Take that Disney!
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Fun fact: Disney no longer owns that team.
Even if my Sabres pull off Game 7 tonight, i fear they are in for a hurri-caning if they don’t get their act together
This whole season is fated to be a natural disaster
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well fuck 
oh well, the Sabres gave us a reason to cheer again after like 17 seasons or so 
Sabres-Habs did not disappoint on excitement.
Habs have played well against the Hurricanes this season so it could be another long series for Habs.
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The question is, does Carolina even remember how to play hockey at this point?
they again got the short end on the officiating with the preemptive whistle on a go-ahead goal
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Yup. That was complete trash.
James Mirtle had an article on The Athletic asking about tandem goalie situations in the playoffs and alluding to do teams really need to pay their starting goalies a lot of money?
I would respond with the following:
- There are very few true #1 goalies in the league any more. You know, the guys you’d run out and say “if I have to win a Game 7, I absolutely want this guy in net, no questions asked.”
- There’s a shit ton of 1B goalies. The guys you’re like “well, if I have to put him in for Game 7 I’m OK with it, but I really hope he doesn’t shit the crease.”
- As a result, coaches are forced to choose between whichever 1B is “hot” at the moment and the lack of trust in any one guy causes them to flip to the other when “fear of crashing out in the playoffs” sets in.
- Tandems probably should be used more, but that’s more “you have 2 good goalies, they have different styles but our team is fine playing in front of either, we use that against the opposition to maximize our chances to win.”
- Because scoring for years was down, teams spent years [even today] investing in high-end scoring talent, who can score a bunch of goals, who can set up a bunch of goals, that defense has taken a back seat. Goaltending has taken even more of a back seat.
- The vast, vast majority of work in teh analytics has been focused on “how do we score more goals” and very little has been spent on “how do we prevent goals.”
- No, don’t @ me about well but goalies have now been taught all these positions, if they’re in the reverse vertical H/L double stance they can … - IMO it’s describing something we always talked about in the past, but now with $100,000 language.
- Really do not @ me about GSAA, SV%-, and all kinds of other bullshit analytics jargon. GSAA is basically GAA and SV%, adjusted for shots faced; it says nothing about shot quality or other metrics that would say a hell of a lot more about a goalie’s true performance.
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Truly cannot figure out how teams have not exploited the shit out of goalies sliding like 10 feet on every save they go to make. That should have been abused like a red-headed stepchild by now, and how that became some tool taught to goalies to "improve" their play, I have no clue.
- We don’t need goaltending is true … as long as you’re scoring goals. When you’re not scoring goals, goaltending seems to matter a hell of a lot. Or, you’re Edmonton and your team defense when McDavid and Draisaitl aren’t on the ice driving offense is pretty shitty.
- At some point, attention is going to switch back to stopping pucks from going in the back of the net. When that happens, we don’t need goaltending, we don’t need to pay for good goaltending is going to switch to we need goaltending, we’ll write a hefty check for it.
Which brings me to Buffalo. Yes, the Sabres should have done much of what they did a while back. There’s an open question on how long Lindy Ruff is going to be behind the bench. Their Achilles heel has long been goaltending. When career backup Alex Lyon suddenly becomes your #1 guy, that’s a problem. It’s especially a problem when you’ve sunk time and effort trying to get someone else to be your #1 goalie, and you made a waiver claim to get someone who might be a 1B with some experience.
If UPL isn’t the guy who’s going to seize the reins to be the #1 guy - and I mean “bona fide, no questions #1 guy” - then you have to ask if Colton Ellis is it. If he’s not, you have to ask do we have anyone in the system who can be this guy, or do we go find someone to be that guy? They don’t have to drop $10 million on a goalie, but they probably need to spend more than $1.5 million hoping a career backup suddenly has an epiphany - and for $4.75M per, they really need UPL to get his shit together.
Token Canes fan for this group. Excited to see what the 11 days of rust look like.
We have a classic “rest versus rust” situation in CAR-MTL series. A long series should favour CAR but I wouldn’t be surprised if Habs win at least one of the first two games in Raleigh.
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Didn’t take long for Habs to reach the one win mark: last night’s game was over in the first period.
Habs did sweep the regular season series against the Hurricanes and averaged 5 goals per game against them: surprising that Hurricanes were such strong favourites to win this matchup in a short series.
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Montreal city statutes close Raising Canes for duration of the series.
Residents required to limp or use crutches instead of, you know.
I thought it was because of the Raisin in Raising Canes.
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Hoping I can get game 5 tickets now that the rust is slightly less rusty.
Thoughts through 3 games of the conference finals:
Colorado - it’s easy to crap on the Avs for being down 3-0 at this point, but when your top-2 guys, who are in the top-10 guys in the league, are both hurt, that’s going to have an effect. I know, Blackwood and Wedgwood had great stats this year. They’re still mediocre goaltenders, moments like right now are when it shows and it undermines just throw anyone in net, goaltending really isn’t that important of a position in today’s game.
Vegas - credit to the Golden Knights, they’re finally getting the goaltending that they didn’t have down the stretch that cost Cassidy his job. Can Carter Hart keep this up, or will he start remembering who he’s been as an NHL goalie? Also credit to Mitch Marner, who so far is silencing his critics. If you had Brett Howden as the co-leader in goals in the playoffs at this point, you should take up gambling full-time.
Carolina - the last 2 games are what the Hurricanes thought they’d be in the playoffs. It’s also the kind of hockey they’ll have to play the rest of the way if Frederik Andersen keeps up his .804 SV% that he’s got in this series. [.825 counting the last game of the Flyers series.] If they don’t finish the job here and win it all, I don’t think they ever do with this group.
Montreal - It’s one thing to get outplayed on the road; it’s another thing to have it happen at home, and it’s yet another when you’re the Montreal Canadiens and you’re getting bossed around at home. Yes, with 2 OT games this series could be 3-0 … but it’s not, and Carolina is close to breaking the defense and Dobes. If the Habs want to end Canada’s Stanley Cup drought, the rest of the series has to look markedly different from the last 2 games.
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Start 55-16-11, then go 8-1, then fall flat on face.
A natural disaster, you might say