The remaining four teams are as evenly balanced a group as I have ever seen: no favourite imo.
However the Oilers are hungry, have an entire nation rooting for them and have Connor McDavid.
Toronto is the best but also the hardest city to play in.
Carolina has now lost 14 in a row in the ECF. The way Florida is playing, it could play Carolina 82 games in a row and I donât think Carolina would win one of them.
Carolina is making the Leafs look better.
But who would win in a fight⌠a Leaf or a Hurricane?
Carolina staves off elimination with a 3-0 win over Florida. Probably not enough to avoid elimination completely, but it breaks the 15-game ECF losing streak. I didnât think Florida had a great game, the Panthers looked like they were holding back like I thought they did in Game 6 vs. Toronto.
Dallas needs a Dallas-like game tonight, where theyâre physical and insufferable to play against. Conceding 75% of the ice for McDavid and Draisaitl to skate around in and letting RNH camp out around the net and let pucks deflect in off his stick has to stop, or they wonât have to worry about a return trip to Edmonton.
Still sticking with the Oilers even with their injured stars. Oilers-Panthers should be a long hard series.
zomg, Florida didnât touch the conference trophy but Edmonton did, 2 years ago Florida touched it and lost.
Yeah, and last year neither team touched it and Edmonton lost. That has become the absolute dumbest superstition in hockey, and it should have died shortly after it started when the first few teams that didnât touch the trophy lost in the Finals. Make both winning teams touch the trophy; if someone refuses, kick them out of the playoffs.
Who is this jackass?
âBack in my day, coaches didnât go in the line!!â Oh STFU, old man.
Iâm more concerned about their slipping in the ice, though.
And a great (and safe) compromise would be that the players go to the opposing bench to shake hands with any skate-deficient personnel.
Paul Maurice was a Leafs coach earlier in his career so that experience may have warped him.
Well⌠that escalated quickly
Game 1 was fun. Oilers took four games to win a game last yearâŚ.
That seemed like a much faster game, skating-wise, than pretty much any other game I watched this year. They were mostly Kings games, though, but also some playoff games.
So long, Pete DeBoer. I look forward to you landing with another NHL team and elevating them to âreally good, not greatâ and being out of that job within 3-4 years.
See you Monday for Triple OT!
Hey, Edmonton⌠Texas called. They want their Oilers back.
Pretty boring game compared to the first two.
Edmonton got suckered into playing Floridaâs game. Not that I think Florida has totally figured out how to play Edmonton, but âhit McDavid when you have a chanceâ has to be part of that strategy and the Panthers worked on that last night.
You have to, otherwise he is simply too fast and too skilled. Slowing him down is paramount.
Rest of the team is pretty fast, too, but McDavid is the goal creator.