flip12

The players definitely picked their spots. Marchand was pretty blatant in interfering with O'Reilly right of the power play face off, but McAvoy was deliberately hands off when Tarasenko blew by him on the way to his one touch assist on goal 3. When it came to guys on the puck or chasing a loose puck, they laid off. Getting to the puck carrier was another matter. I hate to say it, too, but I've got to agree with @chippa13. The fix was in. Only it wasn't the refs going for St. Louis, but rather Marchand and Pasta who seemed to have been unable to resist the odds and put down a lot on the Blues winning or something. Pastrnak looked like someone had ordered his Fisher Pros as extra high P28s or something.

How does that compare to the MLX tongue? They look pretty similar.

I have too many questions about how NHL refereeing works to answer that. In the case of trip and embellishment, does that result in 5-on-5 or 4-on-4? Is it worth it to make that happen so late in a 1-0 SCF game late in a tied series? If Acciari diving is horseshit, why did he look more like Pele than MacKinnon after Bozak made contact with him? My conjecture is, the refs are trained to try and spot embellishment. Sometimes it results in a call, other times it doesn't. I've never seen embellishment called and nothing else, so maybe the operating mode is, 'if you spot embellishment but there was no other penalty, let them play on.' In that case, Acciari being down in his zone is no different than if he were because he got hit with a shot and couldn't get up. I do agree that the refs didn't blow it, either the whistle or the call. I just can't believe Acciari legit Peleing from a half-speed Bozak bumping--not even kicking like Kadri did to MacKinnon--his knee.

You already did...you don't remember? Also, did you not read the post you just quoted? All the answers are in there.

I have neither the time or the interest to verify if there isn't a single analyst that said Acciari embellished. But I'll take your word for it. Thanks for doing that research. I don't care what analysts say or not. My opinions are my own, and I don't need them rubber stamped or adorned with shiny star stickers. There are lots of sayings. Lots of them contradict each other. They're not all right, obviously. Also, there's no way to know if Acciari dove or not, so there's no way to be right or wrong on this, definitively. The level of explanation isn't that involved, really. But if you think it's "too much," I guess I can see where the issue is. If you watch highlight reels of NHL slew foots and you still think Acciari didn't at least embellish, then I'd at least be surprised.

The Blues weren't pressing until the Bruins got out of position. Perron is the one that pushes the puck in from the blueline. Bouwmeester's never even in the zone during the sequence, which is why there wasn't any active 5-on-4 advantage. Acciari going down leaves it 4 Bruins in the zone against the Blues' 4. Yes, a player going down and staying on the ice in your d-zone leads to edge case logic applying, but in this situation, it looks like that just gets applied terribly. It only takes a couple of seconds for that 4-on-4 to become a 2-on-1, but even watching it in live speed, you can see as they unravel. As to your commentary on my comment about content, I got what you were trying to say, but it's still meaningless. There's no content there. You just saying, 'your detailed explanation of the situation that's different from mine' is "hilarious" doesn't really contain anything. If you watch video of NHL slew foots, there are many more cases of guys spinning out or simply tipping over and falling on their backsides, even in cases where bigger players are coming in on them with more speed and less notice. Just look at that bicycle kick and tell me it's not suspicious. That's some (FIFA) World Cup quality diving, but thankfully the ref didn't bite.

Huh? This isn't the first time you respond with absolutely no content. Well, Carlo, a defenseman, was pretty much standing a stick's length from the blue line when the puck got pushed back to Bozak and still had a chance to recover down low but instead got tangled up with O'Reilly. After Acciari went down, it ends up 4-on-4 in the zone. 3 out of the remaining 4 Bruins seem to lose their bearing, possibly because they were assuming a penalty would be called and forgot to continue to play. The 2-on-1 comes after several breakdowns: Carlo's fade and tangle, Kuraly's missed challenge on Perron where he brushes by Bozak, and Nordstrom's obliviousness to the hole created by the collapse of Carlo, Acciari and Kuraly being out of the play. It's not like Acciari went down and Bozak picked up the puck 2-on-1.

What it looks like when I watch it is Acciari saw Bozak coming to put pressure and planned to go down if given the chance. Bozak bumps him leg to leg and he goes for it. It's hard to see how hard they collided, but I'm highly convinced he embellished. That bicycle kick was impressive, but completely gratuitous. The timing of his fall is all out of sync with the contact with Bozak. I'm not sure what spotter protocol is like. I'm not sure how conversations between players and the rest of the staff go in the case of a dive, or in just about any case, for that matter, so I can't reply to the suggestion that this wasn't a dive because if it were he wouldn't have been pulled by the spotter. I can't analyze the contents of a locked black box. It just looked like Acciari was fishing for a power play and didn't get it. Maybe it was a legit penalty and he overdid his sell and that convinced the ref that it probably didn't actually warrant a tripping call, I don't know. But it looks fishy as hell. Even I had Bozak's "c'mon you can't seriously call that" reaction when I saw it the first time, without the assistance of replay and slow motion.

Acciari dove. It was a perfect no call.

Thanks. It was too small to read on my phone.

What’s the blade pattern?

Is there a noticeably different feel in comparison with the standard grey printed liner? I thought that was also Clarino.

Also / or better range of motion. He's been wearing them pretty much constantly since mid-March 2016 what I saw in a quick GettyImages search. 55 Flex introduced this as a product, but the company didn't last long. If you search you'll find a few topics on 55 Flex and how to make your own. There's a company or two always selling their version on eBay. That's the first image of him with them in, from March 14, 2016. PS... this segment should probably be moved to the Gear Sightings thread, as it has nothing to do with VH/True.

P28 has a big heel curve on it to. I thought the difference between P28 and Fisher Pro was smoother transitions from heel to toe, both in rocker and curve.

A lot of danglers used to use skinny heel blades (see M. Lemieux, D. Savard, Zhamnov, Kovalev, Viktor Kozlov, even young Datsyuk) which has me wondering if some perceived a difference in puck feel back when sticks or at least blades were wood. The physics of sticks has changed drastically since their time, though. I think when Datsyuk switched from his teardrop blade profile to a goalie blade profile and still managed to dangle the world’s best while reaping the defensive and puck challenge benefits, other players started to try it out with their own patterns. The night and day switch in stick materials and engineering that happened at the same time, or perhaps rather that Datsyuk was the first to prominently exploit, enabled the best of both worlds (good feel and lots of blade face for winning pucks) that max height blades can offer. Having said that, I’ve never had as much success intercepting passes as I have when I’ve played with Kovalev or Leino Pro patterns. They have skinny heels, but the max length seems to catch people off guard. Just my armchair theory on the historical change from skinny to fat heel blades.

Also, it’s curious it’s called a 5.5, because it’s lower than or equal to the lie on the P28 from heel to toe. For me it plays more like a 4. I had to extend my shaft length dialed into the PM9 the keep the puck from sliding out under the aggressive rocker that starts above the heel.

You could see the VH production process with the pieces covering the upper quarter panel being glued on in some of the videos of their factory. The only part of that assemblage that was stitched into the shell was at the edge, which you could more easily see from the inside. Having said that, even if parts are just glued on, there are vastly different kinds of glue, and while I'm not a composites expert by any means, what I've gathered about these thermoformable boots is there are several different glues for different applications with different activation temperatures. From what I recall, the colored parts of the exterior were applied after the shells were cured with the liners inside them. That makes me think it's not a good mix to try and remove those glued pieces after the fact, as the effect on the shell might well be undesired. Or the undo process could simply be delicate and therefore cost prohibitive compared to just getting a new skate. @GregHenn19, instead of the replacement approach, have you considered the additive approach? Just trace the form of the pieces you want adhered to the boot, cut them out and glue them on top. There might be a hint of added thickness depending on the material you chose, but at least you avoid the headache of the unglue/undo process, and you avoid any risk of damaging the skate from taking the surgical route. Just do the same way as they trace-cut-and-stick shot blockers are applied. Optionally stitch into the shell at the edge if you wish. As for skate weight watchers, I doubt this would do much to nudge the Trues into the "even heavier" category. Those looking for super light skates are already shopping elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure Ryan Murray uses Niedermayer clones. He's still a lefty, but that means if you were to order custom sticks at True, you could get one of his patterns there mirrored for you without a mold fee. Unless I've fallen behind, everything I've heard about True custom sticks has included the bit that they don't charge for a mold fee at a much lower order number than other companies. I'd also be up for ordering some blades in that pattern from BASE if there was interest in getting a Niedermayer Pro done up in their pattern request program they have. Then it'd be available to righties and lefties alike.

That could be due to the P28’s heel curve and openness.

Yeah, one of Malkin’s patterns with Easton. He is indeed a lefty. Kovalchuk’s a righty and their patterns revolve around the same concept, so maybe you were picturing him?

@Hockeydad97, when you line them up, how do the lies look compared to each other? Can you take a shot of the three blades lined up so we can see how different the actual lie is?

Taste is notoriously subjective, but I think it's clear the skates you mentioned are still in the blinged category, even if Bauer's trying to suppress it in the new Supremes. I just can't look at that skate and not feel like vomiting after what they've done to the one90 legacy line. It's just such a disgrace. How is the composite finish an aesthetic issue rather than a cosmetic issue?

But that’s not really aesthetics, just cosmetics. The way it relates to the sense of touch appears to be primary in this case. Cosmetically, their skates could be better, but they’ve always played that angle of their skates down; thankfully, I’d add: it’s refreshing to have a decent skate on the market without all of the garish flourishes of the others.

Please do! Are the curves the same otherwise?

You mean Kovalev Pro? I didn't know they offered that in multiple lies.