Stanley Cup Playoffs megathread

[kabidjan18]

Honestly though, they're going to lose a defenseman in the upcoming expansion draft, probably McDonagh. And I don't think they can resign Coleman and Goodrow.

IF they lose those 3 players, I don't think they're a championship team. Without those 2 UFAs, their bottom 6 is not very formidable, and people tend to focus on the big guns on the top lines but the bottom 6 will play 40% of the game so you gotta invest in those, and I think JBB understood that more than anyone else. He spent a first and a prospect who was a first rounder on Coleman, a first and a prospect on Goodrow, and a first and a fourth on Savard this year. And McDonagh is a big shutdown dman for them who almost plays close to 40% of games as well. They have Cal Foote coming up, but no guarantee he'll be McDonagh in a year. And I think again people focus on Hedman, rightfully so because he's the best defenseman in the league, or on Cernak and Sergachev because they're young, but McDonagh plays a crucial defensive role and important minutes on that team. Without those 3 players, there is exploitable weakness present.

 

[LT]

After next season when Point's contract could almost double is when I think they'll see a major downtrend.

 

[Dynamite Time]

Working overnight last night I got up yesterday evening to watch a playoff game live (rather than wait till this morning) and wow. Could’ve used those few extra hours of sleep cause that wasn’t a game.

edit : hopefully Barzal doesn’t get a game and NYI fire back in game 6.

 

[FirstRowUpperDeck]

If TB has to rebuild on the fly, at least they have won one, and probably two, Stanley Cups from this group.

I don't know, but we always seem to feel the Stars could find any number of bottom six players to replace the ones we crap all over, so I don't know why TB couldn't do it as well. And, we always feel like the Stars can/should plug in rookies on those lines to save money, so I don't see why we would feel TB couldn't do that as well.

As to DT's comment, if Barzel somehow gets suspended for game 6, the series is all over barring some miracle on ice.

 

[serp]

Idk about rebuild on the fly but Tampa should be weaker next season since the Kucherov manuever won't be available next season and Coleman and Goodrow won't re-sign for less than 3 million combined which they are paid right now. Tampa is already over the cap for next season right now without paying any free agent.

They could delay the changing of the winning team for one year. They won't be able to do that for next season. Gotta make some moves.

Right now they're on track to win back to back Cup though

 

[Satan]

TB laid a clown pounding last night

 

[M88K]

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.

People have blown it all out of proportion.
They look at numbers on capfriendly and think 20 mil over the cap, not noticing that's a 34 man roster and doesn't actually represent the team that is playing.
Their actual roster was about 7 mill over the cap on day 1 of the po.
And they had 5mil in their LTIR pool at the end of the season

Tons of teams have done the very same thing, including dallas

 

[FirstRowUpperDeck]

Idk about rebuild on the fly but Tampa should be weaker next season since the Kucherov manuever won't be available next season and Coleman and Goodrow won't re-sign for less than 3 million combined which they are paid right now. Tampa is already over the cap for next season right now without paying any free agent.

They could delay the changing of the winning team for one year. They won't be able to do that for next season. Gotta make some moves.

Right now they're on track to win back to back Cup though

In a way, I hope they do. As a kid growing up in Chicago, the Bulls of the 1970's had several great teams, with 50-55 win seasons. Only problem was, Milwaukee with Jabbar had 55-60 win seasons, and always beat them in the playoffs. They had their 3-5 year window and never were able to break through.

It looks like the Stars will probably end their best window to win, and exit it without a Cup, as well.

If TB fans have to endure a few down seasons, they should at least have a few nice memories of back to back Cups. Of course, they aren't there yet. If they somehow go cold, like most teams can, Vegas or MTL could beat them. I suppose NYI still could, but that beat down last night would take the starch out of most teams.

 

[Nikki Potnick]

I actually like Tampa Bay and hope/think they'll go on to win. They're extremely talented, fun to watch, not dirty overall, and their fans aren't jerks/idiots (looking at you Avs).

 

[Captain Awesome]

People have blown it all out of proportion.
They look at numbers on capfriendly and think 20 mil over the cap, not noticing that's a 34 man roster and doesn't actually represent the team that is playing.
Their actual roster was about 7 mill over the cap on day 1 of the po.
And they had 5mil in their LTIR pool at the end of the season

Tons of teams have done the very same thing, including dallas

They basically have 7.5M on LTIR, Marian Gaborik and Anders Nilsson. Makes it look a lot worse than it really is. And like ZrHutch says, everyone is just salty their GM didn't think of it first. Plus, it's not like it's some thing that's always exploitable. It just so happens that in a shortened season they could take advantage of a star player's injury long enough to pull this off. Plus, as we saw here, most teams cant survive while losing their best player for an entire season. Tampa took advantage of a situation that I don't think many other teams could capitalize on even if they wanted to. They're the best team in the league for something like the 3rd year running. I personally don't think getting swept by Columbus changed that, it's just that playoff hockey is random and crazy things happen.

 

[Satan]

Future Star Blake Coleman might've cost Tampa their season

 

[Ghost of Kyiv]

Ugly play from Coleman. Maybe that blunder will lower the price a bit lol

 

[Zrhutch]

Future Star Blake Coleman might've cost Tampa their season

Sleeper agent. He too believes in “f*** the Lightning”.

Shout out to Mayfield for the frontier justice tonight.

 

[kabidjan18]

Everyone makes mistakes. But what an MVP performance by Mayfield seriously. He singlehandedly saved the evening.

 

[Zrhutch]

Sequence of events
1. Vegas not being able to get any good shots off against Dallas, vast underdogs, and lose to a DEVASTATING Gurianov 1T in 5
2. To correct this, they sign a defenseman and sacrifice forward depth, for reasons
3. They lose to Montreal, vast underdogs, in six games because they can’t get good shots

 

[Smelling Salt]

Maybe DeBoer should have tried a third or fourth goalie. What a clown.

 

[Satan]

I love it

 

[Kcb12345]

Different year, same problems for Vegas lol. Hey, at least they signed Pietrangelo and got a few more goals.

Also I miss the Stars being in the Finals. Habs are in such a similar spot to what they were, but now the Islanders decide they might want to beat Tampa (probably won't, but still). If the Islanders win then the Cup Final is a complete toss up imo

 

[Ghost of Kyiv]

Oléé olé olé oléééé

Decent series, I had fun watching it. I am abysmal with the predictions this playoffs though

 

[kabidjan18]

It's interesting because the Habs and the Golden Knights have like the opposite offensive strategy. They all have the same defensive strategy, big hulking defensemen who clear the net, chip out the zone and pass instead of carrying zone exits. But on offense, Vegas has mainly checkers as forwards and generates most their offense from the blue line. That's actually a lot like the Stars. And the Habs have a lot more individual playmakers who like to 1v1 or 2v2 on the counterattack, like Toffoli, Suzuki, Perry, Armia, Caufield, even like Josh Anderson and Paul Byron and Brendan Gallagher who haven't necessarily had the same puck luck but where they thrive is on that kind of counterattack. They really don't generate that much zone time and even when they do have the puck in the o-zone they don't threaten much with it except on the man advantage. Vegas tries to generate offense from the blue line, but a lot of their players are actually probably best classified as snipers, they don't really position well around the net or get their sticks on pucks a lot, and so in key times in the past two years when they've needed offense they've run out of it.

 

[BfantZ]

Love the guy but Lehner is not a goalie you want in the net for a playoff run .

 

[Smelling Salt]

Love the guy but Lehner is not a goalie you want in the net for a playoff run .

I know it's not a big deal and maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds but when he goes to Twitter shortly after the loss it just seems weird to me.

 

[BfantZ]

I know it's not a big deal and maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds but when he goes to Twitter shortly after the loss it just seems weird to me.

He’s mentally weak and that’s okay but it’s just not what you want from a starting goalie in the playoffs . He goes to Twitter immediately so he can reassure everyone he’s okay with it and can get reassurance from a million fans that he’s still good and it wasn’t his fault .

 

[Sports2]

rooting for the habs all day- disrespected every step of the way like Dallas

 

[Kcb12345]

No surprise Tampa will win the Cup again