Glover

It stings to lose this way, but I’m proud of my team. They fought hard each game, just couldn’t finish and had some bad bounces. We have come a long way after a 9 year playoff drought. In the moment it is frustrating to lose, but I’ll take an ECF appearance over missing the playoffs or an early exit every time. 

10 hours ago, Unocal said:

I feel terrible for @Glover I really do

Not much you can do when you run into a scorching hot goalie. Certainly frustrating to watch, but it'll all be over soon. 

Sweep incoming.

Sucks to be on the losing end, but what a game that was. 
 

If we can just win one of the next 3 then we won’t get swept. 

21 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

The Panthers last playoff OT loss was Game 6 against the Islanders in 2016. They've won seven in a row since then, six of them on the road.

 

The Hurricanes last playoff OT loss was Game 4 against the Preds in 2021. They've won six in a row since then.

 

Maybe it's not surprising that this game is going to a 4th overtime.

Plus the Canes have lost 8 straight ECF games. Universe has no idea what to do. 

Even if the Canes can win this game, Bobrovsky is just too good right now. It's going to be tough to win this series with how he is playing. 
 

At this rate I just want to win a single game in the ECF after getting swept in our last two appearances. 

1 hour ago, CS85 said:

 

If the Hurricanes wore their Whalers alts for the entire series, by law we would have to support them.

Whalers vs North Stars in the Cup Finals. Make it happen. 

1 hour ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Not sure if any of you listen to NHL radio on sirius, but they've been talking about Cleveland as a possibility on the air this morning.

Don't go getting my hopes up like that. However, Cleveland can barely support 3 major league teams as it is, so I do not see it happening. 

Just move them to Quebec City and call it a day - it is a slam dunk. Some Sunbelt teams have worked, some haven't. This one has been a disaster for a number of reasons.

7 hours ago, DTConcepts said:

 

It's a bad thing that regular fans could go to the SCF instead of rich people with $500+ to blow?

I was referring to regular season games for the Predators - I should have specified. Pre-SCF regular season tickets were relatively cheap and easy to acquire if you wanted to go. Post-SCF the Predators became the hot item, and regular season tickets were much harder to come by. Prices more than doubled compared to years past and their games sold out on a regular basis. 

5 minutes ago, Unocal said:

 

NSH was showing up for Preds games long before that 2017 run. They drew good crowds with those Vokoun/Sullivan/Kariya mid-2000s teams and of course the Shea Weber/Pekka Rinne (is too good right now) squads that preceded Subban

I moved to the area in 2014 and it was a good fanbase, but tickets could be had for $30-$50 in the secondary market depending on opponent and day of the week. After the Finals appearance? It was like $90 per ticket for a Tuesday night game. 
 

My point was more that Florida might be able to build on this run and get a solid core to their fanbase. I am not married to this take, but when the team has success it never hurts. 

Just now, Unocal said:

 

Another factor that should be noted- CAR unlike last year has shown they can win on the road (3 times!) in the spring

 

And going into FLA's arena won't be quite as initmidating as BOS/NYR last year or NYI in round 1

I won’t be upset if you’re right, that is for sure. I’d love nothing more than to add a Canes jersey with a 2023 Stanley Cup Finals patch to my jersey collection. It’ll look good next to my Irbe and Commodore Cup Finals jerseys. 

2 minutes ago, Unocal said:

 

Carolina just dispatched a Devils team that has far more speed than CAR. The Panthers are not as fast as the Devils.

As a Cleveland sports fan it isn’t in my nature to be optimistic about my teams in the playoffs haha. I’m hungry for more, but also happy to be here. 

19 minutes ago, Unocal said:

 

And instead, a fanbase that basically just cared about hockey last week now will pretend like they were rooting for FLA all this time.

 

I get where you’re coming from, not going to beat around the bush. But on the other hand the Panthers have talent and will probably be a playoff regular for a little bit. This run, which is something they haven’t seen since 1996, could  help create a solid fanbase. 
 

As a former Nashville (well…Murfreesboro) resident, the Predators making the Finals was the spark that helped ignite a pretty passionate fanbase. Prior to that Cup Finals run they were an okay fanbase. Cheap tickets could be had most nights. After that Cup Finals run though, it was difficult to get tickets. Not saying the same will happen for the Panthers, but it can’t hurt. 

It is probably the pessimistic fan coming out in me (thank you Cleveland sports), but I don’t see the Canes winning against Florida. Bobrovsky is hot and our offense in the postseason has heavily leaned on bottom 6 guys grinding out goals. We will need more then gritty goals to win this series. 
 

Our defense should  be solid and keep us alive, but if we don’t get production from our top players it won’t matter much. If Aho and Necas can play in regular season form we have a chance. If Jarvis and Kotkaniemi can just take turns and make an impact each game we have a shot. 

2 minutes ago, IceCap said:

 

me rn

 

Thanks boys. Honestly? As sad as it sounds? Going out in Round 2 like this... it was fun. 

 

Go Leafs Go 

I was pulling for you guys. The Leafs fanbase is more than deserving of tasting the fruits of success, even if it is just a ECF or Cup Finals appearance. 

I absolutely did not expect we would make it to the ECF after we were limping to the finish line to end the regular season. But I’ll take it! 
 

Still don’t expect to win the Cup this year, but I’m glad I get to watch another series of stressful playoff hockey. Nothing more exciting! 

5 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Toews has long covid, Kane needs a hip replacement, Marian Hossa had a skin-eating disease, Ed Olczyk had cancer, if you want the universe to punish everyone from the 2010 team, it looks like the universe has done just about everything short of pulling the Hawks' 2023 draft pick so that a team you're less sick of can get it instead

Not sure who this is directed at, but I don’t think anyone is talking about punishing the 2010 team or players. I think we are saying it is silly to cry about your team having a bad 6 year stretch right after they win 3 Stanley Cups. 

5 hours ago, the admiral said:

The Hawks have been awful for six years! Is that not karma? Silence, journo.

And they won how many Cups in the last 15 years? Stop whining. 

I thought voting for the final round did not begin until Wednesday?

Both logos on the left are my favorite. Bottom right is fine, but a little busy for my liking, but it is a decent logo. The middle one is horrible. Just an objectively terrible logo. But, it is going to win because a cute girl on TikTok with a million followers designed it. 

20 minutes ago, Sport said:

Oooh a topic I'm uniquely suited to discuss. At the time in the mid-90's Cincinnati was already over-served relative to our population size with the Reds, Bengals, and college basketball, while Columbus was just sitting there without a major professional sports franchise (unless you want to count John Cooper's Buckeyes! FOLKS!) and in an open hole on the NHL map with a comparable population to Cincinnati. I think they also sold the BOG that Columbus could theoretically draw fans from all over the state, which happens more now, but definitely wasn't happening in the franchise's first decade when they were complete ass.

 

You're right that people that live in Cincy are from Cincy and people that live in Columbus are from Hilliard or Upper Arlington or Westerville or they're Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, Toledo natives who went to OSU and never left. Cincinnati is a city, Columbus is a collection of suburbs. Columbus is a boring person's Sim City city while Cincinnati is a drunk person's Sim City city. Cincinnati has more character, more charm, more of a centrally established culture, more history, more grit, more diversity, more tactility, less sterility, less planned, and is geographically more interesting. Columbus has better schools, more space, a better educated populace, but it's also more dull. People come to Cincinnati and they either love it or they hate it, nobody can ever seem to muster any emotion one way or the other in the same way for Columbus. And I'm allowed to say this because I'm from both places. 

 

Better hockey city? On vibes, maybe Cincinnati, but in actual practice I don't know if Cincinnati would-be the better NHL city. Columbus has quietly built a nice little hockey ecosystem there with very active adult leagues, lots of rinks, lots of youth and high school programs (a Columbus school just became the first school not from Cleveland or Toledo to win the state championship), and a good season ticket holder base. There's more white-collar money in Columbus and they only have to split sports dollars with an MLS team and a college football team rather than MLB and NFL and now MLS that Cincinnati has. 

 

Of course all of that grassroots development probably would've happened in Cincinnati if there was an NHL team plopped here in the late 70's WHA merger or a 2000 expansion team, but it's hard for me to imagine it being as good as Columbus has been.

Coming from someone else who calls Ohio home, I think you hit the nail on the head here. Columbus is such a vanilla city, but I think it works in their favor to a certain degree because it is so much more white-collar than the rest of the state. If the NHL was going to put an expansion team in Ohio in the 90's I think it had to be a place with more white-collar money, as opposed to the at-the-time declining blue-collar cities of Cincinnati or Cleveland. 

All that being said, I think both Cincinnati and Cleveland would have more "passionate" fans, but as you mentioned both cities are probably at their limits in terms of sports dollars to spread around.

6 minutes ago, Unocal said:

 

The NHL regular season apparently might as well be preseason

This is certainly an interesting hill you’re willing to die on.

3 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I think @JerseyJimmy is wrong to make this political (not everything is ffs) but he is a pretty dedicated Isles fan so you can't blame him for being upset his team lost. 

Oh absolutely. Fans have every right to vent after a loss. It just seems in my observations over the years his venting goes a little further than just the on-ice product - whether that is trashing certain cities/states or, in this case, turning it political. 

Don’t want this to go much further than it has, was just explaining to another member. 

Just now, Red Comet said:

It's an annoying schtick, but alright. 

No disagreement here. 

10 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

Uh, I don't think anyone gives af about the political angles of this, man. I think people just find Boston insufferable even if they agree with their politics. 

This is kinda his schtick. There was a similar tantrum after Carolina beat the Islanders. It has run its course, but at least he is sticking with it.