2016 NHL Playoffs, Rite of Spring: "You thought God was an architect"

[Still MIGHTY]

I feel dirty for this, but it's the only option and I can muster up some other justifications for it (a number of ex-Ducks, water fowl on triangles), so...

 

Go Pittsburgh

[RedRenesis]

If only one thing was learned from this series is that Tampa is in great shape with goaltending, Bishop and Vaseline are going to be a great tandem, with the latter doing an incredible job standing in for the ECF.  

[Cosmic]

I had a wonderfully kitschy cultural reference all ready to go in case the Lightning won.  I guess I'll have to keep it in my pocket until next time.

 

Spoiler

Do you know what happens to a penguin that gets struck by lightning?

 

 

THE SAME THING THAT HAPPENS TO EVERYTHING ELSE

 

[Thomas]

2 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

I had a wonderfully kitschy cultural reference all ready to go in case the Lightning won.  I guess I'll have to keep it in my pocket until next time.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Do you know what happens to a penguin that gets struck by lightning?

 

 

THE SAME THING THAT HAPPENS TO EVERYTHING ELSE

Do you know what happens to a penguin that gets struck by lightning?

It gets superpowers ? 

 

[FiddySicks]

I can't stand the Penguins, so this is nice. It seems like every time "my team" is in the championship, they're playing a team I either really like (Bucs vs Raiders, for example) or teams I'm kind of indifferent towards yet have mostly positive feelings for (All three Giants championships, Cavs last year, Ravens a few seasons ago). 

 

Not this time. Screw the Pens. 

[Crabcake]

#AnybodyButThePenguins

[Sport]

Need the Sharks to play the role of the 2010 Packers and SAVE THE WORLD. 

[TheGrimReaper]

Go pens

[The_Admiral]

I've never minded the Penguins the same way most people do. I've found them to be an annoyance at times, sure, and they have a good handful of unlikable players, but hey, Mike Lange is great, the city of Pittsburgh itself is neat, and a Pens win keeps the Cup in the family, so to speak. 

 

I think the Pens win this handily.

[TBGKon]

As one of the resident Lightning fans on the forums, I'm proud of the guys.  They survived the regular season, only to lose their top goal scorer a week before the end of it.  Rolled into the playoffs and beat a "rebuilding" Red Wings team and a formidable Islanders crew.  They cam the juggernaut Penguins, who too dow some tough competition in the Rangers and Caps. 

 

The Pens clearly were the better team, but we never truly saw the Bolts at their A game.  You can't blame the loss of Bishop on this loss of series as Vasy dominated for the most part, especially when your team allows 35+ shots on goal in multiple games when your guys struggle to achieve 20 shots in a game.

 

This next month or so into free agency will be very interesting.  Stamkos becomes a UFA, so what happens there will decide what happens elsewhere.  Kucherov and Killorn are restricted FA on July 1, and Bishop and Hedman are UFA's after next season.  Johnson, Palat and Drouin become RFA's after next season too.  Good thing Callahan, Stralman, etc are signed for a few years.  This is the season where we find out where this team will go next.

 

That all being said Go Sharks!!!

[The_Admiral]

Bishop's a goner. Too many goalies in the system to stay committed to a guy whose groin is a time bomb. Stamkos is probably gone too, given the way they dispatched the Wings, Isles, and almost the Pens without him. It'll be quite a different team in Tampa next year for sure, and more likely to be worse than better.

[FGM13]

I actually like the Pens, partly because one of my close friends is a Pens fan, partly because I think the best player of his generation deserves another cup, and partly because of those gorgeous throwbacks. I also love the HBK line, named lines are my favourite.

 

That being said, I have nothing against San Jose, so while I'll be cheering for Pittsburgh, I'm okay either way.

[chcarlson23]

Reasons for why I'm cheering for each team...

 

Pittsburgh: Matt Cullen, Throwback Jerseys

 

San Jose: Cup stays in the West, Brent Burns, Paul Martin, "Underdog"(?), To see a new Cup winner... Yeah there's a lot... And Pittsburgh's Road jersey

 

EDIT: Pittsburgh's Jerseys... 

[Seadragon76]

Everyone knows that Sharks eats Penguins... So, go San Jose!

[RedRenesis]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Bishop's a goner. Too many goalies in the system to stay committed to a guy whose groin is a time bomb. 

 

I was under the impression that Bishop had a full No Movement Clause. 

[Alex Houston]

Awful lot of Mike Milburys in this thread. 

[TBGKon]

33 minutes ago, RedRenesis said:

 

I was under the impression that Bishop had a full No Movement Clause. 

Correct, he as a no trade clause keeping him in Tampa Bay thru the 16-17 season.

[Kramerica Industries]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

Bishop's a goner. Too many goalies in the system to stay committed to a guy whose groin is a time bomb. Stamkos is probably gone too, given the way they dispatched the Wings, Isles, and almost the Pens without him. It'll be quite a different team in Tampa next year for sure, and more likely to be worse than better.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about Bishop. The Lightning play such a structurally better game with him in net than they do with Vasileviskiy, and that's not an indictment on Vasi as much as it that Bishop is quite possibly the best puck-handling goalie in the NHL. Pittsburgh's forecheck is outstanding on its own, but once Bishop was out of there, the Lightning don't have enough puck movers on their defense to survive what Pittsburgh was throwing at them. I think the stat out there is that the Lightning only gave up 40+ shots on net in a game three times this season (and one of them, incidentally enough, was a game in January, against Pittsburgh, where Vasileviskiy was in net), and I think that happened four times in this series alone where the Penguins did that; certainly, they had 35+ shots on net in every game they won and I think two of the games they lost as well.

 

Objectively, I knew the Penguins were the better team coming into this series. I was quite a bit disheartened by how large the gulf apparently was. And as for the Lightning off-season, there's the decisions to be made about Stamkos, about Hedman's long-term contract status (you have to figure there's no chance a Stamkos 2.0 situation plays out there), Kucherov is a RFA, whatever is bound to happen with Killorn, Johnson, and Palat's statuses, and, of course, the goaltending situation. I wouldn't be shocked in the least if there's a trade involving one of them to try and bring in either a) a Stamkos "replacement", or b ) a Johnson/Namestnikov replacement. 

 

Yzerman isn't going to bat 1.000 on his decisions, I'm sure, but he has to get most of them right, especially in net, for the Lightning to continue to be good enough to make runs to the CF and beyond going forward in the short-term. It's possible, but it's going to be difficult. Which is, of course, what makes it so difficult to come to terms with having lost this series when the Lightning had a close-out game at home in Game 6, and let it slip away. They got away with it last year against the NY Rangers, but the Penguins this year are much better than last year's Rangers were, and trying to do it again was asking way too much, I'm afraid. Nonetheless, this series marks the first time the Lightning have ever lost a playoff series where-in they had the series lead at three wins, and failed to win the series. Every other time they've had a 3-0, 3-1, or 3-2 series lead, they've gone on to close it out.

[smzimbabwe]

I've been a Penguins fan since before Mario Lemieux was playing for them, so while I'm happy at making the finals, I just gotta ask - why all the hate for them? Maybe it's because I've followed them for so long that I don't see what's wrong with them, but I am actually surprised at the level of hatred towards them. My best friend just texted me that he's rooting for San Jose because "anybody but the Pens". Why are they so despised? I thought that maybe they would have a mild dislike of them, but did not image the levels to which this hatred is across the land.

[Rockstar Matt]

It's because they're from freaking Pittsburgh. And Pittsburgh ruins everything, sports-wise.

 

(In all honesty, it's probably because of the Steelers and how they have one of the most obnoxious and pretentious fanbases in the NFL)