The Rite of Spring: 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

[DoctorWhom]

Remember Leafs, as you watch Tampa celebrate (again), that could have been you. 

 

Thankfully I feel like the Avalanche matchup really well against Tampa. 

[mcj882000]

A thing about the Great Canadian Cup Drought, and I don't know if it's covered by DGB in that article, I'm too broke/cheap/lazy to afford an Atlantic subscription, but: Think about how many Cups Canadian teams won before 1993, despite usually representing about the same % of the league's franchises as they do now: anywhere from 16-33% of the league. For starters, the overwhelming majority of the "Original Six" era was just the Leafs & Canadiens battling for the Cup, with an occasional Red Wings and a single Black Hawks upset here and there. (And just forget about the Bruins & Rangers, but that's what happens when the American 66% of the league is monopolized by one guy, eh?) Then even into the 70s Montreal just kept winning Cups, and then the back half of the 80s, 1984-1990, was entirely Canadian teams winning it.

If anything, I think you could look at The Drought as the scale of balance correcting itself after decades of being tilted the other way.

[Unocal]

Is Pat Maroon going to have as many Stanley Cups as Patrick Roy or Wayne Gretzky?

 

He already has 3, the same as Yzerman.

[Unocal]

1 hour ago, mcj882000 said:

A thing about the Great Canadian Cup Drought, and I don't know if it's covered by DGB in that article, I'm too broke/cheap/lazy to afford an Atlantic subscription, but: Think about how many Cups Canadian teams won before 1993, despite usually representing about the same % of the league's franchises as they do now: anywhere from 16-33% of the league. For starters, the overwhelming majority of the "Original Six" era was just the Leafs & Canadiens battling for the Cup, with an occasional Red Wings and a single Black Hawks upset here and there. (And just forget about the Bruins & Rangers, but that's what happens when the American 66% of the league is monopolized by one guy, eh?) Then even into the 70s Montreal just kept winning Cups, and then the back half of the 80s, 1984-1990, was entirely Canadian teams winning it.

If anything, I think you could look at The Drought as the scale of balance correcting itself after decades of being tilted the other way.

 

But to THIS level? You think at some point a canadian team would just run into a Cup. Heck, thrice they've gotten to a game 7

[JerseyJimmy]

speaking of the lightning getting every lucky break in the world and the canadian teams being in a cup drought, we should have a gentleman's agreement to acknowledge calgary as the 2004 champions.

[See Red]

37 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

speaking of the lightning getting every lucky break in the world and the canadian teams being in a cup drought, we should have a gentleman's agreement to acknowledge calgary as the 2004 champions.

 

 

I know the Lightning kept your team from gooning their way into the Stanley Cup Finals twice but I think you should still be able to objectively recognize the greatness of this Lightning team. 

 

2 hours ago, DoctorWhom said:

Remember Leafs, as you watch Tampa celebrate (again), that could have been you. 

 

Thankfully I feel like the Avalanche matchup really well against Tampa. 

 

I think this is clearly the Lightning's most difficult Finals matchup of these last three runs.  I don't actually hate the matchup from a TB perspective, though.  Either Kemper or Francouz will be welcome site after playing Bobrovsky and Shesterkin and Vasi is a giant step up from any goalie the Avs have played this postseason.  Curious to see how the Avs respond to the Lightning's grind-it-out style and ability to clog up the offensive zone.  Not sure anybody in the west made them win that way.   Should be a good series!  Can go either way!

 

Also, Lightning might still get Point back. 

 

 

[mcj882000]

20 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

speaking of the lightning getting every lucky break in the world and the canadian teams being in a cup drought, we should have a gentleman's agreement to acknowledge calgary as the 2004 champions.

 
I honestly wish everyone could learn what the Parallax effect is and just get over 2004 already. Granted I know that'd be easier if the Flames could actually do something of worth for once, but still...

[nickp91]

Pat Maroon heading to his 4th straight Stanley Cup final What a legend

[raysox]

What a wild ride, you guys. The Lightning blew out Toronto and Florida near the end of the regular season, one which was "just fine" by my now astronomical standards, and I kind of convinced myself "okay they may be able to make a run here". I was out on them after game 5 against Toronto, and again after Game 2 against New York. But there's just another gear to this core. Stamkos, Vasilevskiy, Kucherov are earning their massive salaries year after year. Each of these Cup runs have been extremely different from each other, and i think they haven't even faced their toughest opponent yet. The Avs full on scare me, but I think this is the Cup Final for the neutral fan. 

Obviously i'm extremely biased. I'm not going to tell people to enjoy it because I too root for parody, but what they've been doing is very special. Good luck to Colorado and their fans, this should be a fun one.

[IceCap]

12 hours ago, DoctorWhom said:

Remember Leafs, as you watch Tampa celebrate (again), that could have been you. 

 

 

[Cosmic]

On 6/10/2022 at 12:20 PM, spartacat_12 said:

 

For those who don't subscribe to The Athletic, he essentially debunks all the theories for why it's gone on this long and concludes that's it's likely some sort of combination of factors.

 

This poll is a good indicator that this whole narrative is more important to the media than it actually is to Canadian hockey fans.

 

 

Bearing in mind it's just a randomTwitter poll, but showing that over 1/3 of people actually DO care is not a nothing result. 

[Sec19Row53]

1 hour ago, Cosmic said:

Bearing in mind it's just a randomTwitter poll, but showing that over 1/3 of people actually DO care is not a nothing result. 

It's a random Twitter poll. It's a nothing result.

 

How do you know how many different people responded to the poll? 

[mcj882000]

18 hours ago, Unocal said:

 

But to THIS level? You think at some point a canadian team would just run into a Cup. Heck, thrice they've gotten to a game 7

Well, let's look at the numbers:
-From 1926-27, the first season in which American teams outnumbered Canadian teams - and coincidentally also the year the NHL took exclusive control of the Stanley Cup - until 1992-93, the Stanley Cup was awarded 67 times; 41 of those went to Canadian teams. 
-If we go from 1942-43, the start of the "Original Six" era where 2/6 teams were Canadian, through the expansion of the late-60s and 70s - when that fraction increased to 2/12, then eventually to 3/18 by 1974, 7/21 by 1980, then to 8/24 as Ottawa got in right under the bell - up to 92-93, the Cup was awarded 51 times; 35 of them went to Canadian teams. 

Now obviously we can talk about how it was like this and why it's not anymore, and I'm sure for some (if not here then certainly elsewhere) the most convincing argument is that the league is being directly rigged against the Canadian teams by the Evil Manhattan Lawyer Who Hates Canada Because Reasons in charge of things; but if we were to acknowledge that claim, then in the interest of fairness we'll have to also acknowledge that for most of the NHL's history before 1993, the NHL was being indirectly rigged in favor of the Canadian teams; both via the Norris family at one point owning or controlling all 4 American teams and only prioritizing 1 of them, and by the fact that before the NHL draft was standardized in 1969 teams automatically got the rights to sign to any prospect who lived and/or played close to them (or their sponsored junior teams), gifting a massive advantage to the two Canadian teams who played in a league where, until very recently, up to 90% of its player population was Canadian.

So with all that said, whether the league is rigged like a wrestling show or it's just the league's balance of power permanently shifting in a way that stokes nationalistic fires as it does so; after all that, is 0 for 30 29 since 1993 an over-correction or not? You tell me.

[spartacat_12]

20 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

It's a random Twitter poll. It's a nothing result.

 

How do you know how many different people responded to the poll? 

 

I mean it's not some egg avatar posting a poll that got 12 votes. It's a fairly notable Vancouver sports show posing the question, and there were thousands of votes. Is it the absolute truth of the situation, no, but it gives you a general sense of how sports fans feel.

[Sec19Row53]

5 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

I mean it's not some egg avatar posting a poll that got 12 votes. It's a fairly notable Vancouver sports show posing the question, and there were thousands of votes. Is it the absolute truth of the situation, no, but it gives you a general sense of how sports fans feel.

Nope. It only gives you a feel for those who responded to the poll. We have no way of knowing if some precocious 12 yearn old hacked the poll and voted 1000 times.

[Red Comet]

Traditional polling over the telephone has enough issues with reliability anymore. An online poll is just laughable as far as getting a result with usable data.

[Crabcake]

On 6/9/2022 at 6:28 PM, Crabcake said:

I have never seen a league so committed to recycling the same coaches around the entire league quite like the NHL. I half expect that when DeBoer, Laviolette, Trotz, Gallant, Sutter, Vigneault, Torts, Yeo, Hitchcock, Quenneville, and Cassidy retire the NHL will just fold because they don’t know that other coaches exist. 

Whoops. Forgot one. 

[DoctorWhom]

Well that didn't take long. 

 

Still think it was a mistake for Boston to get rid of him. Bruins had problems sure, but he wasn't one of them. 

If they won game 7 against St Louis, he's still coaching in Boston.  

Vegas is on a bit of a downward trend too, so I'm curious how this will pan out for him. 

[tBBP]

I'm sure a whole lot of y'all happy Colorado just won game 1...in overtime, no less. 

 

(And yeah, the blue equipment is starting to look much better on ice than the black...)

[Ridleylash]

Colorado win it in OT! Now just win 3 more, Avs.