Kramerica Industries

The NHL used to reseed from the 1st round to the 2nd round under the previous format they used in the '90s up thru 2013, and also used in the 2020 bubble playoffs, but it's been a fixed divisional format most of the time since 2014. The NBA uses the same 1-8 as the NHL did in terms of overall seeding format that the NHL used to use, and it befuddles me why they don't reseed after the 1st round. That, in the East, you have a #5 seed with home court advantage and a #3 seed who doesn't, and over in the West you have a #6 seed with home court and a #4 seed who doesn't, is really stupid. There's no excuse for not reseeding in the NBA playoffs, but whatever. Different discussion for a different thread.

I obviously can't speak for other Lightning fans, but I've said many times since 2019 that what happened in 2016 and especially 2018 stung a lot more than what happened in 2019. 2019 was embarrassing as hell, but in terms of sting, it was like that of ripping a Band-Aid off in one clean motion. It was quick, but then it was over. They got their asses kicked. They finished 16 wins short of the Stanley Cup. They were never in position to win that series. Embarrassment hurts because you have to hear it from 31 other teams fans - well, 30 at the time - but you can just be a coward and avoid hockey forums and not deal with it. That's what I did - take the coward's approach that summer of 2019. And I'll use this post to say that, if we had to be the team that Toronto finally got over the hump against, I'm glad that it at least took multiple attempts to do so. We beat Toronto last year. Toronto beat us this year. Each team gets a series win over the other. I can live with that. I wish Vasi hadn't played like utter dog :censored: in the middle games of this series, otherwise there might've been a different outcome, but goalies are part of the team like everybody else, so I'm not going to make excuses or blame luck. We had three OT games to make a difference, and we lost all of them. We've lost 11 of 12 OT games in the playoffs, which is pretty incredible. Whatever. Toronto was so long overdue and it was their turn to be on the receiving end of good fortune.

The Rangers have that one Cup from 1994, long enough ago that I was less than year old when they won it, and you still never hear the end of it, so they're absolutely in this equation as well, btw. I wrote elsewhere the other night that when the Wild got eliminated that them being eliminated in 6 games is the perfect embodiment of that entire franchise. They define the concept of being aggressively average in the regular season already; they make the playoffs more often than not, but they also never win their division, so they're never one of the top teams. Then they go into the playoffs, win a couple of games to show that they aren't bad enough to get humiliated, but also never good enough to be in position to win their series, either. Every Minnesota Wild season unfolds the same way. It's honestly impressive and a perfect reflection of Minnesota sports.

It's a small token of solace for me this weekend that the 2018-'19 Lightning no longer hold the record for most points to go one-and-done in the playoffs. It's an extra small token of solace that it is now the Boston Bruins who hold that record, and that record will probably never be broken.

And if you're a fan of any of the other 29 teams, and especially the Rangers, Tigers, or Royals (or Dbacks I guess), it's understood if you have zero love for him at all for precisely those two reasons. But he also has one of the very best World Series statistical profiles in the history of the game. Not just in terms of run prevention, but also how he accomplished it at times; five shutout innings in relief on very short rest in Game 7 in a game where he only had a 1-run lead to work with the entire time. I dunno if you were stretching things for the sake of making a point, but using his name and Hunter Strickland's in the same sentence is a massive insult. Seeing a Giants fan write that is hard to imagine. Even if you didn't care for his on-field persona (which is very understandable), you live with it for the results he brought. Best of all, you got out before he fell off the metaphorical dirt bike.

Second day in a row and third time this postseason where the road teams win all four games. Road teams are now 17-11 this postseason. This is pretty nutty.

I was thinking more like 2008 Spurs/Hornets or 2018 Cavs/Celtics, where the home teams wins the first six games, then the road team wins Game 7. Maximum heartbreak. "Warriors can't win on the road." 11-30 is a .268 win percentage. 1-3 is .250. They could still have a :censored:ty road record in this series and as long as it's not .000 it's good enough.

If that's the Andrei Vasilevskiy that the Lightning are going to get in net - and, aside from the last five periods of last year's meeting, this is who he's been vs. Toronto in these two playoff meetings - then Toronto's going to win this series. That's a tough game to bounce back from. That's as good a game as the Lightning have played against Toronto, maybe the best game the Lightning have played this entire season when considering the circumstances, and Vasilevskiy just about lost the game all by himself. It's going to be hard to win this series if last night is any indication because it's going to be difficult for the Lightning to play a better game than that. But this is also why my previous post said that the lower seeded team generally needs two road wins (at least) if they're going to advance in the playoffs. Seven of the eight lower seeded teams won a road game in the first two games of their series (the Rangers won both). Of the six series that were tied 1-1, four road teams won Game 3 and got the home ice advantage right back (and NJ also won a road game, for added measure). I'm not saying who's going to do it, but I'm expecting at least one of those teams who lost Game 3 is still going to win their series. Home-ice advantage is the most overrated thing in hockey. This isn't the NBA where one road win might be all it takes to decide a series. Home ice is earned, lost, regained, and lost all the time in this sport. There have been entire postseasons where the home/away splits are almost .500 in both directions. The Blues won the Stanley Cup during a postseason where they went 6-7 on home ice. I'm happy to see there are no 1st round sweeps that are going to happen. Hopefully some or all of these 2-1's get knotted 2-2 in the next couple days.

I should've bet on the Rangers in that series. Inexperienced teams like the Devils usually get smashed in their first playoff trip. Doesn't help that playing the Rangers means playing against an away crowd in every game.

During Jon Cooper's time as Lightning head coach: Lightning record in Game 1 at home: 3-8 Lightning record in Game 1 away: 7-3 Yeah, I'm ok with beginning each series on the road. And especially against Toronto. In the weeks leading up to this playoff series, I was more than ok with the Leafs having home ice because, frankly, the Leafs need fewer games in Toronto, not more. You need a steak knife to cut the tension in that arena during playoff games. It only took 80 seconds in Game 1 for "here we ing go again" to be going through over 19,000 people's minds. Losing one home game isn't a dealbreaker because, in closely matched series, I generally believe the lower seed needs two road wins if they expect to win the series, but the Leafs are definitely going to be feeling the pressure tonight. All the home-ice teams tonight will be. Odds are somebody's going to be down 0-2 after tonight and facing some very difficult questions...but not impossible questions, either; three times this century the eventual Cup champion began their pursuit with losing two home games to begin their first round series before turning everything around.

I'll piggy-back off this comment to speak to the rest of New York television broadcasts as well. Mike Breen does the Knicks (Kenny Albert a frequent fill-in), Ian Eagle does the Nets, Brendan Burke does the Islanders, all of them play-by-plays with national profiles as well. Sam Rosen also has a national profile and I still enjoy listening to him but he's really old these days. I suppose the point being that the other New York teams do have broadcasts where the play-by-play (at least) is someone with a high profile and done lots of national work. Michael Kay has done some playoff radio broadcasts before for ESPN, and he did a wild card round series last year, but his national profile otherwise pales in comparison to pretty much every other name I listed here. (I guess it would only be fair to point out that Gary Cohen doesn't have much of a national profile either - that I know about, anyway - but the reviews he and SNY get speak for themselves; Howie Rose similarily isn't someone I know for doing much, if any, national work, but he's always been well-received from Mets and Islanders fans...even Rangers fans for a certain 1994 goal.)

The bat boy works for the Guardians. It's customary that bat boys for the road team are actually employees of the home team. It was a misguided rant criticizing the guy for not following policies that his employer doesn't require him to follow.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I would've been under the impression that beer sales were cut after the 7th inning to allow for some people to sober up before leaving the ballpark (otherwise, why do they cut them at all, and instead sell them for the entire length of the game?). I must be under the wrong impression, because extending beer sales through 8 innings instead would be a complete contradiction of that.

That was always my understanding as well, but if it hadn't been for COVID, the Penguins were comfortably qualifying for the playoffs that year, so in this case I don't really think it would've been in the same spirit, saying their playoff streak was snapped because of some once-in-a-century nonsense.

Giving every non-playoff team the same chance of winning the lottery has felt like the most obvious anti-tanking solution that exists, so of course it's never been implemented by any leagues in North America that do a lottery. Every league should do that.

I don't mind the Marlins teal caps for the sake of the authentic throwback look to 1993, but just taking one look at them in action and I know I still prefer the black caps from that set. Also, haven't seen the Marlins wear those uniforms in over a decade and seeing them wear them tonight and it's like being transported right back to my childhood. Those uniforms are class. (EDIT - well, actually I have no recollection of these uniforms; these are the teal-script ones. I remember the black script ones.)

Are you talking about games they air on Peacock? I'm guessing anyway because I don't have a Peacock subscription. But except for when there are cut-ins to different games (or technical difficulties), every game NBC airs on their stations use their graphics.

So frustrating. Take those two sweaters plus the white one, swap out the original logo for the current logo, and the Lightning have their three sweater combination that they would never have to change again (whether black or blue would be primary is a different debate). I actually do like the blue "storm" jersey (I hated this year's white RR version), but that could never be more than a 2-3 times a year novelty, at the absolute most. It loses any hipster appeal when worn too many times.

It's completely impossible to do, but the single best thing that could happen to baseball is if the fences at every stadium could be moved back 50 feet from where they currently are. Make hitting home runs that much harder to do. Baseball is at its most exciting when the action is happening on the basepaths, and if home runs were much harder to hit, that would force the game into having to become more line drive oriented, trying to steal bases or pull of hit-and-runs, try for an extra base, all that kind of stuff. It would even have the effect of making home runs more special again due to their decreased quantity. Again, not possible in real life, but I wish it were, at least to some degree.

the owners, the commissioner, this league.

I was mostly hoping for a good game, which is just about what we got. I was a little partial to the Chiefs only because they had someone I went to high school with on their roster and the Chiefs Eagles didn't (MVS was a year behind me and we had a class when I was a sophomore)...I'm still the general consensus here is that the holding call was BS and that's exactly what it was. I can understand if Bradberry had a fistful of jersey and you can argue that "you have to call it", but I didn't see where he ever had that. Ticky-tack at best at any random point during the game. To essentially decide the Super Bowl? And I'm just going to re-enforce something I've said forever - auto 1st downs being attached to 5-yard penalties is completely incompatible. It was 3rd-and-8. Five yards implies a minor penalty, but there's nothing minor about an automatic 1st down. This has been something I've had a problem with forever. Nice of it to show up on the deciding play of a tied Super Bowl.

Final standings: Playoff winner(s): @RyanMcD29 and @~Bear with the best records for the postseason at 11-2 League winner: @rams80 finishing up at 185-97. Silver medal - @oldschoolvikings at 183-99. Bronze medals - @RyanMcD29 and myself at 181-101. Eight years of doing this. Hard to believe. 2015 doesn't feel that far in the past but here we are. I expect year 9 to begin on Labor Day, as is my unofficial tradition. See you guys then. Thanks for playing everybody.

I was actually thinking of doing that after next week, but since you asked I won't leave you waiting. 2015: @DG_ThenNowForever (175-91) 2016: @winters in buffalo (181-84) 2017: @Walter Sobchak (184-83) 2018: @Sport (175-90) 2019: @Maroon (177-89) 2020: @~Bear (184-84) 2021: You (186-98) 2022: @rams80 (186-96 or 185-97) This is, of course, for the eight* years I've run the competition. I don't know the pre-2015 winners, I don't have the notes, and I'm not interested in looking them up. *How the has it been eight years already...?

Update after the Conference Championships: @rams80 confirmed as sole 2022 champion. This was impressive. Moved into 1st place after Week 4 and held that position, mostly alone, for the entire rest of the season. Congrats there. Super Bowl LVII: Kansas City vs. Philadelphia