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


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3 hours ago, DC in Da House w/o a Doubt said:

everyone thought Vegas was gonna be poo.  After their "totally unfair" expansion draft last year did anyone on here say OH man that team is stacked!  At best maybeee you woulda thought they'd flirt with the playoffs.  They deserve a ton of credit for the beast that they've created.  This isn't a decent team that is luckboxing their way to a title, they are legitimately the best team in the league (except maybe the Caps, fingers crossed).  I'm sorry that a team in the desert is better at hockey than yours, truly I am.  But hey, at least its not Raleigh :)


TBH I'm not concerned with what a bunch of pundits & sportswriters thought in September. If they couldn't see that a team backed by Marc-Andre Fleury was gonna at least challenge for a playoff spot, that's on them. If anything it's more proof in my eyes that hockey's outside "experts" are anything but.

If anything this whole :censored:-show might bring a shake-up the league sorely needs. Regardless of how it was done, an expansion team coasting to the Finals immediately, on the backs of every other teams' rejects, is bad optics for the league, at least in my opinion. (I told a baseball fan what was going on in hockey the other day, and he literally told me "wow, that's :censored: stupid.") I know the NHL doesn't care much about optics, but still - at the very least, clearly the standards for player scouting have fallen if almost every single team let such a good player go for nothing. Evidently teams need to reexamine what makes a good hockey player. And again, if the experts looking in couldn't see this coming even a little bit, maybe the sport needs better experts. (Hell, I know it does - among NBC's analysts are one of the league's all-time worst coaches and the worst GM in league history. Almost anyone would be better than those clowns!)

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Let's just wait to see what happens when McPhee has to actually develop his own talent and not trot out talent that 30 other organizations developed for him.  Oh, and having to accomplish this with his talent developed by an independently owned and operated AHL affiliate that historically blows off the needs of its parent club.

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Seattle's expansion draft may have the same parameters as the Knights, but GM's will have wised up by then. I anticipate far fewer deals to protect guys and more "here just take our best available player. It's not worth it to lose a good player and lose picks". If they're lucky they could score a William Karlsson who massively overachieves his career numbers. 

 

Still though, they'll be pretty good if they fill out the lineup with depth by getting every team's 9th best player and they can find a serviceable goaltender, which is why the Knights are good. 

 

One thing's for sure, the Seattle Hockey Pucks will have the highest expectations going into year 1 that any expansion team has ever been forced to deal with. 

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4 minutes ago, DC in Da House w/o a Doubt said:

McPhee never finished the job in DC, but I'd say he developed a good amount of talent.  Lets not act like he's just some schlub.

 

I think he's doing pretty good so far.  Not sure how he could be doing better for Vegas.  

My point is that all of the irrational praise for the organization is because they started out with a team of fully developed players.  Once they have to replace free agents with internal options that will be "developed" by the Wolves we'll get a much better gauge of if this season was a complete fluke or not.

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So if The Seattle team ends up being bad, having the same expansion rules as Vegas, was Vegas still "gifted" a championship calibre team? 

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18 minutes ago, LMU said:

Let's just wait to see what happens when McPhee has to actually develop his own talent and not trot out talent that 30 other organizations developed for him.  Oh, and having to accomplish this with his talent developed by an independently owned and operated AHL affiliate that historically blows off the needs of its parent club.

Chicago really is AHL's version of the 51s. A tad apropos.

Thunder Bay Lynx - International Hockey Association (2 seasons, 2017-18, 2019-20, 2018 Xtreme Cup Champions)Houston Armadillos - Major League Hockey (2 seasons, 2016-18) | Minnesota Muskies - North American Basketball Association (1 season, 2017-2018) | Louisville Thoroughbreds - United League of Baseball (1 season, 2017, 2017 United Cup Champions) | Las Vegas Thunderbirds - International Basketball League (1 season, 2016-17, 2017 Champions) 

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10 minutes ago, ozzyman314 said:

So if The Seattle team ends up being bad, having the same expansion rules as Vegas, was Vegas still "gifted" a championship calibre team? 

Mostly. It may hurt the argument, but Seattle will have a smaller, less deep talent pool in the draft; 25 or so GMs who have woken the :censored: up, to take this thing more seriously; also, its unlikely they get a MAF-caliber goalie.

 

Almost no chance they're Las Vegas level good, but they should still be competitive. The Knights draft was kind of a perfect storm of greed, incompetence, timing, and carelessness.

 

Edit: gifted is the wrong word. $500 million is a lot of money. Foley bought it. If Toronto had known that was the going rate, they probably could have crowd-funded a go :censored: mn Cup.

Thunder Bay Lynx - International Hockey Association (2 seasons, 2017-18, 2019-20, 2018 Xtreme Cup Champions)Houston Armadillos - Major League Hockey (2 seasons, 2016-18) | Minnesota Muskies - North American Basketball Association (1 season, 2017-2018) | Louisville Thoroughbreds - United League of Baseball (1 season, 2017, 2017 United Cup Champions) | Las Vegas Thunderbirds - International Basketball League (1 season, 2016-17, 2017 Champions) 

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Its a shame to see such hate towards a great story simply because others feel this team doesn't "deserve" this success, or because their team was awful for their first few season after expansion, or because they're in the desert, or because the Penguins dumped MAF, or because... or because... or because...

People in this community were killing this franchise before they even had a name. "How DARE the NHL go to Las Vegas and not Quebec. Why does Bettman love the desert?!"... "Vegas? Not Las Vegas? Dumb!"... "Golden Knights? Foley's Army boner is a disgrace"... "That logo looks like a spartan helmet, not a knights helmet... never mind the "V"... Dumb!"... "This team is a dumpster fire and i'm gonna love watching it"...

There are members of this community that have not wanted to give this a franchise a chance since it was announced, and now that they've defied the odds, well, now it has to be the expansion draft that no one complained about before or during the proceedings, or even until the All-Star break, when it became apparent that Vegas wasn't going away

I remember being this miserable as a sports fan, and it was a cancer. I hope someday some here in this community can let go of some of their misery and be happy for these players, and these fans, and just enjoy the fun that this game is, and enjoy the fun that this story is.

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No hearing for Tom Wilson blindsiding Jonathan Marchessault seven feet away from the puck.

 

Good league, great league.

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Speaking only for myself, this is not about Vegas.  This is not about my own terrible team...I cheer for four of the ten worst-run teams in the Big 4 and that's not the Knights' or the NHL's fault.  Vegas is a huge city and it was only going to be a matter of time before they got a team.  There's a little irony that it was a hockey team (desert and all), but whatever.  I don't like the "Vegas" but that doesn't prompt any cheering for or against.

 

For me it's simply unsettling to see a first year expansion team win a championship.  It would not matter if it was Seattle, Quebec, or Minnesota.*  Starting a team from scratch is supposed to take at least some time.  I guess you can accuse me of idealizing or whatever, but to have it fall from the sky before a fanbase is even really used to having the sport?  That's not how it's "supposed to" go.  Is that explanation weak?  So be it.

 

*Minnesota.  Where I'm from. Where we never win.  Had the Wild had an inaugural season like Vegas's would I be cheering for it?  Yes. Just like I cheered for the Timberwolves to win games as I sat through their more typical inaugural season.  But I can honestly say there'd be something a little unsettling about it.  A little impure. And if I had the choice between them winning year 1 or year 5, I'd take year 5 in a heartbeat.

 

So if Quebec finally gets that team, I will not want to see this happen again.

Disclaimer: If this comment is about an NBA uniform from 2017-2018 or later, do not constitute a lack of acknowledgement of the corporate logo to mean anything other than "the corporate logo is terrible and makes the uniform significantly worse."

 

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I think what Vegas has done is create, in essence, the sports equal to what I have dubbed 'The MK2 Effect'.

 

What is that? Well, as a gamer, when a game does well, it warrants a sequel. Such was the case for Mortal Kombat. When the sequel came out, it was far bigger, better and badder then the original. The bar was set... problem was that any sequel after this game would have to not only reach the bar, but go over it. The sequels after 2 would fall short time and time again. It wasn't until MK9 where the game and the series got over that bar.

 

What does this have to do with Vegas? Well, the Golden Knights are setting the bar so high for the next expansion team in the NHL that it's nearly impossible to clear the bar save for, I don't know, winning the President's Trophy or going 82-0-0.

 

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2 hours ago, Still MIGHTY said:

No hearing for Tom Wilson blindsiding Jonathan Marchessault seven feet away from the puck.

 

Good league, great league.

 

As much as I want to hate Tom Wilson, I can’t help but like the guy. Watching him play is like watching a roller coaster that’s about to run right off the tracks, absolutely terrifying and dangerous but also a tad bit exciting.

 

The complete lack of common sense is one of the main reasons I enjoy the NHL so much. Like Mockba has said a few times, I enjoy watching the chaos this league seems to breed.

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There's no excitement in Tom Wilson's game, just recklessness and malice. He's only there to endanger people. He's a piece of crap the same way Raffi Torres was.

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17 hours ago, mcj882000 said:

Yeah - one league's dominated by two teams pretty thoroughly right now, but guess what? It's the league people actually want to watch, because that league's teams are driven/carried by their big, heavily-marketed stars, and said stars can actually make it to the championship finals. One of the NHL's two biggest stars just made the Finals for the first time ever, after 12 attempts, and his team's likely to be eliminated by a team that didn't even exist last season! The other star just made it to back-to-back finals... after his team was eliminated early in the 5 previous to that. Compare that to the NBA, where the league's 2 biggest names will meet in the Finals for the 4th year in a row, yet TV ratings, attendance & merch sales seem to suggest this is exactly what their audience wants.

What I'm learning is that, no matter how much individual people or smaller groups complain about dynasties and the lack of parity, and the same teams winning every year, in the wider country it's the opposite - fans like to get behind consistent, proven winners, who can dominate the league and win titles with ease, year after year... So on that note, for better and for worse, if they keep it up the NHL's team of the future may very well be the Las Vegas Knights.

Assuming the NHL can market them properly, along with avoiding a lockout in 2020. (lol)

Let's be real: arguably the biggest reason why the NBA is the league people want to watch is because it isn't run by an absolute clown who cost them their TV deal with ESPN, presided over three lockouts and has no clue how to market his product. As long as Bettman is in charge, the NHL will always be a largely regional niche sport. That wouldn't change even if Vegas won the next ten Cups.

 

The NFL towers over both leagues because they do such a great job of selling the illusion of parity and "any given Sunday." March Madness is wildly popular because of all the upsets and craziness. Parity is very popular if you can promote it correctly.

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6 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

Speaking only for myself, this is not about Vegas.  This is not about my own terrible team...I cheer for four of the ten worst-run teams in the Big 4 and that's not the Knights' or the NHL's fault.  Vegas is a huge city and it was only going to be a matter of time before they got a team.  There's a little irony that it was a hockey team (desert and all), but whatever.  I don't like the "Vegas" but that doesn't prompt any cheering for or against.

 

For me it's simply unsettling to see a first year expansion team win a championship.  It would not matter if it was Seattle, Quebec, or Minnesota.*  Starting a team from scratch is supposed to take at least some time.  I guess you can accuse me of idealizing or whatever, but to have it fall from the sky before a fanbase is even really used to having the sport?  That's not how it's "supposed to" go.  Is that explanation weak?  So be it.

 

*Minnesota.  Where I'm from. Where we never win.  Had the Wild had an inaugural season like Vegas's would I be cheering for it?  Yes. Just like I cheered for the Timberwolves to win games as I sat through their more typical inaugural season.  But I can honestly say there'd be something a little unsettling about it.  A little impure. And if I had the choice between them winning year 1 or year 5, I'd take year 5 in a heartbeat.

 

So if Quebec finally gets that team, I will not want to see this happen again.

I’m not gonna call your explanation weak. That’s how you feel and I respect that, but I will say I don’t understand. I don’t believe in the “waiting period” for success in sports. I have to think every team wanted be great from day 1, but unfortunately things don’t normally work out like that. Which I feel is a far cry from it didn’t happen because it wasn’t “supposed” to.

 

As a die hard Clippers fan I don’t appreciate the constant state of mediocrity that franchise lives in, and if I could start it all over I wouldn’t wait for year 5 like you suggested. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would anyone shoot for failure to reach some sadness quota before trying to be good? Sports has conditioned us to think it’s not supposed to happen so fast, but I don’t think that should be law.

 

I’m a Knights fan, and I’m not going to apologize for this team having a unicorn of a season. I know the draft was favorable, but who knew they’d end up here? I feel for cities that have had teams longer and haven’t had this success, but I’m happy I may not have to feel that pain for the immediate future. A title in year 1 is just a sweet as a title after a 20+ year drought. It’s a title for crying out loud.

 

You could argue it would mean more after a losing period, but suggesting that be a requirement doesn’t hold water. It’s an archaic fan concept like a player playing for the same team because loyalty.

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15 hours ago, Lights Out said:

Let's be real: arguably the biggest reason why the NBA is the league people want to watch is because it isn't run by an absolute clown who cost them their TV deal with ESPN, presided over three lockouts and has no clue how to market his product. As long as Bettman is in charge, the NHL will always be a largely regional niche sport. That wouldn't change even if Vegas won the next ten Cups.

 

The NFL towers over both leagues because they do such a great job of selling the illusion of parity and "any given Sunday." March Madness is wildly popular because of all the upsets and craziness. Parity is very popular if you can promote it correctly.

When will people understand that Bettman isn't some dictator who is the only one making decisions, he does what the owners tell him to do just like John Ziegler and Clarence Campbell did. The NHL left ESPN because Comcast offered them more money to be on OLN\Versus\NBCSN, the NHL did the same thing in the early 80's when they left USA Network for ESPN and in the late 80's when they left ESPN for Sports Channel America.

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ESPN was going to cancel the NHL or bring them back at a pittance because Mark Shapiro had a ton of power in 2004 (ESPN Original Entertainment, baby!) and hockey disgusted him, this special little boy.

 

While it's true that NHL's real power lies with Jeremy Jacobs and MLSE (and previously Ed Snider, Peter Karmanos, and Mike Ilitch), comparing Gary Bettman straight-up to John Ziegler ignores that Bettman was brought in to centralize the league's power structure and work more aggressively than Ziegler did.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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3 hours ago, the admiral said:

ESPN was going to cancel the NHL or bring them back at a pittance because Mark Shapiro had a ton of power in 2004 (ESPN Original Entertainment, baby!) and hockey disgusted him, this special little boy.

 

While it's true that NHL's real power lies with Jeremy Jacobs and MLSE (and previously Ed Snider, Peter Karmanos, and Mike Ilitch), comparing Gary Bettman straight-up to John Ziegler ignores that Bettman was brought in to centralize the league's power structure and work more aggressively than Ziegler did.

 

What is your avatar from? The guy mouthing looks awfully familiar and it's ticking me off that I can't place it. 

"And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday." 

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