Boston Bruins vs St. Louis Blues

[stick9 895]

The only problem with putting Backed back in is it really slows down Krejci and DeBrusk. If they manage to win it, Backes will be ready to celebrate with the guys. I suspect Chara hands it him first ala Joe Sakic.

[caveman27 208]

Looked at ticketmaster for Game 7 ticket prices. Starts at $1,384 in the nose-bleed seats, behind the goal, a.k.a. worst view of the ice.

[IPv6Freely 2096]

Sounds about right. I read tonight that some were listed for $2M+. Not that anyone is going to pay that, but they’re listed.

[bunnyman666 445]

Why pay all that dosh when you see better in front of your own tele and you could buy a CASE of beer for the price of ONE?!?

You can buy a LOT of goalie gear for the price of some of these tickets!

#proudcheapskate

[SirJW 207]

Anyone else have no signal for NBC on DirecTV? Watching online for now. 

 

[chippa13 1844]

You knew whoever got the lead would win in an "anything goes" game 7. Impossible to play catch up hockey when interference and the like are ignored. Good on the Blues for getting the lead because it would have been the same had roles been reversed.

[chippa13 1844]

Blues wrote a great story, last place to Stanley Cup champions.

[BenBreeg 493]

Fun game to watch, crazy story.

[IPv6Freely 2096]

Amazing game. That defensive game was incredible. 

[marka 526]

Howdy,

Crazy.  Happy for the Blues.

Pretty amazed that Binnington didn't get the Conn Smythe.  ROR certainly had a great playoffs though.

What a story.

Mark

[chippa13 1844]

O'Reilly was the clear choice, Binnington would have been the cop out selection.

[Buzz_LightBeer 970]

I wish all seven games could've been refereed the way game 7 was. What a game, and what a run. Proud of the Notes

[Stewie 721]

44 minutes ago, Buzz_LightBeer said:

I wish all seven games could've been refereed the way game 7 was. What a game, and what a run. Proud of the Notes

It was a very exciting game to watch. Flowed great, low amount of stops, heavy hitting and some great skill play. Binnington made some great stops and St Louis made the best of their opportunities. 

As to why Binnington did not win the Conn Smythe, although he had a great series, he did have two off games. O’Reilly was a steady force.

[chippa13 1844]

2 hours ago, Buzz_LightBeer said:

I wish all seven games could've been refereed the way game 7 was. What a game, and what a run. Proud of the Notes

To be fair, it wasn't refereed, it was watched by referees. Everyone knows going in that game 7 will be essentially free reign which is what makes scoring first so important in a game 7. It is almost impossible to mount a comeback when hooking/holding/interference are all legal in game 7. Not a complaint, just an observation. 

If someone had gone to Hollywood with the script that the Blues wrote this season they would have been laughed out of the office. From last place on January 3rd to lifting the Cup on June 12th, that is an amazing story.

[chippa13 1844]

1 hour ago, Stewie said:

It was a very exciting game to watch. Flowed great, low amount of stops, heavy hitting and some great skill play. Binnington made some great stops and St Louis made the best of their opportunities. 

As to why Binnington did not win the Conn Smythe, although he had a great series, he did have two off games. O’Reilly was a steady force.

I think O'Reilly was the hands down choice and the voters got it right, no matter how hard NBC was pushing the Binnington narrative. I think I would even have selected Pietrangelo over Binnington.

[BenBreeg 493]

I thought the reffing was fine, nothing egregious either side can point to.  Reffing didn't limit the Bruins chances, they had plenty.  Binnington stopped them and the Blues outworked them for some goals and a ridiculous breakdown led to another.

[IPv6Freely 2096]

hooking/holding/interference may be ignored in game 7s, but the teams made it irrelevant because there wasn't any. 

[chippa13 1844]

There was nothing egregious but just about every trip up and down the ice had its share of regular season penalties. Both teams know this going in and it does limit offensive chances.

[flip12 717]

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.

[caveman27 208]

1 hour ago, chippa13 said:

To be fair, it wasn't refereed, it was watched by referees. Everyone knows going in that game 7 will be essentially free reign which is what makes scoring first so important in a game 7. It is almost impossible to mount a comeback when hooking/holding/interference are all legal in game 7. Not a complaint, just an observation. 

If someone had gone to Hollywood with the script that the Blues wrote this season they would have been laughed out of the office. From last place on January 3rd to lifting the Cup on June 12th, that is an amazing story.

There was a super early whistle on one of the icing calls. It wasn't a big deal, and there was no way anyone would be able to touch it before it crossed the red line. It resulted in the center ice faceoff. 

A lot of broken sticks in game 7. 

Unbelievable rookie year for Bennington. He played great, solid technique and reliable. Rask played well and was beat on tough shots.

[flip12 717]

On 6/10/2019 at 1:45 AM, althoma1 said:

I really doubt someone would bounce their head off the ice just to try to sell a call even in the Stanley Cup Finals. I would expect someone embellishing to through themselves back, but break their fall with their arms so that they don't hit their head on the ice. 

This is Marchand embellishing: 

and here's embellishment by Kessler:

With both of these dives you can see that the players go down easily, but not recklessly. They're not risking injury as it's a controlled dive where they brace themselves with at least one arm. Accari would have to have no regard for his own health and safety to go back that hard and land directly on his head. I'm saying this as a Habs fan who wants the Bruins to lose; the Bruins aren't angels (especially Marchand), but I'm not seeing the Accari play as a dive at all and while I don't ref anywhere near the NHL level, I do ref a lot of competitive hockey 

IMHO, this should probably be its own thread. It lives a parallel existence to the proper Bruins/Blues thread...having said that:

Thanks for the links. It's interesting to look at other dives for notes. I can see where these have more hallmarks to them that underline the embellishment. I do have a hard time accepting the argument that, if he were diving he wouldn't have hit his head. I don't think it actually makes sense, because it assumes that a player knows the full outcome of going down prior to initiating the dive and that's not a given. There are some cases where they do plan their landing (perhaps better), as your links show. But there are also incidents where they don't, like this one with Sam Reinhart ...

At first it might seem ridiculous that someone might get hurt embellishing on a play, but that can happen. It's not always possible to know the outcome of a fall. You can have an idea you should go down to sell the penalty, but that doesn't mean you'll do it well, both in the sense of making it believable and making sure you don't do something stupid that gets you hurt. Something stupid like hurtling face first into the boards and forgetting about the dasher that juts out below the glass, or attempting to do a bicycle kick on ice and landing a bit too high on your back so you hit your head on the ice.

I can't see how Acciari's right leg makes any sense if it's not a dive. It's not sliding forward, as though he loses his balance backward. It simply comes up, straight off the ice and at the same time he leans his back further into the fall. That's what makes his fall look like it has two phases. Once his right leg leaves the ice it looks patently false, to me. Though it even looks suspicious right from the start. MacKinnon on the other hand falls in one motion and spins out, which is the natural effect of losing balance on one leg while another one is still on the ice.

All of the embellishment links in this thread seem to have those two phases where it's a jerky fall that has dead giveaways of bad acting. I can see where a fall on ice might have two phases if a player starts to fall but still has a chance to regain balance with the other foot, only to fall backward on the flat of the blade. Acciari's right skate doesn't shoot out at all like that, so even if he were going to fall his right leg would have only come off the ice at most a little bit (again see MacKinnon for example). Even if Acciari were going to fall anyway, he would have spun, as is natural when one's center of gravity is suddenly tilted off the axis of support, in this case, his right leg.

For those who say, "No way, this wasn't diving." What the hell is happening with his right leg? Is it demonically possessed?

On a general diving/embellishment note, has anyone seen a team awarded a power play where only the diver was assessed a penalty? Whenever I've seen diving called, it's only been offset by the other penalty. I'm wondering if NHL referees are discouraged from calling diving alone on a play.

 

[chippa13 1844]

1 hour ago, flip12 said:

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.

I've never seen a player fan on more one-timers than Pastrnak did throughout the playoffs. I speculated early on that perhaps his earlier hand injury had something to do with it but who knows. Between Pastrnak's whiffs and the poor decision making by him and Marchand, it seems to be somewhat of a miracle the Bruins did as well as they did.

[stick9 895]

@flip12man give it a rest. It wasn't a dive. The entire hockey world calls it a trip and say it was a call that the refs missed. 

The series can be summed up in one stat. Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci & Pasta combined had one 5 on 5 goal in the finals. That's your #1 line and your second line center. The only goal you could manage in game 7 was from Matt Grzelyck. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by stick9

[Monty22 833]

I'm curious to see the injury lists for both teams when they are released. I know O'Riley had a broken rib, and it's been floated that Bergeron had a groin issue.  With Pasta I'm assuming there was some underlying injury- He didn't look right since coming back from the thumb injury.  it's also possible that he became gunshy with all the physical play, especially in the finals.  

[stick9 895]

@Monty22 Reports are out. Bergeron, groin. Marchand, wrist, abdomen & groin. Pasta, thumb was reaggravated in the CBJ series. Noel Accari was playing with a fractured sternum and left in a walking boot after a shot block in game 7. John Moore was playing with a broken humorous which requires surgery, he's out 6 months. Chara had multiple jaw fractures and a lower body injury that kept him out of game 4 of the ECF.

Can you imagine playing against St Louis with a fractured sternum, good Lord that's some balls.