The OFFICIAL Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

[Logan]

Even if Lehtonen is the franchise, I just don't understand how you take Hedberg out when he made some unreal saves and played a fantastic game (a fluke goal and a great setup by Avery that led to Shanahan putting it into an empty net). I forgot who shot it, but he blocked a sure goal with a toe save coming across the crease that was incredible.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

Lehtonen is the guy in Atlanta. Sitting him in game 2 was the right thing to do, but you have to go back to him now.

I see it totally the opposite. If you're going to play him in game three, you might as well as played him in two as well. Hedberg outplayed him, and has consistently outplayed him against the Rangers specifically. If being "the guy" means you have to play him again at some point in the series, fine, tell him today that he's starting game four. But no way I can justify going back to him for this one.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I see it totally the opposite. If you're going to play him in game three, you might as well as played him in two as well. Hedberg outplayed him, and has consistently outplayed him against the Rangers specifically. If being "the guy" means you have to play him again at some point in the series, fine, tell him today that he's starting game four. But no way I can justify going back to him for this one.

Pretty much dead on. The only other thing I can think is that dropping Lehtonen for game 2 was a message and that Hartley always intended to go back to him after the benching. Not sure that game 2 of the opening round of the playoffs is the right time to send a message though.

If Lehtonen has a bad game tonight and the Thrashers eventually lose the series, wonder whether Hartley might pay the price in the offseason.

[General Mike]

Islanders fans were this close to rioting tonight.

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by General Mike

Islanders fans were this close to rioting tonight.

Reprehensible behavior by those fans, reprehensible judgement shown by the referee late in the game.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

Reprehensible behavior by those fans, reprehensible judgement shown by the referee late in the game.

Details please?

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by Logan

Details please?

*shrug*

...throwing stuff on the ice due to a bad call = terrible behavior.

...calling a weak-as-shit tripping penalty in the offensive zone
with under two minutes to go in a close playoff game = horrendous judgement.

[Logan]

Thanks. The ending of the game was close to the end of 24, so...

[kingfc22]

Unfortunately this is starting to look eerily similar to the EDM series last year. The Sharks have been horrid on the power play.

[NoSkillz]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

*shrug*

...throwing stuff on the ice due to a bad call = terrible behavior.

...calling a weak-as-shit tripping penalty in the offensive zone
with under two minutes to go in a close playoff game = horrendous judgement.

I heard the fans were throwing BEER BOTTLES on the ice. Is that true?!

Horrific behaviour if that's the case and why in the blue hell does the arena let fans into the seating area with bottles if so...

(Sorry, just got home and didn't see the game...just heard about it on another board)

[TazFTW]

Go Lightning!

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I believe it was one bottle, and probably plastic. Still bad form, but not quite throwing a glass bottle at somebody.

And that was a horrid tripping call. It was a half-slash that barely caught the guy in the foot. Hardly worth calling even in the first minute of the game.

[RendeR]

They were plastic bottles, however the ones being thrown were half full and 3 or 4 times as many hit the glass and bounced back at other fans than ever reached the ice.

Typical New York fans reaction to a game not going their way. If your team can't beatem, the fans will try.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by RendeR

They were plastic bottles, however the ones being thrown were half full and 3 or 4 times as many hit the glass and bounced back at other fans than ever reached the ice.

Typical New York fans reaction to a game not going their way. If your team can't beatem, the fans will try.

Ok. I stand corrected. More than bad form. I'm an Islanders fan, but that is not good.

[Logan]

2-0 Rangers on 2 goals by Nylander, one 32 seconds in, the next almost 10 minutes in.

[Logan]

*ahem*

3-0.

Should I first wait for JiMGA to get here before I blast Hartley/Lehtonen?

[st.cronin]

In my experience, the typical Islanders fan is barely human. Hardly surprising.

[TazFTW]

Bob Hartley rules.

[General Mike]

Rangers looking good in First period

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Logan

Should I first wait for JiMGA to get here before I blast Hartley/Lehtonen?

You may fire when ready Gridley.

(I'm fighting the flu and losing nearly as bad as the Thrash, so anything I've got to add won't be my best work)

[Logan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

You may fire when ready Gridley.

(I'm fighting the flu and losing nearly as bad as the Thrash, so anything I've got to add won't be my best work)

Thanks.

Simply put, it was fucking moronic to ditch Hedberg. Supposedly you pulled Lehtonen because he gave up a cheapy. Fine. But outside of the Rangers two cheapies, a fluke bounce and a empty net for Shanny to shoot into (fine, not a true cheapy, but you gotta put that on the defense), Hedberg played one of the best games a goalie could play. It was the type of game that you get out of the superhuman goalie that you've been riding through the playoffs and into the Finals. And he did that in his first game, just unreal.

Get him out after the 3rd goal. Hell, you wouldn't kill Hartley if he pulled him after goal #2. Yes, it shows you made the wrong move, but it also shows that you don't give a shit what other people think of you -- you're doing whatever you can to salvage the game and the series.

edit: 5-nil after 2.

[Draft Dodger]

ok, so maybe I was wrong.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Y'know, Kovaluchuk is probably never going to be the smartest player in hockey and I certainly get frustrated with his shortcomings but damned if I don't like the fact that he at least seems to care enough about how badly they've been embarrassed in this series to be pissed off about it.

edit to add: Now 6-0, and Atlanta doesn't have a shot on goal in the last 13+ minutes, and only 1 in the last 20 minutes.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I haven't watched the NYR/ATL series at all, but just judging by the scores of the games, it's embarrassing. The Thrashers have managed to make the Rangers look like a playoff threat, which is something that I haven't seen out of New York in 10 years.

[Ryche]

Damn, the end of the Ducks-Wild game was getting nasty. The next game should be fun. If the Ducks don't win that one, they might be in trouble, the Wild looked like they had much more energy tonight.

[Young Drachma]

Nice slapshot by Iginla to put the Flames ahead.

[sachmo71]

Hard to pin the Stars woes on Turco this time. The Stars haven't won a playoff game at home in six tries. Unbelievable.

[Dr. Sak]

Did anyone else find it amusing that Rutuu got a charging penalty last night for running over Ryan Malone...his own teammate??

[MikeVic]

Originally Posted by bsak16

Did anyone else find it amusing that Rutuu got a charging penalty last night for running over Ryan Malone...his own teammate??

Hahaha. Really??

[Pumpy Tudors]

I missed Ruutu's charging penalty, but I do know that Ryan Malone is a sexy, sexy man.

[Young Drachma]

Pumpy. If the Devils blow this Series against the Bolts, is it time to call for Quick Trigger Lou's head? Or at least, ask politely if he would stop firing coaches with less than 10 games left in the regular season?

And beg him not to trade us to some western outpost as punishment for questioning him and not kissing the rings?

[Scholes]

Just wondering what the take is on the West Coast re: game 4 last night between the Ducks and Wild.

Everyone is pretty fired up around here, saying Thornton jumped in to gang up on Adam Hall, Brad May is public enemy #1 after his sucker punch of Kim Johnsson, and just the overall meltdown of the Ducks.

I'm not sure if Thornton was a third man jumping into fight Hall, he may have been trying to break it up, but what he did was dangerous. I never did see what May did, the camera didn't get a good shot.

It was strange though. In my opinion, the Ducks are simply the better team here but to see them come unglued like that was strange. I still think they take the next one, although it should be interesting to see what Boogaard, Parros, etc. are up to.

[Pyser]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Pumpy. If the Devils blow this Series against the Bolts, is it time to call for Quick Trigger Lou's head? Or at least, ask politely if he would stop firing coaches with less than 10 games left in the regular season?

And beg him not to trade us to some western outpost as punishment for questioning him and not kissing the rings?

lous not going anywhere. but maybe he'll learn from this if it turns into a first round exit.

article in nj papers today say burns is ready to return to coaching...

[bbor]

I always liked Pat Burns.I hope he gets the job.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Pyser

lous not going anywhere. but maybe he'll learn from this if it turns into a first round exit.

article in nj papers today say burns is ready to return to coaching...

I wouldn't want Lou to leave. Rod Thorn probably needs to put some pressure on Bruce RATner to figure out what the Nets are going to do, languishing away at the Meadowlands will be even worse once the Devils move to Newark next year.

They better take them up on that offer to move to the Prudential Center since that arena in Brooklyn is gonna get built at the same time that Brooklyn gets a new MLB team.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Scholes

Just wondering what the take is on the West Coast re: game 4 last night between the Ducks and Wild.

Everyone is pretty fired up around here, saying Thornton jumped in to gang up on Adam Hall, Brad May is public enemy #1 after his sucker punch of Kim Johnsson, and just the overall meltdown of the Ducks.

I'm not sure if Thornton was a third man jumping into fight Hall, he may have been trying to break it up, but what he did was dangerous. I never did see what May did, the camera didn't get a good shot.

It was strange though. In my opinion, the Ducks are simply the better team here but to see them come unglued like that was strange. I still think they take the next one, although it should be interesting to see what Boogaard, Parros, etc. are up to.

Wish I could say much about this. That's what sucks about the night shift--you miss all the night time sporting events when it ain't your day off. I listened to the game on radio at lunch, but it was just 1-1 then near the end of the second period.

I still don't know the details of what happened at the end of the game or what qualified as "coming unglued". But I will say this--for all of our quality and skill, the Ducks have an awful lot of "edge" and "toughness". In other words, we have a lot of guys who qualify toughie/gritty players, May, Parros, Moen, Pahlsson (yup, a Euro tough guy go figure). And the organizational philosophy, per Brian Burkian history, suggests the willingness to meet you out on the playground after school mentality. Neither Burke nor Carlyle are inclined to rein in the players' emotions when it comes to getting mad, fighting, etc.

So the Ducks can be involved in some pretty volatile situations when the emotions get high.

The toughies may have won out last night, but expect the cool calm of guys like Niedermayer (Scott) and Jiggy to reign over the team for the next game. The Ducks are the type of team to totally blow a game and then just come back and whip your ass in the next one. I haven't seen much evidence of carry over for this team when it has a bad game.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Scholes

Just wondering what the take is on the West Coast re: game 4 last night between the Ducks and Wild.

Everyone is pretty fired up around here, saying Thornton jumped in to gang up on Adam Hall, Brad May is public enemy #1 after his sucker punch of Kim Johnsson, and just the overall meltdown of the Ducks.

I'm not sure if Thornton was a third man jumping into fight Hall, he may have been trying to break it up, but what he did was dangerous. I never did see what May did, the camera didn't get a good shot.

It was strange though. In my opinion, the Ducks are simply the better team here but to see them come unglued like that was strange. I still think they take the next one, although it should be interesting to see what Boogaard, Parros, etc. are up to.

It's not too surprising the Ducks became unglued at the end there. I think this was really the first time in the series that the final result of a game was not in question. Once teams have 3 goal leads with little time left, that usually becomes "send a message" time or "take out all the pent up agression we've had over the last three tight games" time. Given the Ducks' cast of characters (see, e.g., Chief Rum's list above), that can be a volataile time.

Unless Minnesota takes a big lead again, I would be surprised if anything happens in the next game. It's certainly possible, especially with Boogaard around, but unlikely. The Wild have their backs against the wall and have to be focused on winning. The Ducks should be all business because they don't want to go back to Minnesota for Game 6.

If the game gets out of hand quickly for the Ducks' favor, I suppose there's a chance for tom foolery to breakout, but based on past viewing experience, teams rarely seem to engage into too much of that stuff when being eliminated from the playoffs. Perhaps that's the case because there is no "next game" to send a message about. Or something like that...

This series, the Nashville/San Jose series, the nastiness in the Ottawa/Pitt series just, once again, goes to show you that all good rivalries in the NHL are formed in the playoffs, not because teams meet each other 8 times in the regular season.

It was disappointing to see the Wings blow a 3rd period lead. They didn't look particularly sharp last night. Very disorganized and certainly didn't seem to be playing with too much of a sense of urgency, other than Dan Cleary who was amazing. I will also have to get props to Andreas Lilja. I've been hard on the guy all year, but he's really been playing well. He's been sound defensively and even appears to be playing with a bit of an edge. Perhaps he's finally discovering his inner Peter Worrell or something.

The goal for the Wings was to split the series in Calgary and that remains the goal.

I hate games that start at 10 pm on weeknights.

[Logan]

Hedberg starting tonight, so Hartley admits his fuckup roughly 5 goals too late.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Tkachuk scores 6:38 into the first period, giving Atlanta their first lead in the series.
...
which lasts for a whole 1:19, as the Rangers answer on the powerplay.

[Logan]

Series over. Rangers played really well.

[kingfc22]

The Isles are done.

[Pyser]

gomez shot the puck!

GOMEZ SHOT THE PUCK!!!

[bbor]

Hell of a shot by Gomez for the OT winner.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by Scholes

Just wondering what the take is on the West Coast re: game 4 last night between the Ducks and Wild.

Everyone is pretty fired up around here, saying Thornton jumped in to gang up on Adam Hall, Brad May is public enemy #1 after his sucker punch of Kim Johnsson, and just the overall meltdown of the Ducks.

I'm not sure if Thornton was a third man jumping into fight Hall, he may have been trying to break it up, but what he did was dangerous. I never did see what May did, the camera didn't get a good shot.

It was strange though. In my opinion, the Ducks are simply the better team here but to see them come unglued like that was strange. I still think they take the next one, although it should be interesting to see what Boogaard, Parros, etc. are up to.

Well, I'm not crying too much for Hall seeing as he did start the whole thing and went after Huskins, who is not much of a fighter and didn't want any part of Hall at all. Can't justify May jumping Johnsson, but you can see the line of thought - you go after one of our "skilled" defencemen (haha) and we go after one of yours.

Actually what the Ducks did was pretty stupid. With May and Thornton given the gate, we had Penner and O'Donnell matched up with Boogard and the Wild bigs. If things had gotten out of hand in the last minute and a half somebody on the Ducks could have got seriously hurt. I'd imagine Carlyle was pissed with Thornton and May both getting the gate. I don't know if Carlyle thought that Lemaire wouldn't dress Boogard with the series on the line and very little offense so far, but not dressing Parros was a big mistake IMO.

Anyways, I don't see it affecting us at all. All season we have played chippy games and have done fine afterwards. You wouldn't have thought we could possibly drop 2 in a row at home, but if the Wild powerplay gets hot and we keep taking dumb penalties stranger things have happened. Certainly praying that Beauchemain gets back for game 5 because Rome played like a guy in his first ever NHL game.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Pumpy. If the Devils blow this Series against the Bolts, is it time to call for Quick Trigger Lou's head? Or at least, ask politely if he would stop firing coaches with less than 10 games left in the regular season?

And beg him not to trade us to some western outpost as punishment for questioning him and not kissing the rings?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Really, Lou won't go anywhere, and I think Pat Burns is the only coach who'd have any type of security there. Hell, Jacques Lemaire could go back to New Jersey and immediately be on the hot seat. Really, that's got to be one of the least secure jobs in American sports.

As for tonight's game, the Devils played so well early in the game, and they had so many chances in overtime. You'd think that they deserved to win. Unfortunately, they gave Tampa Bay a lot of chances, too. It never looked like either team was really going to take control. It's fitting that the game ended on a turnover. Somebody finally got burned by a breakdown.

Also, Pyser and I talked about Gomez in PM earlier. He hasn't been shooting the puck, and I'm just as shocked about the shot as Pyser was. GOMEZ SHOT THE PUCK... AND WON THE GAME!

Parise is clearly the best player for the Devils in the playoffs (possibly in the regular season, not counting Brodeur) so far. I hope his teammates help him from this point forward.

[Young Drachma]

Glad the Devils won tonight. I was getting a little scared, but didn't get the see the game. Hopefully, we'll take it back to the swamp and go ahead and finish 'em off. I haven't had occasion to root for one of my own teams deep into the playoffs for a few years now.

I think it's time again.

[bhlloy]

May gets 3 games for the punch on Johnsson. Sounds about right. I didn't realise he was actually hurt, I thought he was just turtling.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by bsak16

Did anyone else find it amusing that Rutuu got a charging penalty last night for running over Ryan Malone...his own teammate??

Chiming in two days late on this, but...

Dan Marrouelli, for the sake of the NHL attracting new fans, should not call another game this playoffs. Please, can't we give him the Joey Crawford treatment? His children should have been embarrassed to go to school on Wednesday.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Another solid, if somewhat unspectacular win for the Sharks. Hopefully they can wrap up the series in Nashville and avoid prolonging the series. Need to start scoring on the power play as well.

[Draft Dodger]

not that this is news, but geez, Ottawa fans are sure cocky considering the playoff history of this franchise...