Stanley Cup Playoffs 2019 edition

Those questions would need to be addressed to Lord Stanley.

I've never cheered so hard before in my life for the Islanders!!! Keep up the great work, guys!

Originally Posted by you
Why is Stanely having a play off ? Or is that pay off ?

Playoffs: play off season, aka post season league(s) championship.

The cup was named after Lord Stanley of Preston, he donated it to the amateur Canadian hockey leagues in 1892 and never saw the cup being won as he had to go back to England prior to the first championship in 1893. I doubt he got any pay off out of it.

The Lady Byng would be appalled.

33 year old Alex Ovechkin dummies 19 year old countryman Andrei Svechnikov

This year's Hobey Baker award winner, sophomore 20 year old Cale Makar scores in his first shift on his first shot in the NHL two days after playing for UMass in the Men's Championship in Minnesota (they lost).

That dude was fighting way out of his weight class, it's a good thing the officials got Alex off him that quickly. The Capitols will have to retool a few things after the most recent game, Carolina put up quite a show.

Schvechnikov was being assigned to check him the way that Tikkanen was meant to check Gretzky, finally finding an effective way of stopping him and once again Gretzky changed the way the game is played.

I loved the whole exchange before they tussled and kudos to OV for letting up on the kid when he went down. Its likely that OV didn't know he was out yet in that split second. He's under concussion protocol now.

The dumb part is the kid shouldn't have picked a fight in the first place - the Canes were only up 1-0 at that point so you don't want to give the Caps the momentum to come back.

Buh-bye Tampa Bay.

Don't worry, Pittsburgh will be right behind you.

Tampa Bay seriously underestimated her opponents, and paid a fearsome price for it. Those first two games in the series represented such a schooling from the Blue Jackets, the likes of which I'm not sure that I've ever seen before during the first round. Ya snooze, ya lose!

But it was totally worth it to see the Penguins get ousted!!! I'll be savouring that whooping for quite some time. Nice to see Eberle finally come into his own, his career has taken a huge turn for the positive ever since he left Edmonton. If they keep playing like they did during this series, we might see them in the final round.

Jets did a good job, and look at those Knights slaughter some Sharks!! Already this first round has been the must-watch television of the year, at least for me.

Not playoff related, but the Detroit Red Wings just hired Steve Yzerman to be their new GM.

Detroit has definitely doing some rebuilding over the past few years, this acquisition is a big piece of that.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Not playoff related, but the Detroit Red Wings just hired Steve Yzerman to be their new GM.

Ask and i shall receive.

Its a bizarre thing after what happened in Tampa and him taking a step back.

Was he demoted in Tampa Bay and just proclaimed it was his idea?

Is this just a goodwill PR move in Detroit and he has no plans to work the day to day management and he will just be a figurehead until the rebuild sees results. He should ask Trevor Linden how that worked out for him.

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Speaking TB, while Sports Pundits rake over its corpse and forget they played another team one must consider a lot of factors.

1) Its well not the Regular Season is not the Playoffs. This comes up a lot in the analysis.

Most of the emphasis on this statement focusses on the level of intensity that comes with the playoffs. This is true, and most of the talking heads are talking about how TB expected the CBJ to fold over like it was the regular season once they were up 3-0 in the first. CBJ famously did not do that.

The other part of this fact is something they don't seem to talk about: a series is a lot different from the regular season. Mainly, in regards to scouting. There's a lot personally at stake for the players and financially for the owners in the playoffs, so this is where coaching management really do their work. They study their opponents and look for tendencies and weaknesses.

With Tampa Bay being at the top of the heap and CBJ squeaking into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth Columbus knew they were going to play one team and one team only. I seen this in the 1988-89 Canucks when Bob McCammon played them all year to meet the Flames in the first round. They were the only team to take them to 7 games before the Flames went on to win the cup (I was surprised this was referenced the other day when the commentator mentioned "Pavel Bure's" breakaway on Mike Vernon that Vernon stopped. It was, in fact, Stan Smyl.)

In other words, Tampa was coasting into the playoffs as one person put it.

2) To put it another way, CBJ were pressing to get in where Tampa clinched at around 66 games.

This seems contradicted by the Lightning's continuing effort to win through the stretch.

But this makes some sense if you consider the curse of the President's Cup.

3) There is some truth that being the league's number 1 team in the regular season can be a detriment but not for superstitious reasons.

The constant need to win in the moment can expend needed energy that should be saved for the playoffs. No better example is the 1981-82 Oilers where they lead the league in points and Gretzky got his 92 goals, the first 50 in the first 39 games. The Islanders knew better and went on to win the cup. Gretzky asked management after that to shore up their defense and you could actually see the Oil coast in the regular season during that last stretch after that. But this was in a league with 21 teams where 16 of them made the playoffs. That lack of effort at the end has seen teams get knocked out in the 31 team league.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
Its a bizarre thing after what happened in Tampa and him taking a step back.

Was he demoted in Tampa Bay and just proclaimed it was his idea?

Is this just a goodwill PR move in Detroit and he has no plans to work the day to day management and he will just be a figurehead until the rebuild sees results. He should ask Trevor Linden how that worked out for him.

Eh? They won their division and made it to the conference finals last year, so I highly doubt he was demoted.

He made Tampa Bay into a contender while he was there and won the NHL GM of the year award (the first and only GM to ever win the award there). The Lightning were a sub-.500 team before hiring him.

According to Tampa Bay Times he turned down a contract extension in July

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/light…the-lightning/

"Moving forward I asked, 'Can I do that?' And the answer was I didn't think so,'' Yzerman said. "I want to spend more time with my family. My kids are in college in various places and I want to be around them. And if I can't do my job the way it should be done, then I can't do it.''

but I see his wife never left the Detroit area and he's been spending his time shuttling back and forth.

In other words, like Roberto Luongo before him, this was inevitable if he wanted to stay married.

Well that was pretty crazy

NHL has a apologized to Vegas

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/…-we-messed-up/

Referees Eric Furlatt and Dan O’Halloran are not going to officiate in the second round.

https://scoutingtherefs.com/2019/04/…-cup-playoffs/

Might the NHL release them before October?

That was a crazy first round, some real highs and lows, and blatant calls that were either missed or a few that seemed fictitious. Let's see what the second round will bring us!!!!

What's wrong with Boston? It is a great city unless you hate walking. Gotta walk 3 to 8 miles a day but as long as you're ok with walking it is a great city. great great great - just walk and walk and walk…. great walking city. Did i mention it is a great city as long as you don't mind a little walking ?

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
As long both Boston.