decides to pull his goalie just to F Detroit?

 

[bleedgreen]

You guys and your conspiracy theories. Torts didn’t intentionally stiff another team out of a playoff spot. They didn’t know yet or had committed to what they were doing before they knew for sure. That’s it.

 

[North Cole]

There was a minute between the key moments. You have 30 assistants. You could have league officials at the game monitoring it also. There’s no good reason for why they shouldn’t know.

Why would they pull the goalie if they were eliminated? Doesn’t help them. They wouldn’t do that without the situation being what they thought it was. The onus is on them to be informed of where they stand so they don’t compromise the playoff race.

Professional levels of satire. Unfortunately the playoff race was already compromised by how bad all four teams were for the last 20 games.

 

[Machinehead]

So what if they weren't aware?

Knowing Torts, there's no way that information was getting to his players.

 

[hatterson]

You know at first I thought this was a crazy conspiracy theory, but the more I see the reactions in this thread the more and more I hope Torts comes out and directly says that the only reason he pulled the goalie was to screw over the Red Wings That he knew Detroit has scored, he knew the Flyers were eliminated, and he did it purely out of spite.

 

[Roshi]

With a loser point or winning the game in OT/SO, they gain nothing. They cant make the playoffs.

However they would have passed both Wild and Pens (still not making the playoffs), possibly resulting droppin 1-2 later on the draft rankings.

Tell me again why would they not pull the goalie? Its the only logical choice even if they would have known what was going down with the Wings vs Habs. Should they not pull goalie just to make favours and possibly miss a player they like in the draft? While also burying their hopes to make it to the playoffs.

Pulling the goalie was the only choice.