Rite of Spring 2018-“What happens in the playoffs stays in the playoffs”

[habsfan1]

Just now, ozzyman314 said:

Great win for The Caps. 

 

Gonna make that Game 7 loss all the more heartbreaking. 

 

Sad but true.

[Crabcake]

On 5/19/2018 at 9:03 PM, Crabcake47 said:

I really hope Tampa just wins Game 6 and ends the Caps’ misery. But because this franchise seems to want to deliver the maximum pain possible to its fanbase, they’ll take Game 6 convincingly to give us hope and then piss away Game 7 like they always do. 

 

[Kramerica Industries]

16 minutes ago, FGM13 said:

Tampa is looking like garbage in this period.

 

They've looked like garbage most of this series. It's incredible that they're still in it. The Capitals have been the better team in at least four of these six games, and truthfully probably five of the six games. Game 5 is the only time the Lightning looked better for the balance, and even the last half of that game was spent doing nothing but dumping the puck in and sitting on the lead and not doing jack squat offensively, and, look now - the Lightning haven't scored a goal in nearly the last 100 minutes of play. There's zero cohesion on the attack, they can't handle the Capitals physicality in the middle of the ice, and the few times they get good looks Holtby has taken care of the rest.

 

For anyone who's watched this series, there's no reason why the Capitals shouldn't be favored on Wednesday. 

[ozzyman314]

7 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

For anyone who's watched this series, there's no reason why the Capitals shouldn't be favored on Wednesday. 

I can give you 1. 

They're The Capitals. 

[monkeypower]

I want to dislike Vegas and the expansion, but I just can’t muster the same amount of hate that some people here have.

 

Yeah, the expansion rules were stacked in Vegas’ favour, but everybody thought they were going to suck. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did. They’re playing insanely above expectations and have a great goalie.

 

I do however, extremely dislike the people on Twitter (#pleaselikemysport) and Reddit fawning over parity and how this couldn’t happen in other sports... which might be true because the protection rules would probably be different.

[MiK]

11 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

I... ...dislike Vegas... ...the expansion rules were stacked in Vegas’ favour... ...I do... ....extremely dislike the... ...m...

 

I agree!

[Section30]

EVERYONE LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, whether you hate Vegas or not, at least Pittsburgh isn't going to win this year

[rams80]

1 hour ago, monkeypower said:

I do however, extremely dislike the people on Twitter (#pleaselikemysport) and Reddit fawning over parity and how this couldn’t happen in other sports... which might be true because the protection rules would probably be different.

 

In theory, this could happen in baseball given how much that sport is up to random chance on the micro level.

[The_Admiral]

I disagree. A roster of six-hole hitters and third starters might be able to BS their way through an unusually weak division, but they wouldn't last in the postseason. One instance that comes to mind is the 2008 Cubs, who maybe weren't exactly the aforementioned, but lacked an honest-to-God ace (I think it was Dempster, Zambrano, and Lilly at the top of the rotation, all 2/3s at best) and had a lineup that surpassed what you'd expect on paper from those names at that time (Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, DeRosa, Theriot, a fresh-off-the-trash-heap Jim Edmonds). They played the Dodgers in the NLDS and went down in three games where they never looked like they were really there because uh oh, they couldn't beat up on crap anymore. I can assess that season much better ten years out, realizing that it wasn't randomness but a consequence of not having the dregs of the National League to gather wins against, but following a 97-win season with an NLDS sweep just killed my baseball fandom for years. Good thing that cold harsh reality will never have to happen to the "good" people of Las Vegas!

[mcj882000]

It does make me wonder though: what would the reaction from the wider sports world be if, say, the National League added an expansion team to Vancouver for 2019, let the existing teams protect 3 of their starting pitchers, 3 of their relievers and 6 of their position players in the expansion draft, then watched as Vancouver immediately won 100 games and the NL Pennant?

[Unocal]

I think Washington will be better off playing a road game 7 instead of at home. The nervous energy won't be there.

[RaginRonic]

3 hours ago, mcj882000 said:

It does make me wonder though: what would the reaction from the wider sports world be if, say, the National League added an expansion team to Vancouver for 2019, let the existing teams protect 3 of their starting pitchers, 3 of their relievers and 6 of their position players in the expansion draft, then watched as Vancouver immediately won 100 games and the NL Pennant?

 

I know that an all-Canada World Series would p**s FOX Sports off...not allowed to air any Americana on their own channel, and having to broadcast sarcastic Canadian culture for a week....and I'd be home laughing at the schadenfreude that they'd have to air to U.S. audiences. XD

 

And SabresRule, just get Ovi loaded with some battery-acid laced stoli....that'll kill his nervous energy real quick.

 

=P

[TBGKon]

9 hours ago, FGM13 said:

Tampa is looking like garbage in this period.

They looked like garbage and turned focus to game 7 after that second goal.

[JQK]

Hockey fans: "THE expansion rules for Vegas were UNFAIR! They were always destined to be good because the NHL stacked the odds in their favor! RIGGED!!!"

 

Also Hockey Fans, 11 months ago:

 

 

Shut up.

[crashcarson15]

14 minutes ago, JQK said:

Hockey fans: "THE expansion rules for Vegas were UNFAIR! They were always destined to be good because the NHL stacked the odds in their favor! RIGGED!!!"

 

Also Hockey Fans, 11 months ago:

 

Shut up.

1 - Different people, from the same broad group, can have different opinions. The "hockey fans" in this thread are not the same "hockey fans" that authored the articles you've posted screenshots of.

 

2 - This goes for all members in the thread, but please focus on discussing viewpoints and opinions, not on insulting other members.

[mcj882000]

All that collage tells me is that hockey's "experts" aren't, which I could've told you already. NBC still keeps the arguably-worst coach and undisputed worst GM in the league's modern history employed as analysts, at least one of the more popular rumour sites literally makes things up and has for years, and Don Cherry. This isn't a sport that fosters intelligent discussion and analysis among its insiders and writers, unfortunately. 

[Dalcowboyfan92]

ONE. MORE. GAME.

 

It's an old foe for the Capitals; Game 7. But, they are 2-1 in Tampa in the ECF, and they have the opportunity to crash the Vegas Cup train if they weather the storm and win Game 7.

[JQK]

No one was saying Vegas was a playoff team.
MOST people were saying Vegas was going to be the worst team in the league.
People didn't start crying "rigged" until the Knights failed to fade after a hot start.

The expansion draft wasn't rigged.
The expansion draft wasn't unfair.
I'm sorry some team's fans are upset because their teams haven't smelled success in forever, and this brand new team is where they've never been, but that doesn't mean the system was rigged for them (or for Pittsburgh, or for Chicago, or for Detroit, or for anyone). This isn't the KHL, as much as some of you seem to want it SO BADLY to be.

All this is, is Vegas getting lucky with a top-level goalie in Fleury (due to being pushed out in Pittsburgh in favor of Murray), and good scouting and GM work in picking up players the rest of the league's GM's felt were expendable, and the coach for getting the absolute most of of these guys.

There is no grand conspiracy. No one is out to get you.

[C-Squared]

I am pulling for them big time, but I only somewhat followed Vegas during the regular season... can anyone intelligently explain why they're doing so well so soon? It seemed like everyone was down on their chances going into the season... was this a case of overly-generous expansion rules or a combination of good scouting, following the Pens/Hawks speed-first blueprint, and unexpected career years from guys like Fleury and Karlsson?

[andrewharrington]

58 minutes ago, C-Squared said:

I am pulling for them big time, but I only somewhat followed Vegas during the regular season... can anyone intelligently explain why they're doing so well so soon? It seemed like everyone was down on their chances going into the season... was this a case of overly-generous expansion rules or a combination of good scouting, following the Pens/Hawks speed-first blueprint, and unexpected career years from guys like Fleury and Karlsson?

 

Teamwork makes the dream work. 

 

Seriously, though, you can really only look at it as a combination of all those things. They have a complementary combination of younger guys who were left exposed because they were on the fringe of the top lines, tested veterans left exposed because of the younger players sitting behind them (or just an abundance of good players), a high-caliber, playoff-tested goalkeeper, and the right coach who squashed the assumption that expansion teams have to be bad (a hot start was probably the perfect fuel for that fire). Sure, the expansion rules were a little more favorable, but after the team was finalized, there was no thought that the expansion rules were unfairly tilted in their favor. It’s only because of their success that this became a narrative.

 

They won all year with speed and offense, and I think the big question going into the playoffs was whether they could tighten up when the competition got consistently tougher. They’ve proven through three rounds that they can still beat you 7-1 on a night when everything’s clicking, but they can also grind it out and beat great teams 2-1 in overtime as well.