Post-Game Talk: 2023 NHL Playoffs - Round 1: Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

[LightningStrikes]

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[Stammertime91]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I hope we make it to round two
Matthews has sweaty pits
Jeannot better bring the hits
You know there are lurking leafs fans
Still talking about respect after shaking hands
Don't forget the guy on the main still posting the 5 on 3 call
Mr. Bean entered the chat and he goes by the name Nick Paul
Hope we can crush their aspirations once more
Finally see them dismantle that core
We all know we won't win game one,
Coop will say it was close and we had fun
Back and forth the series will go
Up until Vasy goes roar and says "No"
Time to close this one out,
Don't let them advance cause we all love watching them pout

 

[Zwui21]

We are likely entering this series as underdogs. And I like it.

IF we flipped the switch for real, we will come out victorious. But if we go back at playing lazy D and zero effort or Vasy doesn't show up it will be an easy series for Toronto.

I would hate to be the team that makes the Leafs move to the second round, let's win this boys.

 

[These Are The Days]

It's all going to come down to effort and commitment. We've been f***ing around pretty hard the last month and a half and what's left of our bad habits needs to be cut out with a lancet and burned

 

[LTIR Trickery]

Come get ya medicine.

 

[TheDaysOf 04]

Come get ya medicine.

A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down

 

[Hoek]

Really think it depends on how we start the series. If we look as bad as we did last year, Toronto will finish us off easily this time as they should be a tougher nut to crack with their depth compared to ours. But if we get off on the right foot they might be stunned and we get by in fewer games. Who knows how their goalies will do..

 

[RussianGuyovich]

The extreme ups and downs of busting the leafs out in the first round again, and being the first team to get beaten by the leafs in the first round aside, I literally cannot wait for the leafs cry cry brigade to once again litter the main threads with video clips of tampa injustice. Especially jeannot.

 

[Zwui21]

The extreme ups and downs of busting the leafs out in the first round again, and being the first team to get beaten by the leafs in the first round aside, I literally cannot wait for the leafs cry cry brigade to once again litter the main threads with video clips of tampa injustice. Especially jeannot.

One thing is sure, Leafs fans are gonna hate seeing Jeannot physically bully their entire team.

 

[Hoek]

The extreme ups and downs of busting the leafs out in the first round again, and being the first team to get beaten by the leafs in the first round aside, I literally cannot wait for the leafs cry cry brigade to once again litter the main threads with video clips of tampa injustice. Especially jeannot.

It's pretty annoying how they have like 289 brainrot obsessives pouring over every second looking for every naughty thing the Lightning get away with while completely ignoring their own teams infractions. If we had the same army we could post just as many videos of the reverse.

 

[BoltzManConstant]

So, how have we been looking? I've been out of the country and can't watch the games, and I can't handle the negativity here on the boards when the team is losing games, so I have basically no idea how Jeannot has fit in or what we did with Eyssimont (is he in the NHL)?

What should I know about this team to feel smart in the playoffs? Like, what's gonna be critical to our success, aside from Vasy of course? E.g., Hagel continuing his RS scoring? Perbix not looking like a rookie? Jeannot doing, something...?

 

[aylib]

It's pretty annoying how they have like 289 brainrot obsessives pouring over every second looking for every naughty thing the Lightning get away with while completely ignoring their own teams infractions. If we had the same army we could post just as many videos of the reverse.

Or we can just let whoever make fools out of themselves, no need to engage in nonsense. Winning the game of stupid doesnt sound too appealing to me.

 

[DaBolts]

For the record, just so everyone remembers, I despise Toronto. Not the city, just the Dead Leaves and their fans. They act more entitled than any others in the league.

Crush them Coop.

For all of us.
For the NHL.
For the World.

 

[Kerberos]

For the record, just so everyone remembers, I despise Toronto. Not the city, just the Dead Leaves and their fans. They act more entitled than any others in the league.

Crush them Coop.

For all of us.
For the NHL.
For the World.

This. Please beat that team for everybody's sanity.

Glad to see the Bolts are rounding into form over the past week or so. You guys play like you've been playing, I can't see Tampa losing this series.

 

[YayHockeysBack]

You really need to go read the Leaf's equivalent of this thread:

Series Talk: - Leafs vs Lightning Pre-Playoff Thread

Gm1: Gm2: Gm3: Gm4: Gm5: Gm6: Gm7: Lets go!! Images: Maple Leafs Vs Lightning Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

forums.hfboards.com

Some of those guys are STILL whining about last year's series. God it'll be so great to send them packing again.

 

[Point21]

Kuch gonna hack and slash Matthews all over the ice and Matthews will get penalized for being a bitch

 

[LightningStorm]

We are likely entering this series as underdogs. And I like it.

IF we flipped the switch for real, we will come out victorious. But if we go back at playing lazy D and zero effort or Vasy doesn't show up it will be an easy series for Toronto.

I would hate to be the team that makes the Leafs move to the second round, let's win this boys.

It's all going to come down to effort and commitment. We've been f***ing around pretty hard the last month and a half and what's left of our bad habits needs to be cut out with a lancet and burned

Hoping this was all just a product of knowing who our R1 opponent was far too early and having to pace ourselves in the regular season with how much extra hockey we've played the past 3 seasons. We'll find out big time by the time the playoff start.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

and being the first team to get beaten by the leafs in the first round aside,

You know, I would've cared about this a year ago. I mean, not in a "oh, how crushing way" because, you know, 2020 and 2021 happened, but it would've been kind of annoying if we'd been the team the Leafs finally popped their 1st round cherry against. But after beating them in 2022, losing to them in 2023 would be no more than them getting even. There's no bragging rights in that; we beat them once, they would've beaten us once. And we still have won two Cups in the last few years while nobody under 60 knows what a Leafs Cup looks like. Not saying I would like that outcome, but from that POV, I could live with it.

So, for me, this holds no water.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

It's pretty annoying how they have like 289 brainrot obsessives pouring over every second looking for every naughty thing the Lightning get away with while completely ignoring their own teams infractions. If we had the same army we could post just as many videos of the reverse.

I got such a kick out of when there were complaints about us getting that 5v3 in Game 6. It might've been fortuitous that we got it, and when we got it, I won't even argue that, but the same people (as you said) are blissfully ignorant to Stamkos getting high stick'd in the 3rd period of Game 5 when it was a 4-3 game, and who knows what happens on the power play if we get it. We might score, force OT, win that game, and been up 3-2 going into Game 6 rather than down 3-2. Or maybe not, but we see 5v3 penalties get killed all the time as well and there was no guarantee we were scoring there, either; shit, if they keep us off the board on that 5v3, that was probably all she would've written, because that would've been such a let down at such a critical point and after we'd already rather hilariously coughed up a 2-0 lead earlier in the game.

Ref bias wouldn't make sense anyway. The NHL would massively benefit from the Leafs making a deep playoff run for the first time in ages.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

I'm going to take this time to reiterate my somewhat unusual POV that I actually prefer being the road team in this series (and in most series). Besides our home record in series openers being generally awful, I just like the idea of the crowd in Toronto being as much of a pressure point for the Leafs as it will be for us. I also like that, as the road team, we're the only team that has a stretch where three out of four games are in our building and, naturally, they're all later in the series (3, 4, 6).

We were playing like crap for a while, but it has begun to feel a bit more zipped up of late. Whether it's enough to beat Toronto, who knows. Hopefully we get an early scalp in Toronto and make them feel the heat and see what that does to them. It's far more of a mental battle than a physical battle at this point for them. Toronto is good enough to beat anybody, but so many squandered chances; every game they've had a chance to clinch a series, they've lost (nine games in total across five straight playoff/play-in appearances; madness). It wears on you when you know you've had chance after chance to close and just keep failing to do it.

 

[Rschmitz]

Just win the first two games and let the curse finish them off for us

 

[Maelmoor]

I agree we are underdogs, not by much but still. Regardless of that, I still like our chances, but yeah, we need to start the series better!

 

[Outl4w]

I believe In our boys.

 

[LTIR Trickery]

I love the no diving sign in that thread like they don't employ Michael Bunting

 

[LTIR Trickery]

Not that i'm taking the side of the refs but they've got a point, stfu