Tampa Bay Lightning Defeat the New Jersey Devils 4 Games to 1 and Advance to the ECSF

[glenwo2]

Hedman makes one mistake, owns up to it, and now he's on par with Marchand? The same Marchand who has spent his entire life on ice gooning it up? His own article even admitted as much.

Hedman is a high character guy, pretty sad if you're going to keep judging a guy based on one dumb play.

High character guys don't ever do what Hedman did.

But that's okay. It's understandable that you would defend him and his action as "one mistake".

So that way, when it happens again in the near future, you can again say it was "one mistake". Okay then.

 

[Master P]

We've reached levels of salt I never thought were possible.

Comparing Hedman to Marchand?

Maybe this dude switched places with Lovejoy for a shift or two and got rocked by Miller or McD. It might explain why he's talking coo coo

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

High character guys don't ever do what Hedman did.

But that's okay. It's understandable that you would defend him and his action as "one mistake".

So that way, when it happens again in the near future, you can again say it was "one mistake". Okay then.

I would also call Brian Boyle a high character guy. This series had him yelling "I'm going to f***ing kill you" to Sergachev. Stakes are high and emotions get flared up and guys do things out of character sometimes, doesn't suddenly make them a goon.

 

[Jossipov]

I already got more than I expected from this season, so still happy.
I will say that I was on the side of being happy they got TB, since matched up well and had a good regular season record, but Tampa really showed their stuff.
I like the Lightning and plan on rooting for them to make it to the finals.

 

[CupsOverCash]

It feels like several fans are experiencing their first playoff series. Everything gets amped up during this time of year. Hitting, shit talking, cheap shots, etc. Pretty much everything that could possibly happen in hockey happens during this time of year. I mean we see it on TV. Here is the thing though, they dont show everything that happens in the game. They dont show what the players say to each other. They dont show the shove one guy gave that started the whole thing. My point is, you have to be a little chippier at this time of year. You cant be soft. You cant take the high road. The other guy is going to do it to you if you dont. This is a bunch of grown men who care about one thing, getting to the cup and winning it. So you have to play the game or the game will play you. Simple as that.

I watched the last two cup runs by Pittsburgh. It wasnt all just great plays by Crosby, Malkin and Kessel. They had to get chippy too. Dont think guys like Hornqvist didnt get his hands dirty during those two runs. Its just something you are forced to do. Men test other mens patience and they test everything about each other. Plays like Hedmans yea can be tossed but sometimes things that are worse dont get shown or talked about in these scrums. Emotions are sure to get the better of a lot of these men. Its just natural and not all of them can keep their cool 100% of the time. Like I said, everything is amped up 100%.

 

[God King Fudge]

The Better team won, PERIOD.


Even though that particular team took full advantage of the Refs swallowing their whistles....


That said, I can't root for you guys going forward in these playoffs because of Hedman and I don't give two craps that he "apologized" to Nico. You think he did it on his own volition or was he *advised* to do this? Bah. He's not sorry.

Whatever, though. That's over and done with.

Now as far as the playoffs go, I can no longer root for the bolts but at the same time, I can't root for the Bruins(i'd sooner slit my own wrists) either so I hope both teams beat the crap out of each other and Hedman/Marchand try to Out-goon one another...

Either way, someone is getting hurt and I'll be sitting back in my chair watching and enjoying the mayhem.

The level of delusion is honestly quite impressive.

 

[AgentBrodeur]

I would have liked to have seen

- a stable Cory Schneider going into the playoffs that finally arrived a dollar short and a day late.
- not down a #1 Off Dman

I would normally go with the team that beat mine with the exception of rangers, flyers, and the other all-star team pens. (which would now be Tampa) , But I cant say going into this, that we were in position for a cup run team. In year 2 of rebuild....etc.

If the poor Caps make it , i have to go for them, otherwise its Tampa for me

Devil fans.... relax its over. We started being chippy, but didn't bring throw an axes after physically.

 

[CupsOverCash]

I would have liked to have seen

- a stable Cory Schneider going into the playoffs that finally arrived a dollar short and a day late.
- not down a #1 Off Dman

I would normally go with the team that beat mine with the exception of rangers, flyers, and the other all-star team pens. (which would now be Tampa) , But I cant say going into this, that we were in position for a cup run team. In year 2 of rebuild....etc.

If the poor Caps make it , i have to go for them, otherwise its Tampa for me

Devil fans.... relax its over. We started being chippy, but didn't bring throw an axes after physically.

Devils will be fine. They have a better foundation than most teams do. They have a star player to build around, they have good goaltending, and they have a few decent players on D. They just got some nice playoff experience to build on. Add some more scoring and D and they will be really tough to beat. The best thing for them is they can do that this offseason. It wouldnt shock me at all if the Devils went super far in the playoffs next year.

 

[AgentBrodeur]

on defense maturation takes a while, which we have a bunch of. But Carlson (team usa hero) would make me happy. We have the cap space for pretty much anyone.

defense is always a huge scapegoat point of issue, which is the hardest to figure out, look at the rangers. But Tampa assimilated most of their good defensive core. Go figure?

Thats why i hope kovalchuk goes to the rangers. Like to see him come back and backcheck for the next 2-3 years of his contract.

 

[CupsOverCash]

I have to ask this one now that I think about it. If the Lightning are such bullies for picking on the young Devils, what is Boyle then? He was picking on Sergachev and Cirelli. Both very young players. Its the playoffs. Guys are mean to each other. If you dont like it, watch beach volleyball.

 

[MartyOwns]

I have to ask this one now that I think about it. If the Lightning are such bullies for picking on the young Devils, what is Boyle then? He was picking on Sergachev and Cirelli. Both very young players. Its the playoffs. Guys are mean to each other. If you dont like it, watch beach volleyball.

i don't think anyone had a problem with the lightning 'picking on' devils' rookies. we had problems with blatant head and nut shots that went seemingly unnoticed by the officials, but that was like a week ago so who gives a shit

 

[Spirit of McMullen]

High character guys don't ever do what Hedman did.
But that's okay. It's understandable that you would defend him and his action as "one mistake".

So that way, when it happens again in the near future, you can again say it was "one mistake". Okay then.

So as a NJD fan, I guess you don't like Scott Niedermayer and consider him a "low-character" guy when he took a golf swing at Peter Worrell's head 18 years ago?

Sheesh, just let it go and move on, he got away with it, apologized very publicly and everyone else has moved on. Happens all the team with anyone and everyone.

Would like a Hedman on our team actually! But we can't depend on only 3.6 % chances of winning the draft lottery in 2011 (when back, then it didn't mean automatically getting #1 overall, as you could only move up a maximum of 4 spots and we moved from #8 to #4 overall) and in 2017, when we only had 8.5 % of winning and miraculously won if you can believe it. Can't keep depending on those horrible odds.


.

 

[CupsOverCash]

i don't think anyone had a problem with the lightning 'picking on' devils' rookies. we had problems with blatant head and nut shots that went seemingly unnoticed by the officials, but that was like a week ago so who gives a ****

I don't know about blatant head shot but I agree about the nut shot. He apologized though and he's not a dirty player. So there's that. But our team is far from dirty. This is just how the playoffs are. It gets chippy. For some reason your fans have forgotten about this.

 

[AgentBrodeur]

would have been interesting if there were not so many variables and coaching decision John Hynes had to make and not having a stable line up in the most important positions

Getting in the playoffs on basically the last day of the year doesnt help and couldnt get Cory back in. Set the bar of 105 points next year with experience gained

Cory is back and so will Sami, but not till next year.

again i usually go with the team that beats my team. So lets go Tampa.

or maybe the poor Caps?

 

[Rschmitz]

Hedman is the only one who gave a blatant head shot and it was completely inconsequential

 

[DFC]

High character guys don't ever do what Hedman did.

But that's okay. It's understandable that you would defend him and his action as "one mistake".

So that way, when it happens again in the near future, you can again say it was "one mistake". Okay then.

That's BS. All players have their moments, high character or not. It's an emotional game.

 

[glenwo2]

Whatever. If the Bruins choke away this series to the Leafs, I can't see any team preventing the Bolts from going to the Finals.