Stanley Cup Playoffs megathread
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JeffP
had meat hello
- Nov 30, 2010
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starsfan86
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- Sep 27, 2006
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Montreal is eerily reminiscent of Dallas' playstyle last year. Really good at winning the battles in front of the net and then forcing their opponents to play low percentage hockey, shooting shots from angles instead of head on, not letting tips get through.
Vegas is being exposed quite a bit for the fact that their forwards don't play the front of the net that well, like last year. They like to play the open ice, a more free flowing style of game. But they're being given the outside, being given the wings, and they can't get forwards through to redirect the pucks in front of the net to give Price any sort of a challenging in goal. This is still a series, but if you want to see a modern NHL defenseman look no further than the quartet of Weber, Chiarot, Petry, and Edmundson. Vegas has to make serious tactical changes if they want to compete this series, Montreal has made theirs and it's paid off big time.
Vegas is being exposed quite a bit for the fact that their forwards don't play the front of the net that well, like last year. They like to play the open ice, a more free flowing style of game. But they're being given the outside, being given the wings, and they can't get forwards through to redirect the pucks in front of the net to give Price any sort of a challenging in goal. This is still a series, but if you want to see a modern NHL defenseman look no further than the quartet of Weber, Chiarot, Petry, and Edmundson. Vegas has to make serious tactical changes if they want to compete this series, Montreal has made theirs and it's paid off big time.
serp
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- Jan 17, 2016
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Golden Knight forward group is not that good offensively. That hasn't changed from last year. They upgraded the blueline and Fleury was playing good again . If Fleury continues to make mistakes there's a good chance Vegas flames out in round 3 again.
David Castillo
Registered User
???
Chiarot is terrible. It's amazing what a great goalie can do to make a blueline look great. Not saying Montreal has a crappy blueline but Price is the best player on ice, and officiating is simply ruining any legit flow the series might otherwise have. And yes, Vegas got away with far more last night. But I wouldn't look at Montreal - a team that got into the PO's on a technicality - as the team others should be looking to copy. And I'd take Pietrangelo and Theodore over the Canadien's top four every day and twice on Sunday. Although I've been impressed to see Petry provide value while wearing blood goggles. Props.
The heat map just affirms what I said and what I remembered. You have a solo hotspot in the center for Vegas which is the area where they scored the goal, but also where a lot of rebound and hack attempts would have been, in addition to say the Roy goal, the Tuch breakaway, and Stone had a chance slightly further back in that area which deflected up. Then you see this huge blob to the right side, that's all virtually worthless because in order to block that the goalie only needs to seal the right side of the goal. And you see that there was a hotspot when defensemen stepped up from the point on the left side and shot, but again a shot from that distance and angle has virtually no chance of going in without being deflected. The left half boards area is empty because whenever they got to that point, there were a few shots from that area I believe missed or were blocked but they often tried to pass back to the key because they want to shoot a better angled shot and that's where quite a few pass breakups and takeaways originated from. The Vegas logo serves as a good proxy for where you want your shot attempts to originate from, and you can see even the Petro goal comes from that area. But a lot of the heat is either flared out or in such close proximity things like elevation of the puck are very difficult, it's not on the logo. And that's even before factoring deflected shots, both those shots blocked by Montreal and those shots that went untipped by Vegas.???
Chiarot is terrible. It's amazing what a great goalie can do to make a blueline look great. Not saying Montreal has a crappy blueline but Price is the best player on ice, and officiating is simply ruining any legit flow the series might otherwise have. And yes, Vegas got away with far more last night. But I wouldn't look at Montreal - a team that got into the PO's on a technicality - as the team others should be looking to copy. And I'd take Pietrangelo and Theodore over the Canadien's top four every day and twice on Sunday. Although I've been impressed to see Petry provide value while wearing blood goggles. Props.
We heard this same narrative with Khudobin last year, with Binnington the year before, how it was the goalie standing on his head, irrespective of the strategic deployment of skaters around him that allowed such performances. I'm certain that I'll never be able to dispel some people of the image of the valiant goalie holding up his hapless skaters around him. Goalie performances don't happen in vacuums, and while Price made a handful of impressive saves, the vast majority of the 45 shots he faced were nothing shots, and throughout the night shots weren't being redirected or altered so they were largely straight on. And I don't know if you subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the NHL changes between the regular season and the playoffs, but you can simply take a look at Carey Price's save percentages with this defense, this year and last, from regular season to the playoffs. Maybe he has a "playoff clutch gene", or maybe there are actually things changing around him on the ice that are working in his favor.
Now, I picked Vegas to win the cup before the season and at every stage throughout. So of course I think highly of their defense, I literally picked them to win the cup because I think they have the best defense. But even the Vegas defense is different from the way you advertise it. Actual Vegas fans are quick to espouse the value of defensemen like Alec Martinez and Zach Whitecloud. You're praising Shea Theodore because he has impressive point totals, I personally think his defense is underrated, but he's actually a player who receives a lot of criticism, particularly recently. Vegas is typically good at generating a lot of their offense from the blue line, like Dallas last year. Montreal not as much, and New York also to a lesser extent, though more than Montreal. Some things can merely be stylistic preferences.
It's Chiarot this year, and Montreal. It was someone else last year, and the year before, and it'll be someone else next year. I do see the hordes of people insisting the pre-prepared message that "Chiarot has nothing to do with Montreal's success" even though he's tied with Weber for the most ice time on Montreal in these playoffs, just under 26 minutes a game. People believe what they will, that's fine. It is what it is.
Dynamite Time
Where Is My Mind?
They’re definitely good offensively; they’re just cold and Price is on fire.
My bet is Vegas still wins the series (wouldn’t hurt if me they don’t) but Montreal has a good young core heading forward.
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serp
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It's the same forward core who struggled to score again us last season as well .
Montreal's leading that series in 5v5 xGF. They're a good team and @kabidjan18 is right when he talks about the comparison between Montreal and last year's Stars.
It's hilarious how they keep getting discounted by the Hockey Stats guys on Twitter. The nerds haven't realized that regular season metrics don't apply to the playoffs.
It's hilarious how they keep getting discounted by the Hockey Stats guys on Twitter. The nerds haven't realized that regular season metrics don't apply to the playoffs.
Dynamite Time
Where Is My Mind?
I was referring to Montreal teams young core; we didn’t play the Canadians last postseason.
serp
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Yeah, it's really interesting after Game 1, Montreal also led in xGF and a guy was saying roughly "why did the game end 4-1 against us", and the answer is because Vegas was getting tips and redirects and screens, which xGF doesn't really account for. But Montreal made really good changes, like TSN pointed out last night they moved to like this box+1 looking formation and they've been able to prevent Vegas from getting tips and deflections and because of that suddenly the game scores start to match the xGF.
I think so as well...their team is just so good. Ryan McDonagh was the 1D for NYR when they made their run to the finals in 2014, so he is in my eyes a 1D. And Victor Hedman is a 1D. And they have Sergachev and Cernak and Rutta and Savard, all capable of munching up big minutes and holding their own zone. Unlike Vegas, and Dallas, they often don't need their defensemen to get involved to generate offense, so their defensemen can sit further back and defend against the counterattack. That's not a feature I'd buy at the expense of a good defense but if you can go "20 mil over the cap" that's an amazing feature to have as well.
BfantZ
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- Jun 22, 2017
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Yep , tampa has the best roster with the best goalie in the league backing it up . Pretty good formula .
What a game haha. I thought they were producing somewhat better chances but not many chances in total. And then they beat Price on a nothing shot from an angle where he just had to shut down the side and it went through him haha. But great deflection into rebound goal on the GWG, that's what they need.
The Tourist
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- Jul 11, 2008
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He's so bad. The puck is a grenade anytime it ends up on his stick. He gets under pressure and tosses his problem over to Weber who then has to control a bad pass with two guys closing down on him.
Both series entertaining, and after tonight and tomorrow, two teams will be up 3-2 and seemingly in command, but a lot of back and forth.
I figure the favorites will prevail, i.e., TB and LV, but find myself rooting for the underdogs who play strong team defense. Maybe that is because it's more like the Stars are built to play, and it gives us hope about their potential success, who knows.
I figure the favorites will prevail, i.e., TB and LV, but find myself rooting for the underdogs who play strong team defense. Maybe that is because it's more like the Stars are built to play, and it gives us hope about their potential success, who knows.
JesusNPucks
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Kcb12345
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- Jun 6, 2017
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JesusNPucks
Registered User
I don’t even know what you compare the Lightning cap thing to in another sport. It’s completely f***ing absurd.
…. I wish Dallas was smart enough to pull it off though.
…. I wish Dallas was smart enough to pull it off though.
ugrakarma
>/dev/null
Talk about killer instinct, putting teams away, and breaking their spirits, last night was exhibit A.
