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Golden Knights vs. Capitals Stanley Cup Final preview
NHL web site ^ | May 24, 2018 | Shawn P. Roarke

Posted on 05/27/2018 1:48:49 PM PDT by airborne

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To: Ciexyz

You are on!

Welcome to the team!


41 posted on 05/27/2018 5:11:08 PM PDT by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
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To: PlateOfShrimp

Got kids in suburban Maryland that have waited a lot of years for the Caps to get this deal done.

They are a hockey family and had season tickets for many years. It is so bad the Dad can’t watch except after the score is known and he can speed through the recording.


42 posted on 05/27/2018 5:18:52 PM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: Alberta's Child

you wanna see “possession” hockey?...watch videos of the Soviet Red Army teams...or the 1980’s Edmonton Oilers. Again...these teams are scoring at the rate that teams did in the 1940’s..when they only played 70 games. The fact that the league keeps trying bizarre rule changes to “open” up ice tells u somethings not right. Imagine the Oilers playing with no center red line and 2 line passes. The goalie equipment is ridiculous...this might sound crazy..but the game is too fast now...ive never seen so many 2 and 3 on 1’s butchered because these guys are skating out of control. Theres no way an expansion team should be in the finals..but the teams all play alike...Wayne Gretzky said that this stuff is being taught at the bantam and midget league level...the games to robotic now. You gave me a few plays of “skill”..but it all comes down to who gets the lucky bounces. During the season...out of 7 or 8 league games on any night, 5 or 6 ..the score will be 2-1..or 3-2. Ive watched game from the 80’s and 90’s,,,and i cant believe its the same game. You gotta let your stars be stars. Every niow and then ill see a good game...but its mostly just a boring, scrambled mess.


43 posted on 05/27/2018 5:20:27 PM PDT by basalt
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To: Yaelle
Here's another one ... absolutely perfect:

Shane Doan deflection goal

You can't even see what happened at real-time speed. But when you watch the slow-motion replay you see how well coordinated this goal was. The Phoenix center won the faceoff back to his defenseman. At around the 0:34 mark he sees that the defenseman has possession and is preparing to shoot, so he bolts to his left and takes the opposing center with him -- thereby opening the shooting lane for the defenseman.

Meanwhile, Shane Doan lines up at right wing and immediately gets position inside his defender so he can move toward the goal and get his stick down on the ice as the low shot is made on goal. The goalie plays the original shot well, but Doan deflects the puck perfectly up to the far corner over the goalie's shoulder.

44 posted on 05/27/2018 5:21:35 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: Alberta's Child

you wanna see “artistry”?...you never see goals like this anymore...this is the kind of stuff that makes you want to go and rent the ice...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isCV73zAvoQ


45 posted on 05/27/2018 5:32:43 PM PDT by basalt
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To: basalt
Gretzky's complaint is a valid one, but you'll see the same trend in every sport. They have become so over-analyzed, over-measured and over-coached because the talent levels are so similar. It's not a lack of talent that's the problem here like it was in the 1990s. It's a "flattening" of the talent level to the point where the NHL's top stars aren't significantly better than the average players.

The Soviet Red Army is a good example of "possession" hockey, but the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s really aren't. Don't just watch highlights of those Edmonton teams. I recently watched a few entire games from their Stanley Cup years, including the clinching games against Philadelphia in 1987 and Boston in 1988. Yes, those teams had skilled players (I think Jari Kurri was one of the most underrated players of all time) ... but I was surprised to see how sloppy and chaotic those games were for long stretches.

I think time blurs our memories. Legendary Montreal goalie Ken Dryden said something like that a few years ago. He described watching some video clips from the peak of his career in the 1970s, and he was embarrassed at how slow the game looked compared to the modern NHL.

I agree 100% about the goalies, though. It's not just the equipment that's the problem here. What you're seeing is the second or third generation of NHL goalies who were actually trained as goalies since they were young kids. They've almost perfected the position in terms of how it's played. Up until the late 1980s, almost every NHL goalie was a guy who played another position as a kid but then started playing in goal because they weren't very good forwards or defensemen. Go back to some of those video highlights of the 1980s, and you'll notice that the goaltending was -- with the notable exceptions of Patrick Roy and Grant Fuhr -- uniformly awful by modern standards. They didn't play their angles well, gave up huge rebounds, didn't react quickly on cross-ice passes, etc.

46 posted on 05/27/2018 5:36:11 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: basalt
You see quite a few plays like that nowadays. You just don't remember them because it isn't Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux on the ice.

NHL Tic-Tac-Toe Goals

47 posted on 05/27/2018 5:45:46 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: Alberta's Child

in any sport..you have to be wary of it becoming too defensive..or you no longer have a “game or sport”. its why zone defenses were outlawed in pro basketball..nobody would ever score. In football, they had to change the rules to let the receivers get open, no more bump and run. Sadly, in hockey, the opposite has happened. They might as well take the NHL record book and just throw it away..these players of today will never come close to any of them..its too bad..cuz players like Conner McDavid etc will be forgotten in a haze of boring 2-1..or 3-2 games. They can change the rules and trapazoids all they want....but when teams are coached to play this style, its not gonna change anything. Hockey never had good television ratings..their best chance was the glory days of Wayne...Mario etc. Now...its just unwatchable...even the announcers today just suck. Hockey has taken a huge, forgettable step backwards. I used to really love it, not anymore.


48 posted on 05/27/2018 5:57:16 PM PDT by basalt
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To: Alberta's Child

or maybe i saw Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers do it so much , they destroyed the NHL record book and won a bunch of Stanley Cups doing it. All i know..the league keeps desperately changing the rules...its turned into a stupid looking game..bunch of guys whacking at a puck with sticks. The tic -tac- goals you posted are very much the exception..not the norm. Used to be 80% skill goals..20% garbage goals..now its the other way around. Teams score 250 goals and are considered “offensive”...never mind that the record is almost 500. Backwards.


49 posted on 05/27/2018 6:11:01 PM PDT by basalt
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To: basalt
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I think you're overestimating the influence of defense in hockey. If this were 1998 or 2003 you would definitely have a point, but what you're seeing today is the result of something entirely different.

For one thing, I'm actually pleased to see how NHL players seem to be getting smaller in recent years. Average NHL player size (both height and weight) peaked in 2004 and has been slowly declining since then. There is much more emphasis on mobility -- especially among defensemen! -- than there was 20 years ago. One downside of this trend is that speed effectively shrinks the ice.

I also think the expanded league, the salary cap, and constant player movement has diluted the talent and made it impossible to have a team with the kind of top-to-bottom talent you saw with the Montreal Canadiens of the 1970s (the 1976-77 Canadiens were arguably the greatest NHL team of all time), the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s, and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the early 1990s. You'll never see guys like Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Paul Coffey, Ron Francis, Mark Recchi, Joe Mullen and Bryan Trottier on the same roster in the salary cap era.

50 posted on 05/27/2018 6:11:35 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: Alberta's Child

That was a dumb move in my opinion. Fleury could give Murray a rest when he needed one. Pittsburgh would not have won the Cup without Fleury. Also well before the draft, it was rumored that Fleury was the guy Vegas wanted. Pittsburgh was throwing away a #2 pick.


51 posted on 05/27/2018 6:16:57 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: basalt
Gretzky and the Oilers were an anomaly, not the norm. Those guys scored tons of goals but also gave up a lot.

Even the Islanders dynasty of the early 1980s never scored 400 goals in a season -- let alone nearly 500 (actually, the record is less than 450). In fact, the Oilers scored more than 400 goals in a season five times in the 1980s ... and no other team has even done it ONCE.

52 posted on 05/27/2018 6:21:25 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: scrabblehack

Fleury really hampered Pittsburgh because his salary made it difficult for them to put a full roster together for. 2017-18. You can’t have a part-time goalie making almost $6M in today’s NHL.


53 posted on 05/27/2018 6:42:48 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.")
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To: airborne

Go Caps!


54 posted on 05/27/2018 7:18:49 PM PDT by EdnaMode
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To: Dilbert San Diego

I think the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars both made it to the conference championship in their second seasons (same season).


55 posted on 05/27/2018 7:21:34 PM PDT by EdnaMode
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To: airborne

8 Franchises
25 Years
159 Cumulative Seasons of Futility.

Curse of St. Patrick.


56 posted on 05/28/2018 6:43:06 AM PDT by rwilson99 (How exactly would John 3:16 not apply to Mary?)
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To: airborne

Thank you.
Go Knights!!!


57 posted on 05/28/2018 6:46:00 PM PDT by sweetiepiezer (Winning is not getting old.)
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To: sweetiepiezer

Who is watching? What a hell of a game!! Unbelievable. Can’t believe I was worried about blowouts. These teams both want it. This is good hockey!


58 posted on 05/28/2018 6:49:41 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: MikePipper
Isn’t it about time for the next season to start?

They have to wait until the ice is off.

59 posted on 05/28/2018 6:59:03 PM PDT by Fightin Whitey
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To: Yaelle

One hell of a game is right.
It is Knight Time.


60 posted on 05/28/2018 8:40:13 PM PDT by sweetiepiezer (Winning is not getting old.)
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