Official Hockey discussion thread

LooseCannon said:
All teams are Canadian teams, so I don't worry about it. Other than the "Canadian cup drought" conversation gets annoying.
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All teams have Canadian, players... yes. But I think it is important for team based in Canada to reach the final and hopefully win it one of these days, because aside from Toronto, I could be mistaken, the rest are considered "small market," something people criticize Bettman for purposefully hindering. Eeeeh, Vancouver might not fit "small market" either.

For one, I don't care for any allegation of Bettman rigging cups in one direction or another. I remember when Chicago won it's three cups many people said they were Bettman's "darling team," etc. I think it's just fans being butt hurt. But a Canada based team finally winning is good for the sport as a whole.
 
Montreal has a captive audience of millions in Quebec, it does just fine financially. Right now in Canada only the Jets are struggling. Look, from a business perspective I agree that a Canadian win is good for business, because shoring up Canada is great. But Canadians shouldn't *care* from a nationalism perspective. That time is international competition. We can get worked up when the Olympics shows up in a few years and Canada gets to send an ungodly superteam to Milan.
 
I don’t like or dislike either team in the SCFs (although I feel a certain debt of gratitude to the Cats for knocking out the Rangers) but I honestly believe this is a brilliant matchup that has the potential to be one for the ages.
 
I dropped off after the Avs embarrassed themselves against the Stars. In the ECF I was rooting for the Rangers, so meh. Would love to see Edmonton manage a comeback in this series though.
 
There's still two games to go. Comebacks from 3-0 simply do not happen that often (although more often in hockey than any other sport). If the Oilers do manage to come back, it will be an all-time sports moment, especially with Connor McDavid going supernova to make it happen.
 
If I'm not mistaken there's only been 4 reverse sweeps or "comebacks" and only ONE in the finals. So yeah... Not likely, but like Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber... there's a chance lol
 
It would be amazing. In Edmonton’s position I would rather take the home ice advantage on game 6 rather than game 7, so there’s that.
 
Yeah, a great finals. Only thing it was missing was OT. I would not be surprised to see the Oilers back here next year, that level of talent cannot be denied eventually. Now we move into the buyout period, the draft, and free agency, all over the next 7 days. What a time to be alive!
 
LooseCannon said:
Yeah, a great finals. Only thing it was missing was OT. I would not be surprised to see the Oilers back here next year, that level of talent cannot be denied eventually. Now we move into the buyout period, the draft, and free agency, all over the next 7 days. What a time to be alive!
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Yeah, I love this time of year ... Bruins/Sens made an interesting trade today.
I kinda disagree with Edmonton coming back ... they have top end talent, but a lot of forwards on the wrong side of 30 and Nurse, while I think an overall good player (despite a pretty poor finals) and his contract will quickly turn into an albatross. They pretty much need to get everything right this off season and find someway to shore up the D with no cap room
 
As a New Jersey Devils fan I was rooting for Florida as thanks for stopping our arch-rival New York Rangers who looked like a serious Cup favorite.
However my favorite player in the series is Oiler Adam Henrique, I would have been very happy to see him raise The Cup.
Rico (as he was called) is forever immortalized in the eyes of Devils fans for this OT goal that clinched the Eastern Conference Finals in 2012:
 
Safe to say the Hawks tanking days are over. I generally liked their signings (and add Hall coming back from injury), I think it was maybe 1 forward and 1 d-man too many .. but I could see them slip into an 8 seed if a lot goes right and they stay relatively healthy. That said, if they fall out of contention they have some players to flip at the deadline. I think, most importantly, this will be good for Bedard and the other younger players on the NHL roster and let those that are not play big minutes in different kinds of roles in Rockford.

At a minimum they should be at least competitive against all but the top echelon
 
I actually have the Hawks penned in for a bottom 5 finish next year. I don't think their signings are particularly intended to move the needle meaningfully. Bertuzzi is a decent middle six forward with some value, Teravainen is the same, a little more offensive upside, but far more up and down these days. TJ Brodie is cooked and was basically benched by the Leafs last year. They'll be harder to play against but they aren't anywhere close to a playoff spot. They need their picks from this year to mature and come in.
 
I think they are better than bottom 5 .. their primary problems last year (well, they were virtually everything) ... but they shored up the D, really improved their goaltending (sonderblom was awful and hopefully can re-find his game, he shows some promise to at least be a good backup) and they added some scoring (obviously Hall being healthy is a big part of that) and Bedard going into year 2 should be better.

It is do or die from Riechel this this

Yeah .. a lot would need to go right .. but I think they are probably towards the top of the bottom 1/3rd of the league at worst (unless there is a serious rash of injuries) ... but if that is where they end up, they have 2 to 4 flippable contracts to add yet more picks .. and they still have a ton of pick over the next 2 years and so far 1 extra pick in 2027

I think there is some wiggle room here (Nazar could make the team .. he looked good in his brief time last year)

Doubt his value is much, but I think they try to move Donato (retaining half) or waiving him

Not a bad team especially compared to the last few years

Forwards​

Tyler Bertuzzi – Connor Bedard – Teuvo Teravainen
Taylor Hall – Andreas Athanasiou – Lukas Reichel
Nick Foligno – Jason Dickinson – Ilya Mikheyev
Ryan Donato – Philipp Kurashev – Craig Smith
Joey Anderson, Pat Maroon

Defensemen​

Alex Vlasic – Seth Jones
Kevin Korchinski – Connor Murphy
Wyatt Kaiser – Alec Martinez
Brodie (was not on the team when this was written .. if he is in the top 6 Korchinski or Kaiser are in Rockford and they sign a vet at league minimum-ish to be the 7th D)

Goalies​

Petr Mrázek
Laurent Brossoit


IceHogs ​

Forwards​

Colton Dach – Frank Nazar – Brett Seney
Gavin Hayes – Cole Guttman – Zach Sanford
Landon Slaggert – Paul Ludwinski – Samuel Savoie
Ryder Rolston – Antti Saarela – Jalen Luypen
Marcel Marcel

Defensemen

Ethan Del Mastro – Nolan Allan
Isaak Phillips – Louis Crevier

Goalies ​

Arvid Söderblom
Drew Commesso
 
Oilers hired Bowman as GM interesting give a) the Beach scandal and b) his record towards the end of his tenure was pretty poor with some horrible trades and signings
 
Yeah, I would not be happy if I was an Edmonton fan both from the perspective of I don't think Bowman was a very good GM and I don't think someone like him should be running a team given his participation in the Aldrich coverup.
 
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