Plip
Cardenal de Catalunya
Can't for the Detroit / St. Louis game.
Looks like a good start to the season (or half-a-season, but whatever).
Hockey/NHL
- Thread starter Plip
- Start date
Can't for the Detroit / St. Louis game.
Looks like a good start to the season (or half-a-season, but whatever).
BarcafaninIllinois
New member
Time for me to move on as a wings fan from this game. It is what it is now.
thezone
New member
I think people underestimate a lot of the teams.
Blues are good.
too early to really be able to see some trends yet but i seems like the Zack Kassian - Cody Hodgson deal was good for both teams.
Swedish forwards are not much to see this year but the defenders are still producing and I hope some of them will make some big steps this year.
Blues are good.
too early to really be able to see some trends yet but i seems like the Zack Kassian - Cody Hodgson deal was good for both teams.
Swedish forwards are not much to see this year but the defenders are still producing and I hope some of them will make some big steps this year.
La Furia
Legion of Doooom
Blues should be one of the contenders in the west IMO, between a lot of typically western heavyweights slowed down - the Wings are a shell of themselves, the Canucks have looked flaws so far, the Preds have a weaker defence, the Kings have a massive Cup hangover, and the Blues only getting better - this Tarasenko kid looks like a stud, the kind of dynamic winger they were missing, I think they will have a good year depending on how the freakish lockout year goes.
I'm actually a little concerned about their goaltending situation, it was a strength last year but Elliott is fool's gold and Halak is inconsistent.
thezone
New member
I don't know if its just me or if it is the NHL for the moment but I think there are a lot of teams that have created a weird goalie situation in their teams.
Luongos to be or not to be in Canucks is maybe not the weirdest though but still I think that when you make the decision to take him out from the top spot you have to trade him away immediately otherwise you get a strange situation in the team.
Fleury is treated like a liability just because he made a few mistakes in a crazy series against the flyers but he didn't get much support from his team in those games and he played very solid before that series. Why would he suddenly have gotten so much worse? With the treatment he gets now both goalies gona lose their confidence and feel insecure about their position in the team.
Lundqvist is getting some time on the bench when he needs ice-time to get back in shape.
Generally i think its a lot of goalies that are struggling for the moment due to the lack of training on small rinks (if they been in europe) and the speed of the game (if they have been in AHL or similar leagues).
The expected starter goalies are getting stick and bench time when they need more action to get back into the game. A lot of the regular players are crap but their mistakes and bad shape is not as visible in the outcome of the game.
Actually what im trying to say is that i think a lot of the goalies are getting the blame for the teams bad preparation for the start of the season and I think the coaching staff should have more patience and be smarter with the situation.
If you have a good team you will get to the playoffs and when you are there then its important the goalie is performing and if your goalie can stand on his head in the playoffs you are in a good run for the cup, like Quick last year.
P.S. I think TB made a great move with getting Anders Lindbäck. He is not that experienced but he showed in the games he played that he can be a wall in the goal.
Luongos to be or not to be in Canucks is maybe not the weirdest though but still I think that when you make the decision to take him out from the top spot you have to trade him away immediately otherwise you get a strange situation in the team.
Fleury is treated like a liability just because he made a few mistakes in a crazy series against the flyers but he didn't get much support from his team in those games and he played very solid before that series. Why would he suddenly have gotten so much worse? With the treatment he gets now both goalies gona lose their confidence and feel insecure about their position in the team.
Lundqvist is getting some time on the bench when he needs ice-time to get back in shape.
Generally i think its a lot of goalies that are struggling for the moment due to the lack of training on small rinks (if they been in europe) and the speed of the game (if they have been in AHL or similar leagues).
The expected starter goalies are getting stick and bench time when they need more action to get back into the game. A lot of the regular players are crap but their mistakes and bad shape is not as visible in the outcome of the game.
Actually what im trying to say is that i think a lot of the goalies are getting the blame for the teams bad preparation for the start of the season and I think the coaching staff should have more patience and be smarter with the situation.
If you have a good team you will get to the playoffs and when you are there then its important the goalie is performing and if your goalie can stand on his head in the playoffs you are in a good run for the cup, like Quick last year.
P.S. I think TB made a great move with getting Anders Lindbäck. He is not that experienced but he showed in the games he played that he can be a wall in the goal.
barcanuck
New member
No clue I think OV wants a change of scenary
Plip
Cardenal de Catalunya
About the goalie situation... The finns seem to be doing quite well, except for Kipper who has been letting in 9 goals in his first two games. Sure, doesn't help that Flames' defense is in utter shambles, but still.
Hopefully with the recent showing against Nucks, he'd bounce back.
Hopefully with the recent showing against Nucks, he'd bounce back.
La Furia
Legion of Doooom
Wasn't painful for me.
But the Caps are basically unwatchable if you aren't a fan of the team killing them right now.Here's what I think happened to them -
For one, they really haven't been the same since getting upset by the Habs in the 2010 playoffs. They ran into a hot goalie that series, but instead of just adjusting they tried to bring in a more responsible defensive system that didn't really fit. By that point Green and Ovechkin among others already developed bad habits that let them thrive in run and gun, all skill and speed hockey but were extremely ineffective when asked to play a two way game.
Speaking of Green, when they were the best team in the NHL he was a PPG player, which is nearly unheard of for defensemen over the past few years. He was never good defensively, but basically served as an extra winger. Between changing the system and a series of injuries, he looks washed up at 27. He's a shell of himself.
Ovechkin continues to be unable to adjust his game. When he came into the league he was unstoppable but eventually teams figured out he will do the same move everytime, and can be easily forced into taking a stupid shot. Coaches continue to try to get more from him but he seems unable and unwilling to do anything else. Even in Russia during the lockout he was no longer the force of nature he used to be.
On a similar note...GMGM is great at finding talent but has done a terrible job constructing a team. As much as cliche narratives like "toughness" and "heart" are overblown, they do matter to some extent and the Caps have very little of it. Their top 6 is filled with me-first perimeter players and every attempt to remedy it has been reactive and failed to add much of anything. McPhee needs to go, and like with the Wizards, Leonisis seems unwilling to go through GMs the way he does coaches, even when the GM is the root of the problem.
As much as I wasn't a huge fan of Boudreau..he was able to get the most out of the team's talent. Since he was fired it's gotten progressively worse. Adam Oates looks in over his head, he has no NHL coaching experience and this team is not the best choice for cutting your teeth on.
Really it's amazing that this is mainly the same team that was so popular and an offensive juggernaut only 3 years ago. Everything about them is lifeless now, from the play to the crowd. At this point the only option may be to blow it up, they have a few great prospects in Europe like Forsberg and Kuznetsov, if I was them I'd build around those two and Backstrom while trying to find someone desperate enough to trade for Ovechkin.
hellsangel1
New member
I remember writing about the NHL playoffs on this thread sometime back and revealed my reservations about this sport that I was watching for the first time but I'm really enjoying the new season so far . I'm seeing the patterns of play and the more open style of hockey has made it more exciting and palatable for the newcomer. With the NFL season almost over and the NBA it's predicatable self, I really think i'm going to enjoy this NHL experience. Just watching some old highlights of NHL games from the 80's and 90's, it's incredible how bigger the goalies look now due to to the bigger goalie equipment.
Just a question, why were the goals per average in an NHL game so high in the 80's???? Gretzky's points total during some of those years just look inhuman. Wish I was able to watch that guy in his prime......
Just a question, why were the goals per average in an NHL game so high in the 80's???? Gretzky's points total during some of those years just look inhuman. Wish I was able to watch that guy in his prime......
La Furia
Legion of Doooom
Haha, glad you changed your mind. Playoff hockey is great but it gets more defensive and physical, so it helps to already have a vested interest.
The 80s average scores were much higher for a variety of reasons. The ability (and equipment) of goalies hadn't yet caught up to that of skaters, meaning open play was rewarding. Besides that, most of the leagues expansion occured in the 70s, so the 80s were something of a transition period - a lot of the new teams like the Oilers, Penguins and Islanders were terrible for so long that their teams were stacked with high draft picks, which eventually turned into extremely talented players. The Oilers and Gretzky was obviously the most extreme but you had Lemieux, Bossy, Bourque, etc, players who could get away with focusing only on offense.
After 93 the league lost a lot of fans in the "dead puck" era...basically you had goalies getting better by focusing on the more technical butterfly style instead of pure athleticism (Patrick Roy pioneered the transition in the 80s and 90s), and also the rules changed to allow goalies to have bigger equipment..if you look at goalie stats in the 80s and 90s it's like a completely different world. Plus there was a return of more defensive tactics. A lot of people blame the NJ Devils and Jacques Lemaire for "killing" hockey with the trap, but the truth is it's been around since the Habs dynasty of the late 70s, but before then it accompanied a high powered offense while the Devils (and to a lesser extent Stars and Red Wings) really emphasized defense first. There was also a further expansion of teams in the early 90s which lead to a diluted talent pool for a few years.
I think the last decade has been better off because of that though, the game is much more balanced than it was in the 80s or 90s.
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