Around the League - 2019/20 Season Edition #2

[Guided by Veseys]

Florida Tampa game has been really entertaining. Fights and chippy play.
Florida looks terrible and Tampa looks godlike.
I’d recommend watching the highlights. Naz plays in a couple of minutes and hopefully that is a good one as well.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Florida is one of the teams that are really lucky that their season is still alive, and they don't look like they care at all

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Florida is one of the teams that are really lucky that their season is still alive, and they don't look like they care at all

I should have put it here, but as I said in another thread, I think the team that gets to play the winner of NYI/FLA is going to be quite satisfied. Neither team seem to have the 'it' factor to be able to beat those top teams, outside of having two HOF coaches. Effectively they are going to need to outcoach and outwork their opponents to win, and they are going to need to their opponents to be complacent.

Toronto, Pittsburgh and maybe Carolina are the teams the top guys need to worry about. Pittsburgh is fully healthy and if Murray can do well, they have a team that can beat any of the top guys and even go for a Cup. Same goes for Toronto more or less, but we may have more questions about our defense than Pittsburgh (even though their defense is not really all that amazing). Carolina may have enough to take another run like they had last year, but I am not sure they can make it past the Conference Finals unless their goalies and depth offense do much better than they did in the regular season.

 

[Mess]

FYI for anyone interested SN1 has added 3 exhibition games to their schedule for today.

You can catch CAR/WAS at 4:00 PM EST , then NYI/NYR and last VAN/WIN tonight.

 

[Stephen]

Florida is one of the teams that are really lucky that their season is still alive, and they don't look like they care at all

I’m surprised that even with the Tallon Quenneville management team in place they seem mired in this perpetual chill out mode. They have young stars like Ekblad, Huberdeau, Barkov and big acquisitions like Yandle, Bobrovsky and Hoffman to build on, but they seem to be headed the way of Luongo, Bouwmeester, Weiss and Horton too like they’ll just go through the season and get back to the good living. Total enigma. But as a division opponent I guess you can’t complain.

 

[LeafsOHLRangers98]

I’m surprised that even with the Tallon Quenneville management team in place they seem mired in this perpetual chill out mode. They have young stars like Ekblad, Huberdeau, Barkov and big acquisitions like Yandle, Bobrovsky and Hoffman to build on, but they seem to be headed the way of Luongo, Bouwmeester, Weiss and Horton too like they’ll just go through the season and get back to the good living. Total enigma. But as a division opponent I guess you can’t complain.

Well when your defense sucks so badly that you have a guy making almost $5M for the next 7 years playing 4th line forward, and you trade your 2nd line, 60 point center for scraps, while you're also relying on a career year from Noel Acciari to carry you, it's pretty easy to see why that team was struggling to stay in the playoff race.

 

[Menzinger]

I’m surprised that even with the Tallon Quenneville management team in place they seem mired in this perpetual chill out mode. They have young stars like Ekblad, Huberdeau, Barkov and big acquisitions like Yandle, Bobrovsky and Hoffman to build on, but they seem to be headed the way of Luongo, Bouwmeester, Weiss and Horton too like they’ll just go through the season and get back to the good living. Total enigma. But as a division opponent I guess you can’t complain.

Tallon is giving Chia and Nonis a run for their money for the "worst GM" award

 

[PromisedLand]

Babcock re-emerges

Babcock to join University of Vermont hockey staff as volunteer adviser

 

[willmma]

Wow. Chicago smashed the champs

 

[Merrrlin]

Wow. Chicago smashed the champs

I’d really love to see them upset Edmonton.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Babcock re-emerges

Babcock to join University of Vermont hockey staff as volunteer adviser

'I have always bet on Mike Babcock'

 

[ACC1224]

I’d really love to see them upset Edmonton.

You know they’ll win the lottery if that happens. That would cause an interesting reaction especially if Montreal loses out.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Babcock re-emerges

Babcock to join University of Vermont hockey staff as volunteer adviser

Well he went to one of the worst D1 programs in the NCAA right now... They are an absolute mess. All of the quality prospects they had de-committed within the past year and are going to better schools.

 

[ACC1224]

Well he went to one of the worst D1 programs in the NCAA right now... They are an absolute mess. All of the quality prospects they had de-committed within the past year and are going to better schools.

Bad programs don't need advisors?

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Bad programs don't need advisors?

Just some added information.

 

[Fogelhund]

You know they’ll win the lottery if that happens. That would cause an interesting reaction especially if Montreal loses out.

Nah, Arizona wins the lottery after losing out. It always goes to the Taylor Hall team.

 

[willmma]

Boston is getting smashed in Toronto

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Boston is getting smashed in Toronto

They don't look like a team that is going to go far in the playoffs at this point. Their defense looks awful, and it's not like Columbus is some amazing offensive team. Columbus is not doing much to get good scoring opportunities against them right now.

 

[Gallagbi]

They don't look like a team that is going to go far in the playoffs at this point. Their defense looks awful, and it's not like Columbus is some amazing offensive team. Columbus is not doing much to get good scoring opportunities against them right now.

They don't care, this is the warm up to their warm ups

 

[SeaOfBlue]

They don't care, this is the warm up to their warm ups

Sure, don't go out there and kill yourself. It is still no excuse for terrible coverage that should not even fly in practice. They may not be eliminated in that round-robin, but it still determines home-ice advantage and it would be in their best interest to do well enough to avoid Pittsburgh in the first round.

 

[Dekes For Days]

They may not be eliminated in that round-robin, but it still determines home-ice advantage and it would be in their best interest to do well enough to avoid Pittsburgh in the first round.

Maybe they want to do bad enough in the round robin to avoid us.

 

[Mess]

Sure, don't go out there and kill yourself. It is still no excuse for terrible coverage that should not even fly in practice. They may not be eliminated in that round-robin, but it still determines home-ice advantage and it would be in their best interest to do well enough to avoid Pittsburgh in the first round.

Just to add that regular season points% will factor into the rankings..

Boston the presidents trophy winner hold the tie-breaker against any team. The only way Boston to rank 4th of the current playoff teams would be to lose all 3 round robin game and Philly to win all 3 to switch spots, while TB and WAS win 1 each.

I think we're going to see upsets in qualifiers so it will be hard for any team in the round robin to try and orchestrate their playoff round #1 opponent.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Just to add that regular season points% will factor into the rankings..

Boston the presidents trophy winner hold the tie-breaker against any team. The only way Boston to rank 4th of the current playoff teams would be to lose all 3 round robin game and Philly to win all 3 to switch spots, while TB and WAS win 1 each.

I think we're going to see upsets in qualifiers so it will be hard for any team in the round robin to try and orchestrate their playoff round #1 opponent.

If they lose all three, they are last place. Doesn't really matter how the other three play out (i.e. Philly doesn't need to win all three).

If they play like they did against Columbus, they could realistically lose all three. Tampa, Philly and Washington looked a lot more put together.

 

[Mess]

If they lose all three, they are last place. Doesn't really matter how the other three play out (i.e. Philly doesn't need to win all three).

If they play like they did against Columbus, they could realistically lose all three. Tampa, Philly and Washington looked a lot more put together.

TB, Philly and Washington all had pretty good competitive exhibition games while CBJ made the Bruins look pretty slow and disinterested and outplayed and outworked Boston.

Philly needs to win all 3 to get the top spot and get the easiest round #1 opponent based on rankings is what I was referring to in order for Boston and Philly to flip pre round robin spots #1 and #4.

I see the round robin playing out as 2 X 2-1 teams and 2 X 1-2 teams personally and I could see Boston falling to #3 seed.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Carolina-NYR has been pretty good. Intensity is still there despite the lack of a crowd. They could probably boost the audio a little bit though.