2022-23 NHL Season

[Glover]

3 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I think @JerseyJimmy is wrong to make this political (not everything is ffs) but he is a pretty dedicated Isles fan so you can't blame him for being upset his team lost. 

Oh absolutely. Fans have every right to vent after a loss. It just seems in my observations over the years his venting goes a little further than just the on-ice product - whether that is trashing certain cities/states or, in this case, turning it political. 

 

Don’t want this to go much further than it has, was just explaining to another member. 

[Sport]

10 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

 

yeah man, I'm sure they spend every night crying about it into the two cups they won immediately after.

The point is the team with the most wins ever was eliminated in the first round and your first instinct is to declare that people are only happy about it because the underdog is some lovable outfit from the sunbelt, which is dumb. The Panthers are almost irrelevant in this story of the bruins choking, which is what really happened. It’s notable because the team with the most wins ever was eliminated in the first round. Period. Their opponent’s location has nothing to do with the reaction online and you’re the only person anywhere I’ve seen bring it up. If the Sens were the opponent it’d be the same reaction. Stop making this sunbelt non-thing into a thing. It’s so stupid. 

[monkeypower]

14 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

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.

 

Yeah, the Rangers should fit in there as well, but I think their playoff struggles are more well documented than the Bruins and the Bruins always seem to go into the playoffs in recent years as a "contender" of some kind. I don't know if the Rangers have that same kind of aura, warranted or not, as the Bruins do.

 

The Wild's playoff peak was scoring one goal in four games in the Western Conference Finals 20 years ago.

 

Not to go further off topic, but I think the Flames don't get enough guff for their historical mediocrity (probably a bit worse that mediocrity actually because the Wild and Bruins/Rangers et al at least make the playoffs consistently). Since the cup win in 1989, they've won six* playoff series and three of those were in the same playoffs.

 

*One of those six was the 2020 bubble qualifying round, so don't know if that counts as playoffs in the eyes of the NHL.

[Ridleylash]

IT WAS 3-1!!!

Jesus, the Bruins absolutely embarrassed themselves in the playoffs. A historic season that will, like Tampa before, only be remembered for the absolute playoff meltdown that followed it.

[Kramerica Industries]

9 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

 

yeah man, I'm sure they spend every night crying about it into the two cups they won immediately after.

 

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. 

[Dynasty]

So I guess the NHL also doesn't do re-seeding for their playoff bracket. Was this changed with the expansion of Vegas or Seattle? It's the first time I have noticed it for both the NHL and NBA.

[The_Admiral]

2 minutes ago, Dynasty said:

So I guess the NHL also doesn't do re-seeding for their playoff bracket. Was this changed with the expansion of Vegas or Seattle? It's the first time I have noticed it for both the NHL and NBA.

Changed for 2014 with the switch to four divisions. Fixed brackets with that weird crossover deal for 4 seeds. 

 

I never cared for the reseed. Makes it less fun and/or impossible to predict later rounds.

[Kramerica Industries]

2 minutes ago, Dynasty said:

So I guess the NHL also doesn't do re-seeding for their playoff bracket. Was this changed with the expansion of Vegas or Seattle? It's the first time I have noticed it for both the NHL and NBA.

 

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.

[The_Admiral]

Just now, Kramerica Industries said:

There's no excuse for not reseeding in the NBA playoffs, but whatever. Different discussion for a different thread.

 

If an 8 knocks off a 1, they've earned the 4/5. More importantly, it doesn't dick with the TV executives.

[Sport]

2 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

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 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. 

I brought up the 2019 Lightning only to demonstrate that the last time this happened (a team with a wins record losing in the first round) it was a Sun belt team on the other end and the reaction online was largely the same as we’re seeing towards the Bruins now. The location of the Panthers has nothing to do with why people are buzzing about this. The Bruins location being what it is and Boston being what it is does, but that’s different. 

[The_Admiral]

I don't even remember the Bolts in 2019. Where was I? What was going on at the time?

[Ridleylash]

Yeah, location never matters in enormous upsets like this, it's just the sheer shock of it. Like, the Bruins had 43 more points than the Panthers.

 

Fourty. Three.

 

And they lost three straight and are gone in the first round.

[IceCap]

4 minutes ago, the admiral said:

I don't even remember the Bolts in 2019. Where was I? What was going on at the time?

It was funny because they kept the "LETS GO BOLTS" banners up downtown for like a month after they got swept. 

[JerseyJimmy]

21 minutes ago, IceCap said:

Look man I'm a left leaning guy but that's got zero to do with it. I hate the Bruins and they got eliminated by a team I always assumed was a money laundering operation. It ain't that deep. 

 

you know, maybe it isn't political. maybe the fact that New York teams conveniently stopped winning championships the moment I started to seriously care about sports, the Islanders have been eliminated by either Tampa or Carolina in four of the past five years, the Mets have to share a division with The Greatest Franchise In All Of Baseball that wouldn't be able to get their white-flight fans to stop tomahawk chopping if they held them at gunpoint, the Astros have sat on the entire American League (read: the Yankees) for over half a decade, the Knicks are probably about to be shltcanned by an 8-seeded Miami team, etc. etc. isn't political at all. maybe it's just a straight-up personal insult.

[IceCap]

Just now, JerseyJimmy said:

 

you know, maybe it isn't political. maybe the fact that New York teams conveniently stopped winning championships the moment I started to seriously care about sports, the Islanders have been eliminated by either Tampa or Carolina in four of the past five years, the Mets have to share a division with The Greatest Franchise In All Of Baseball that wouldn't be able to get their white-flight fans to stop tomahawk chopping if they held them at gunpoint, the Astros have sat on the entire American League (read: the Yankees) for over half a decade, the Knicks are probably about to be shltcanned by an 8-seeded Miami team, etc. etc. isn't political at all. maybe it's just a straight-up personal insult.

I'm a Toronto sports fan. Up until 2019 and the Raptors upsetting the Warriors our last "Big Four" title was the Blue Jays in 1993. 

 

Sometimes things just suck. Sometimes they suck for a long ass time. I'm celebrating my team winning their first playoff series in nineteen years. 

Politics has nothing to do with it. You'll be happier over all once you figure that out. 

[Red Comet]

5 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

 

you know, maybe it isn't political. maybe the fact that New York teams conveniently stopped winning championships the moment I started to seriously care about sports, the Islanders have been eliminated by either Tampa or Carolina in four of the past five years, the Mets have to share a division with The Greatest Franchise In All Of Baseball that wouldn't be able to get their white-flight fans to stop tomahawk chopping if they held them at gunpoint, the Astros have sat on the entire American League (read: the Yankees) for over half a decade, the Knicks are probably about to be shltcanned by an 8-seeded Miami team, etc. etc. isn't political at all. maybe it's just a straight-up personal insult.

 

Yep, you figured it out. We, the people from red states, are trolling and gangstalking you by winning in the playoffs. 
 

Spoiler

 

[infrared41]

Which part of "No Politics" is tripping up some of you?

[IceCap]

Just now, infrared41 said:

Which part of "No Politics" is tripping up some of you?

Some people can't help themselves 

[Ridleylash]

To try and pull away from the politics discussion...I found the trophy the Bruins are taking home this year;

[Sport]

This is the kind of dumb guy thing people say when a city wins too much and they lose all perspective. It’s a first round hockey exit, dumbass. I went to work the day after my team narrowly lost the Super Bowl and it was eye-opening what percentage of the office actually cared to the point that it affected their work performance. It wasn’t many. I think we forget sometimes that most people aren’t living and dying with sports results like we are. 
 

edit: now he claims he was being sarcastic. Lol no you weren’t. You were 100% serious. Don’t add lying on top of your unhinged tweet you shot off in an emotional moment. Cmon.