Kgbeast

I think Leafs are fine. They just need to focus more on hard checking especially in the d-zone. I would say, their loss is all on coaching. The players played very well. If some Tavares can not score, it is not all on him, it is also on the goalie he shoots at and the other team players that put sticks in his lanes. On the other side, we always knew that Leafs pretty weak defensively and that is not going to work in playoff hockey.

I enjoyed this as well. Real effort from both teams. Some soft goals on both ends through out the series, but more spectacular and plentiful are the saves. This had me on the edge of my chair every game. Even if CBJ lost, I would have come here to write the same. Probably one of the more intense series so far.

It is not like Tampa just threw the money at Vasy because they could. Perhaps he was ready to walk if they did not give him that. How much grief the club would risk to catch if their starter is Domingo, and for whatever reason incapable of stopping a beachball? 8M us going rate for goalies of this statue, they paid 1.5 over for a security of having the best chance not to become in last year Panthers shoes... A team that can score a dozen goals a game, but give up a dozen+1. Tampa still can get there now, but at least there will be no kangaroo court over them letting go a solid goalie. Plus if Vasy would have left by now, them signing Point would have become that much harder, who knows what else would have started to slide. The club is in time of a delicate balance and they have to do everything they can not to disturb that.

The Graf insistence on 2-piece goes beyond fit. Actually fit would not be a problem in all plastic boot as that can be molded to whatever shape with modern methods. Graf's thing is also about that different parts of the boot need to have different stiffness and flex, which is not possible if the whole thing is made of one material. Bauer not into monocoque stuff either. Seems like CCM does it to be competitive with Bauer under assumption that it has something more cutting edge. Not sure if they themselves believe into monocoque thing. I have not really heard any convincing argument for monocoque construction, just some waffle about the energy transfer which is rather questionable. But hey, heart wants what heart wants.

He did very good. I am curious to see if him and Bennington will get their chins so high that they will stop seing the puck. I am also curious how Bobrovski will do after scoring the huge payday.

Now that they wiffed on getting Gusev, they are total favorites to make the bottom 3. While they are ok as far as skill go, they are a little more spoiled a little older than back in 2015. Dubinsky is now very bad, no glue guys like Hartnell, Calvert, Gagner. Will be interesting to see if they sink all the way to the bottom or find a will power to move past being pouty that no body wants to play there. IMO Tortz is a right coach for them. He is bad for the developed egos, but great to drill a peasant squad that needs a continuous spanking. If they find themselves playing with a chip on their shoulders, trying to prove everyone wrong, they can do well just like inaugural VGK did. Especially, that all stats are against them and they will be underestimated by other clubs. All they need is good goaltending, if they get that, there is a chance they will be that dark horse that can sneak passed and surprise everyone.

UpYes, Columbus will remain a revolving door club for high end talent that they might get for at least another 5 years. Merzlikins has signed 1 year contract. If he turns out to be great, he us gone next year. Columbus also have a good shot at signing Gusev... probably 2 year. I doubt he will sign an extension. It is quite remarkable that they are a very good performing club with probably top 10 fanbase. I have started following them because of Bobrovsky, but I have grown to love their team and Tortz, so I am staying on their bandwagon. If they sign Gusev, between him and Nyquist, they would be pretty close to getting that skill upfront they have just lost. I will be watching Rangers though as well for sure.

Not sure what is your beef with Columbus. When I said that they make splash is because they have 3 top UFAs on the Market. Their name mentioned, their uniforms are in highlights. Also, they hardly need a rebuild as they have been making playoffs 3 years in the row and even after loss of Bobrovski who you thought was not all that anyway, Panarin who is ok, and Duchene who have not had much success in NHL, they still pretty strong team and have an opportunity to make the playoffs again if the Merzlikins can be the goalie they are expecting. As for GM gamble .. you have to take shots like that to increase fan base and raise profile of the club. I think they did that. Loosing Duckair and Abramov is well worth it (although I think Abramov can be something special). As for picks... It is even more of a gamble. Plus now that Duchene is gone, they will get one back.

Columbus might not a well publicised NHL destination during a regular season, but it surely makes a spalsh this off season leading the top of discussions. I think Panarin did good, by picking NYC. He surely was the man in Columbus, but missing an opportunity to be the man in NYC could not be missed. Plus his rocket of a soon to be wife, would hate to get stuck in Columbus or Miami even if it means extra 10mil at the end. Bread chose wisely. Bobrovsky, is my favorite goalie and is a thing to watch in the game. Going to Panthers however I am not sure about. Playing for empty seats in the team that does not fare greatly against other teams in the conference, is a sign that he just went to the higher bidder. We'll see. Duchene going to Preds... This shows some love for country music. I do not see that much else can come out of this as I do not see Preds playing his kind of game. I will not be surprised if he has a "bad season". Columbus looked like a team where he has finally found his groove and if Merzlikins ends up being the next Marty Brodeur they expect him to be, they would have been a team to crack the two series in the postseason. Well, this is just the way I see it.

Game is too fast, easy to miss a lot. It needs to accepted that the officiating is not going to ever be accurate and the people in the stands and in front of the TV will always see more. Additional reviews and challenges will just slow down already slow progressing game. It is norm that it takes 2+ hours to watch 1 hour of play. I would hate to extend that to 3+ as a norm. Officiating needs to be accepted as being part of the game. Some blown calls for you some against. Call it luck... Just like broken sticks. I think they should scrap the reviews except for disciplinary (major vs minor) and all goals. The rest should be if they cought it they cought it, if not then "it happened the way it happened because it would not have happened in any other way".

They do have war room (Toronto) which is basically that. That however is only applicable in reviewable situations. So this will require to add more situations on the reviewable list.

Coaches challenges are fine also, just make sure your asses penalty for every crap challenge. All misconduct calls though need to be reviewable by refs.

Seems like they might need to consider adding a couple of things to "reviewable" list. Game winners like this can not be allowed. Just imagine goal like this ending game 7 of Stanley Cup final? Which is a possibility, I might add.

I think the moves did plenty of good. 10 games on national TV including Canada is important for establishing their brand. Locally in Columbus some major recognition of hockey happened as well. Their commercial value has grown a fold or two over, which will give them some capital for bonuses and development. Merzlinkis can be an interesting goalie and can be better than Bob in goal for them. So Bobrovski departure is probably not as impactful. Loosing Panarin and Duchene would be bad, but they did fine before without either one. With nearly $40m in cap space they can pull from this and other pro leagues. CBJ goalie pool is pretty good and they can trade one for good picks and get back in the draft game. All and all, I do not think they have lost anything this season. The commercial success was worth the effort and was desperately needed for this club, more so than some draft opportunities that they may or may not miss. CBJ has to dabble at the top of the division next season to maintain the success, if they slide to the bottom, that will undo everything. On paper as of now, they should be able to make playoffs again or at least be close to that. At the moment they are looking at loosing some key people from the front office and one of the coaches that might be their bigger problem for near future.

It appears that Bobrovski has put his residence in Columbus up for sale. It is time for him to flip a page, and he is doing it fast.

Heard that too. Thing is that the refs who called that in Vegas/Sharks game are out of the playoffs. Message was, call within the rules or risk early season end. Refs moved from guilty unless proven innocent to innocent until proven guilty. What a concept, eh!

...you could see it in his eyes that he was really worrying about this. Especially if this would have gave CBJ a win and he would have sit the game 7. Now it is not that big of a deal. I hated him for a second after he punched Bread in the face, but he is trying to play the game the right way and he is a model citizen in my eyes.

I think this is the right way to handle this. If hit is obviously predatory or done by the same person who played dangerously before in the game and/or has history, then yes, you can give him a match and a major, if it is uncharacteristic and illogical, you should give a player benefit of a doubt... Regardless of injury. This is dangerous sport and prayers know there is always a chance of being seriously injured. As for CBJ loss... In words of Morpheus, It happened the way it happened because it could not have happened any other way. They have tried everything, deflections, straight shots, 5 hole, pads, upper corners... Nothing went in. CBJ had a monster team, they coulda shoulda woulda click better or be better in the goal... Not like they woke up that morning and said "aah, we had some good run, I think we should go ahead and play softie today, give Bruins a taste of victory..." Or Bob in the goal thinking, " nah, I can stop this puck with my arms behind my back, but then it'll be to easy. How about I let this one through, that will make for a more dramatic come back". I can see how they are disappointed and wanted to win, so do the Bruins, so the Canes. Someone has to loose and that is not in players or coaches hands. You show up, put everything you got in the game, then you move on. If you've done that you should have no regrets...

That call was ok. I think we are gotten to accustomed to people getting misconducts for any contact with the head. It hardly was a predatory hit. McAvoy is not stupid to put his team in jepardy while they are clearly having a better night than Jackets. McAvoy looked scared sitting in the box, league might still suspend him for a game, you can see he looked worried. As per leagues rules, illegal hit to the head is a minor infraction. Giving him 5 would have been outside of the rules. They gave him 2, and left the rest up to the department of safety. Andy came back so no harm done. In playoffs teams need to win game by playing, not by this. It was a good series and the right team won. Boston has shown skill, grit, and heart. As the CBJ fan, but even more so fan of the game, I do not think Jackets deserved to pass these series. They have fallen apart during that brake. They have not played a single structured game against Boston. I have said from the game one of these series that they have room for improvement and sadly the improvement never happened. And what was the deal with this "we will be back here for game 7" crap. I love Tortz, but this was stupid. Now he has done that twice in the row and it turned out to be bullshit. ...And yes, I did noticed that Tukka is a monster in goal. These 6 games might have been his best games yet. What a weapon that guy!

OnOk looks like finally the table has turned. Bruins domeying Jackets everywhere except when CBJ is on PK. I think Columbus had more scoring chances on Bruins power plays than Bruins. That said, Jackets have list 2 in the row now and they look pretty weak against B's 5 on 5. Shots on goal perhaps equal, but B's have better looking shots on goal its just Bob is pretty phenomenal. Jackets have won games against Tampa by being a coordinated and structured in 5v5, now they just run around, looking for what comes their way, and they are not good at it. A couple of mad dangles by Atkinson, Foligno, and Panarin. Although without a result, but entertaining to watch nevertheless. Boston looks pretty good to win tomorrow their 4th game of the series, but will see if Jackets can figure this out.

My problem with Cooper is not from playoffs, it is from the fact that he has a team that is skillwise unmatched in skaters and in goal. Leading team like this through the regular season should not require great deal of coaching. Just stand in the back and let them play. Similarly as Sully and Penguins. It takes a real coach with a real vision however to take a group of missfits and take them into playoffs. Galant, Tortz had that done in the last 3-4 years the way I see. This year, from a limited number of teams I have followed(only east really) Trotz is the one. A joke team, with joke goalies, (on paper at least) yet had tremendous success in the regular season. They should not have gone past the first round with that raster, cudos to them on getting 8 games in the post season. This just further proves that Trotz is a "master".

The player and puck tracking on it's own is of little interest, but combined with ultra high resolution shooting can be extremely interesting. 8k shooting is here, people are working on even higher resolution cameras already. It possible that there will be no need in multiple moving cameras, but can be multiple stationary cameras that shooting the entire arena. Then say in TV, you can pick special tracking (puck for example) and you get an automated in-image pan/zoom to deliver you basically what you get now. Except you can pick player tracking instead and auto pan zoom on the player. Kind of like when you zoom into the image on your phone and swipe around looking for a specific details, but with tracking technology and it's in content delivery implementation, you can have that automated. Not there now, but I can see it being not too far in the future.

Hurricanes are unreal. After grinding out the true top dog of the league, they absolutely domied Barry Trotz masterpiece. Being CBJ fan, it pains me to admit that Canes deserve this Cup or at least the runner-up. If CBJ check out on Bruins, Canes is my bandwagon. Talking about Barry Trotz, he is in my opinion the only Jack Adams finalists. Coop is a joke, Berube, ok. Trotz was given a team of pretty much nobodies and they stayed at the top of the standings all season and it was all to the Trotz credit.

...did not say "sex sells". I said that there are accepted metrics of how the female athletes need to look. Watching butch men competing in physical sport makes sense, watching butch women... I think I can find other things to do. As I said before, foremost is the skill level, without skill level it is boring. Look at tennis or volleyball, just look pretty will not get you far. That is why I am saying, major adjustments need to be there. It can not and should not be physical game, it needs to be game of skill. Perhaps no contact and no hard shots... Kind of like grass hockey, pass and dangle. This perhaps will lead to smaller armor and doing away with cages. There is plenty of high end skill to put together 5-6 teams for NA. On the non NHL hockey level in general... Quite correctly, where the hell I can watch this. I think they should raise some funds and create something like apps for Roku, Apple TV, etc. so it is possible to watch. I think women hockey went wrong direction. At this point the only feasible avenues are the international championships, where no body cares who is playing as long as they are winning, but don't look for high paychecks. Unless players can shine as personalities, they are just a bluemen group, replaceable and forgettable.

The world we live in, as harsh as this might sound, is a sexist world. World where for the most part male athletes are successful by being physical and violent, while female athletes are by pretty and sexy. Now obviously both still must be very skillfull in their sport to be anywhere at the top. Looking at volleyball, figure skating, tennis, soft ball. The popularity dwindles as the women uniforms become bigger. Also when it comes to physical interaction between players, it is admired when men are pushing showing and basically fighting, for women however, real fighting is a turn off and expected to be more of a "bumping and grinding" if you will ( ... I know). Unfortunately, women hockey is the men hockey played by women. Skilful stick handling, speed and agility are great, but the caged helmets and bulky armored outfits are "not-woman-like" in eyes of majority. I think if women hockey is to be successful, it needs to be girly. Ice Hockey, just like the American Football, is exceedingly difficult to make into a woman sport simply because of what it is. There must be an appeal to watch this after watching men hockey. Skill level perhaps matches already, but physicality of the game is not a plus and must not be brought up, but must be replaced with something that appeals to the spectators. As far as striking or boycotting anything, you have to have two things, you need to have leverage and you have to have an attainable demand. For example if you bag groceries as your job, you can not go sit on strike outside of the supermarket demanding your salary to be brought up to the level of the store manager just because you seemingly have a skill to be the store manager. Obviously, you'd need first to get the store manager title, then there will be no need to strike.