(NHL Playoffs) Rite of Spring 2017: can't go on, no, I'll go on

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

Same old Caps

[KittSmith_95]

Sens-Perds Finals, please? 

 

PLEASE? 

PLEASE? 

[Seadragon76]

I'd be down with a Nashville-Ottawa finals or even an Anaheim-Ottawa finals. Nothing against Pittsburgh, but some new blood is always nice.

[Sport]

9 hours ago, worcat said:

Spoken by a person that has never been to STL or knows nothing of - Stay classy Sac-Town. MOD EDIT

 

He never resorted to name-calling. Perhaps it is you who should "Stay classy"? 

[Dalcowboyfan92]

"There are three absolutes in life; death, taxes, and the Washington Capitals losing a Game 7 in the NHL Playoffs."

[Sport]

I don't find Ducks fans pompous really. I've been irritated/envious of their success (they won a cup in my memory so they've had more fun than 90% of the league), but blowing a 3-2 lead in 4 almost 5 straight playoffs is enough dick punches for a fanbase to properly appreciate a cup run. Some other too big for their britches fanbases could absolutely use a dose of humble pie like that. 

 

That said I will be pulling for PK Subban and the Nashville Predators. Nashville-Ottawa. Let's do this!

[BeerGuyJordan]

8 hours ago, worcat said:

Identifying what fan base you are from does not validate your claim.

 

Ducks fans can't even agree which identity they appreciate more - Mighty Ducks or Webbed D - alone. Let alone sounding like they have conquered some sort of set back and have fought their way back to the top. GTFO with your BS

 

 

Just about every Kings fan I know hates the Ducks, and vice versa. Identifying himself as being from a fanbase that hates the one he's talking about lends credability to his objectivity. 

 

The Ducks fanbase has suffered a string of game seven losses. For them to get amped up about exorcising that demon is wholly understandable. Trying to diminish the hockey aspect with an aesthetics argument is both juvenile and asinine. If conflicting opinions, about a better look, within a fanbase, disqualifies them as "real fans," you eliminate just about every team that has undergone a major identity overhaul. Making that argument, as the fan of a team with their original logo, makes you appear like an elitist schmuck.

 

 

53 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

I don't find Ducks fans pompous really. I've been irritated/envious of their success (they won a cup in my memory so they've had more fun than 90% of the league), but blowing a 3-2 lead in 4 almost 5 straight playoffs is enough dick punches for a fanbase to properly appreciate a cup run. Some other too big for their britches fanbases could absolutely use a stretch like that. 

 

That said I will be pulling for PK Subban and the Nashville Predators. Nashville-Ottawa. Let's do this!

Couldn't agree more. In my limited experience with Ducks fans, I find them more enjoyable, on the whole, than a lot of older fanbases. They're no Columbus, but I find it mildly irritating that I can't find a single legitimate fault with their fans, asde from needing more of them. I'm a Preds fan, tough, so who am I to talk. We were there, just a few seasons ago.

[IceCap]

9 hours ago, The Six said:

When did the admiral wake up from his cryogenic sleep? Why does he only seem to hate hockey when the Blackhawks are out of it? Does Ice Cap get notifications on his phone whenever admiral posts just so he can "like" them? So many mysteries.

I've given out Likes like candy ever since we removed the limit on how many you could give.

 

I understand if you're jealous, but don't worry bubala. You're still good. Maybe try going back to posting as an old cowboy. You'll get more Likes, I'm sure of it. 

 

Quote

The NHL isn't last of the Big 4 because of Bettman, it's because the fans are miserable, even when things go their way.

The Leafs got knocked out in six (ha!) so the first round certainly didn't go my way. I was pretty positive though.

And besides. The reason the NHL is last in the Big Four is simple. The NHL is last of the Big Four because most of the league doesn't have a fanbase as strong as Toronto's  

 

8 hours ago, The Six said:

 

Entitled to what? To watch their team play? The word has lost all meaning.

What if that team's from the East Coast or *gasps* Canadian?

 

EDIT- Who would have thought a Ducks win over the Oilers would have broken worcat of all people? I don't think he ever got this upset over the Rams leaving. Though maybe that's why the Rams leaving was a good idea in the first place...

[Crabcake]

Ladies, gentlemen, patrons of this Board.

 

This is a fact I never wanted to come to terms with.  But over the course of the last 7 years, this fact has become indelible to me.  Perhaps I always knew it was true deep down, but in light of recent events, I have had to face it head on.

 

The Washington Capitals are not going to win a Stanley Cup in the Alex Ovechkin era.

 

Let me clarify some things first.  In no way am I attributing/blaming this on Alex Ovechkin. Laughably poor defensive efforts (at times) aside, Ovechkin is undoubtedly the franchise's greatest player.  I'm not pinning this on a lack of leadership, from him or Coach Trotz.  After all, Barry Trotz took a Capitals team that was decent under Adam Oates and turned them into the NHL's back-to-back President's Trophy winners with essentially the same squad.  

 

But there just seems to be a mental block with this group of players. I don't know what it is.  But they absolutely, 100%, cannot play well when it matters.  Something goes wrong. Every. Single. Time. Heck, if Justin Williams, Mr. Game 7, the man who never lost a game 7 in his NHL career, is now losing Game 7s, well then we're hopeless.

 

So the logical question is, what now? As several people have said, the Caps have basically done everything they can.  They signed guys with good playoff reputations. They got a better coach. They got a better GM. They found Ovi and Backstrom a legitamite top-line winger.  They were 4 lines, 3 pairings deep.  They had a Vezina-winning goalie.  And it didn't work.  So what now?

 

The short but painful answer is blow it up.  They won't, and it would be the hardest and probably most criticized decision in franchise history.  But we've thrown everything including the kitchen sink at the problem and look where it's got us. Nowhere. 

 

After several years, once Ovi, Backstrom, and most all of this group is gone, then the rebuild can begin.  Hopefully we luck out like the Penguins and Oilers have and get a generational talent.  If not, it could be one heck of a vicious cycle.

 

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now.  I needed to get this off my chest.  Thanks for reading.

[BeerGuyJordan]

I'm nowhere near as familiar with the Caps as @Crabcake47 is, but I really think the best thing might be to just blow it up. With the number of free agents as it seems they'll lose, this off-season, trading Ovechkin makes a lot of sense. He's still a player they could get a lot for, which could be exactly what they need, in a rebuild.

 

Also, if the window for a Cup is truly closed, in Washington, I'd like to see Ovi go somewhere he can get one.

[Dalcowboyfan92]

I feel there is still a small crack in the window for at least one more year. I think, Washington needs to head into the playoffs not as the top seed; not with home-ice advantage. Not with almost every pair of eyes of every hockey fan in the Beltway looking at them. They need to find a way to not necessarily tank for the 3/4 seed, but find a way to make the last few games of the regular seed pseudo-playoff games. Kind of fly into the playoffs under the radar. Get as far away from Pittsburgh as they can.

 

They need to go into the playoffs with that kind of mindset. It's all too easy to go into the playoffs with a lackadaisical mindset. That kind of mindset finds you down in 3-1/3-0 holes before you can even blink.

 

They had Pittsburgh on the brink. But, like the Undertaker did all too often, the Pens awoke from their almost certain death sentence and proceeded to give Ovi and the Caps an old-fashioned Tombstone.

[ninersdd]

Since 98 when the Caps made the Final, I believe only the Jackets, Thrashers, Panthers, and Islanders have failed to reach the final 4 alongside the Caps.

[OnWis97]

39 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

I'm nowhere near as familiar with the Caps as @Crabcake47 is, but I really think the best thing might be to just blow it up. With the number of free agents as it seems they'll lose, this off-season, trading Ovechkin makes a lot of sense. He's still a player they could get a lot for, which could be exactly what they need, in a rebuild.

 

Also, if the window for a Cup is truly closed, in Washington, I'd like to see Ovi go somewhere he can get one.

I am thinking that too. They seem to be the Clippers.  The idea of Ovechkin playing elsewhere may be like Kevin Garnett leaving Minnesota.  Once it became clear that they were not going to win a title with him, it became easier to realize that it's time to move and and to hope he could get a title elsewhere.  If the Caps really believe there will be no Cup with Ovechkin, then the longer they keep him, the longer they delay the rebuild.  But I get why Caps fans don't want to see him playing elsewhere.

 

The one reason not to blow it up in hockey is that just about any .500 team is a hot goalie away from a run (yet I still feel it's time for the Wild to blow it up,too).  But it looks like the Caps would really need the stars to align to do that.  

[Wings]

10 years in the making.

 

Anaheim vs. Ottawa 2: The Senators Revenge

[JWhiz96]

1 hour ago, Ice_Cap said:

EDIT- Who would have thought a Ducks win over the Oilers would have broken worcat of all people? I don't think he ever got this upset over the Rams leaving. Though maybe that's why the Rams leaving was a good idea in the first place...

The Rams were awful for 10+ years, hadn't made the playoffs in 11 years, and hadn't had a winning record in 12 years. I could see how a STL sports fan would distance themselves from them.

 

The Blues, however, are a perennial playoff team and continually choke sputter in the post season. They've also been in STL for their entire existence, unlike the Rams who weren't even their first NFL squad. It makes sense how more STL fans would be invested in the Blues.

 

Don't know why he freaked over the Ducks though.

[habsfan1]

 

[habsfan1]

 

[The_Admiral]

10 hours ago, tp49 said:

Guess some members of the Blues fanbase are going for "best fans in hockey" to go along with their city's "best fans in baseball ™."

It's the Perds fans who have BFIB tendencies, hardcore Blues fans seem to be loud and ornery and considerably less impressed with their own mere existence.

[Brian in Boston]

Things are getting a bit "chippy" in here, folks. Let's focus more on discussing the on-ice developments in NHL playoff hockey and less on personally insulting one another/attacking other fan bases.

Thank you.

[Still MIGHTY]

Wow. A salt truck turned over on the highway that is this thread last night, huh?

 

Look, the Ducks were born in 1993. I was born in 1990. My family has had season tickets since day one. I live and die with this team because I've literally grown up with this franchise. So I'm sorry if my exuberance for the Ducks is a bit much sometimes.

 

And yes, the Ducks did win the Cup 10 years ago. The greatest experience of my sports life. However, I've always adhered to McCarthy's 5-year grace period. You win a title, you really have no right to complain about lack of success for the next five seasons after. The Ducks are double that now and threw in a string of five Game 7 losses, including the previous four in a row after blown 3-2 leads. (Not to mention seeing your blood rival win the Cup twice in three years after 45 years of suck.) As the aforementioned McCarthy said, I think that's enough dick-punching for a franchise to be brought back down a couple notches.

 

While there's a championship to their name, last night's game felt like it was the difference between just continuing on being the Ducks or becoming the Sharks or Capitals. The sense of relief in that building last night was palpable. You saw it on every single person's face.

 

I don't necessarily feel like I needed to rationalize how I felt to strangers on the internet, but there's that.

 

Go Ducks.