2021-22 NHL Regular Season

[IceCap]

55 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

 

 

[habsfan1]

[Ridleylash]

13 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

Does it? His Coyotes lost some leverage in the Draft Lottery, falling 1 spot to 31st place.

 

It was a good night of hockey for Canadiens fans, though. They picked up a win and still clinched last place, so no harm was done. Double victory.

It's the Draft Lottery, remember, it's almost inevitable that last place doesn't get 1OA lmao

[IceCap]

The VGK twitter, usually a fountain of memes and smug holness, has been quiet for eight hours. 

 

Never has a team and fanbase needed to miss the playoffs so badly. 

[Kramerica Industries]

The only reason I wanted the Golden Knights to make the playoffs would've been because they are, by far, the team who would give the Avs the most difficulty in the first round. I don't see the Preds having much of a chance there, and the Stars would be smashed like bugs on a windshield by the Avs. It would've been fun to see Avs fans sqirming about their great regular season being rewarded with an, on-paper, tough first round matchup.

 

But this is an acceptable alternative. I'm not gonna be too sad about Las Vegas, and everything that came with them, falling flat on their face this year.

[OnWis97]

There was no reason to believe Vegas was going to make a Stanley Cup run if they'd made the playoffs. That said, Vegas would have made a Stanley Cup run had they made the playoffs. I'm relieved that they missed.

[LMU]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

The VGK twitter, usually a fountain of memes and smug holness, has been quiet for eight hours. 

 

Never has a team and fanbase needed to miss the playoffs so badly. 

Exhibit A:

 

 

[habsfan1]

The Coyotes Twitter was getting a ton of congratulations comments by Canadiens fans, after the 2 Coyotes wins lol. They received a lot of attention they probably didn't expect, during what's usually a down period for them.

 

[DustDevil61]

10 hours ago, IceCap said:

The VGK twitter, usually a fountain of memes and smug holness, has been quiet for eight hours. 

 

Never has a team and fanbase needed to miss the playoffs so badly. 

I like the Knights and even I agree with this. It’s about time the whole having-no-loyalty-to-your-players mindset comes back to bite Vegas and humble the front office a bit. Also, occasional failure builds character and drives away the bandwagon fans.

[chcarlson23]

I feel like over this season, including everything that happened in the offseason, the Knights went from this unlikeable squad to this really villainous franchise. They were pretty unlikeable for me, because they just have had so much success, and honestly it was jealousy for my team to be even close to that

 

But this season, they’ve really treated their players as just basic commodities, and ditched them when it was more convenient, like with Fleury. And like they didn’t even make a good hockey trade with that, they just kinda dumped him off. And along with everything with Dadonov, and even how DeBoer treated Lehner over the stretch is just odd, and doesn’t seem very professional. They’ve become very villainous this season, so I’m very glad that they’ll be watching the Stanley Cup playoffs from their living rooms this season…

[Kevin W.]

:censored: Vegas. I won't beat around the bush.

 

:censored: VEGAS. I'm tired of how smug they've been and how smug their fans have been after they got handed a fantastic roster on a silver platter thanks to the most generous expansion draft rules in league history and I'm glad they're getting a giant slice of humble pie.

 

Have fun going through cap hell to make your team cap-compliant, jackasses.

 

[Cosmic]

Rick Jeanneret's last game is tonight, after a 51-year career. Gonna be feeling all the feels.

[Sport]

I went to the Blue Jackets - Lightning game last night. Due to the panny it was my first game in person since the 2019 playoffs and I was reminded that live hockey is the best.  

 

Columbus, I love you. Hell of a crowd and atmosphere for a game that did not matter. 

 

 

 

Now, can we get these playoffs going already? 

[Dilbert]

Anyone else want a Colorado-Florida Stanley Cup rematch?

[spartacat_12]

10 hours ago, Kevin W. said:

VEGAS. I'm tired of how smug they've been and how smug their fans have been after they got handed a fantastic roster on a silver platter thanks to the most generous expansion draft rules in league history and I'm glad they're getting a giant slice of humble pie.

 

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Vegas was not just handed a fantastic roster. Management passed on taking established guys like Matt Dumba, Sami Vatanen, Josh Manson, and Josh Anderson in favour of stockpiling picks/prospects. Fleury was looking washed up at the time and Pittsburgh was so desperate to dump his contract that they gave up a pick to guarantee he'd get picked. They specifically took guys like James Neal & David Perron who were going into the last years of their deals because they assumed they'd be sellers at the deadline. 

 

Most of the post-expansion draft reactions were something like this:

 

Seattle having the same expansion draft rules and finishing 30th in the league, despite being more aggressive than Vegas in free agency, should kill this false narrative for good.

[BrySmalls]

2 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Anyone else want a Colorado-Florida Stanley Cup rematch?

 

Yes! That would be fun to watch!

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

Seattle having the same expansion draft rules and finishing 30th in the league, despite being more aggressive than Vegas in free agency, should kill this false narrative for good.

Counter-point. By the time the Seattle draft came around GMs had figured out how to work the system and weren't going to repeat the mistakes they made with Vegas.

 

Other counter-point. The NHL gave Vegas a pass on Seattle's expansion draft so as to not upset the league's special project. 

[LMU]

46 minutes ago, IceCap said:

Counter-point. By the time the Seattle draft came around GMs had figured out how to work the system and weren't going to repeat the mistakes they made with Vegas.

 

Other counter-point. The NHL gave Vegas a pass on Seattle's expansion draft so as to not upset the league's special project. 

Bingo.  Vegas took advantage of a whole slew of two-for-one protection deals.  That well dried up for Ron Francis.

[spartacat_12]

40 minutes ago, IceCap said:

Counter-point. By the time the Seattle draft came around GMs had figured out how to work the system and weren't going to repeat the mistakes they made with Vegas.

 

Other counter-point. The NHL gave Vegas a pass on Seattle's expansion draft so as to not upset the league's special project. 

 

1st point: So we should blame Vegas for taking advantage of other GMs' incompetence? I'm sure Seattle could have done a better job of managing their expansion draft, but Francis overplayed his hand. Reports said he was asking for ridiculous prices to select players with big contracts (multiple 1st rounders), and he passed on guys like Duchene & Tarasenko who are both well over a point-per-game this year

 

2nd point: Seattle's $650 expansion fee was divided 30 ways, with Vegas being the only franchise that didn't get a piece of the pie. 

[IceCap]

10 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

2nd point: Seattle's $650 expansion fee was divided 30 ways, with Vegas being the only franchise that didn't get a piece of the pie.

Yeah, why do you think that was?

 

10 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

1st point: So we should blame Vegas for taking advantage of other GMs' incompetence?

I think we should understand that the type of draft Vegas got was a new sort of thing that could greatly benefit the expansion team in question if the GMs didn't quite understand how it worked. They didn't, Vegas benefited greatly and was able to amass a much better team than the Kraken were able to. Because by the time the Kraken got their shot the GMs knew how to work the draft system. Ron Francis would have fared much better had he been allowed first crack at it.