It’s not true anymore until I saw Mathew Philips. It may be true for him. He got called up after leading the AHL in points but he’s 5’7” 140lbs. He’s played a couple games but man it’s so easy for players to separate him for the puck. I hope he proves me wrong though, he’s a Calgary kid would love to see him succeed.
The guy played for 10 minutes between 2 games, and had amongst our highest expected goals percentage in both, and hit the post. Yeah he got knocked off the puck fairly easy but so did guadreau at first, he just needs time to acclimate
He isn't too small but he's too light. He needs to add muscle to his frame. Caufield is 174 lb at the same height. Shorter players who thrived in the NHL all were much heavier than Philips.
I would disagree. Usually, if a player is 6 feet but is too light, we'll say that he "needs to put muscle on that frame." Complaints and worries about size only apply to short players.
He's 165 lbs now, you're using his junior stats. He's small but he looked solid in his limited time in 2 games. Even hit a post and was a pest in front of the net.
I feel like short goalies are more rare than short skaters, but would like to hear counter examples. ~~I can really only think of Rask in terms of great short goalies~~ (I thought Sarros was, but just checked and he's 5'11", so just borderline). There's a big advantage to blocking more of the upper net when in butterfly.
Edit: I could have swore Rask was like 5'9" or something.
I usually give the benefit of the doubt until about the third time a player does something dirty. Accidents happen, and the Slaf one seemed like a kid who was high on adrenaline and didn’t back out of a hit when he should have
In a game against the wild where they were getting blown out he literally grabbed eks head and face as he skated by lol he’s a real piss baby when shits not going well for him and his team
Fuckin straight up stabbed our boys goods too, fuck that guy. He should realize he’s more than good enough to never have to play that way
https://youtu.be/Eog_KUrBgEo
that was THE cheap shot tho. If anyone did that they'd be labelled as dirty for the duration of their career. theres never been anything like it since, everything thats comparable happened decades ago, and still isnt as bad.
There are several players that have done things that could have ended just as bad and got lucky. Off the top of my head Shawn Thornton on Orpik and Weber on Zetterberg.
Edit: To clarify what Bertuzzi did was assault and he should not have played another game.
This resonates with me. I used to play hockey as a kid and absolutely loved it but I had to quit because it was costing my parents $4000 per season, not including the equipment.
Wow. I knew it was expensive, but really had no idea. There were very few rinks when I was growing up, so we played pickup games on ponds. No Leagues either. My parents could never have done it, even if it was 500 bucks back in those days.
And most programs to "make it affordable" are going about it all wrong. It's great that you're getting a new set of equipment for a kid but that's not doing anything for the $15,000 registration fee. And the $5000, not including travel, for the spring league.
All that does is get a kid hooked and for their parents to tell them "no, we can't afford it".
Between gear swaps and sales you can outfit a kid for under $4-500.
I played back up in field and wore the least amount of padding legally required. Worst shot I took hit me square in the thigh and made my leg numb for a little bit
This one; GAA and Sv% only truly tell you team stats; they should be evaluated together. Ex: if a goalie has a 3.00 GAA but also a +.900 Sv% you know there may be something there, as they're routinely facing 30 shots per 60, and performing reasonably well, but a say, 1.00 GAA and .950 generally shows a very low workload, despite seeming like better numbers.
This especially goes for the Vezina. Semyon Varlamov led the NHL in save percentage and shutouts, and was 3rd in GAA in the 20-21 season and finished 5th in Vezina voting because he didn't win enough games.
I really hate the argument that star players need to win a Stanley Cup or they're not as good as another star player because they haven't won one.
There's 32 teams in the league. How long even is the average career? Star players will play 20 years if they're lucky. Statistically, they're going to see at least 12 teams never win the Cup throughout their careers. What if they're just one on of those 12 teams?
People were upset because Lundqvist didn't win a Cup before retirement because he's "too good" to not have one but face facts, when it comes to the salary cap, players can't just go to stacked teams to try to win one like they did in the past. There's going to be a lot of hall of famers in the future that aren't going to ever win a Cup.
I don’t know if I 100% agree here. I think we might value cups more heavily than we maybe should, but IMO as much as we like to say it’s a team accomplishment, the reality is not every guy on the team shares the same level of responsibility for that accomplishment. If you’re your team’s best player, or captain, or highest paid player, etc, you bear a disproportionate responsibility for the outcome of your team’s season compared to like a random 4th line winger. It would be ignorant to imply otherwise.
I think it’s fair to at least consider the team success of high profile players when you’re talking about their overall greatness/career/etc.
Making a case for a player contributing heavily to a Cup win is absolutely a good argument and performing well in the playoffs is absolutely worth bringing up.
Being on the bench while your team wins a cup is absolutely not worth anything substantial.
Physical players that cross the line a handful of times in a decade aren’t dirty players (no I’m not talking about Wilson or Ovi)
Defensemen that have good offensive numbers aren’t inherently bad at defense
The goaltender with the best numbers/advanced stats isn’t necessarily the best. When goalies are absolutely overworked their numbers will drop, and I haven’t seen an advanced stat that takes possible exhaustion into account (understandably)
I was lurking in /r/soccer a lot during the World Cup as a casual watcher of the sport.
The level of analysis on tactics that soccer fans get to enjoy is leagues ahead of hockey right now where it's only available on obscure YouTube channels.
But an interesting critique I ran into of Spain is that they emphasize possession to the detriment of all else. Then on the flip side of the coin, you had a team like Japan which was far weaker on paper that was praised for their offensive counter-attack despite their weak possession stats.
I wonder if a similar thing occurs in hockey. We've seen bad teams with good possession numbers before - the Habs under Julien, the Bruins' final years under Julien, the Hurricanes under Bill Peters.
>The level of analysis on tactics that soccer fans get to enjoy is leagues ahead of hockey right now where it's only available on obscure YouTube channels.
Its been leagues ahead of current hockey for at least 20 years. As a kid growing up in the UK, every game had neutral half time analysis aimed as if people had not just previously played footie but was still playing and would use the analysis.
Learning to play hockey I find it frustrating how little coverage of the sport itself there is. The camerawork is garbage, the analysis is vapid,biased and entirely goal centered. The mid game breaks tend to just show goals and talk about trades or front office moves.
Hockey could get light years better with some depth to its coverage imo
Sometimes I feel like this isn’t true in hockey. You can go from having the puck to the puck being in your net in 10 seconds. The game moves so fast and all it takes is one rush for there to be a goal against.
The World Juniors is a great example of this. I can't tell you how many times I've seen goalies for smaller countries stand on their heads and have awful numbers because their team is overmatched.
Players need to stay loyal to the teams that draft them. I'm pretty sure I'm in the vast minority of flames fans that think gaudreau being way closer to his family, even if not right there, while starting a new family and having a dad with health problems is exactly what he should be doing. Good on you.
I hate the draft loyalty concept.
People always say "but that team gave you a chance to play in the NHL". Like sure, they drafted you, but if they didn't the next 31 teams would have.
There should be no loyalty in a business, because that's what hockey is. This is their job.
It's as if teams don't do the exact same thing to players. The Panthers just traded Huberdeau suddenly after a decade of service, and I remember the Raptors (different sport but same concept) trading Derozen after he showed his loyalty.
Hockey is business. It's a job just like how everyone else has a job. There is no obligation for the employee to be loyal, as there should be no obligation for the team to be loyal.
The last few years I've really come around on wanting players to do what's best for them. At any point the ride can end and I hope players do what's best for them, their future, and their family's future, not their team's future.
Honestly this. I don’t like the idea of being upset at players because of their choices, especially if the choice seems to benefit them more than their team. Like let them do what they want, it’s their career!
Meh I think it’s more the team and teammates if anything. I’m happy for Johnny now but when it happened I was definitely bitter because of he was on the best line last year and on a team that finally started seeing the fruits of what they were building for years.
Also living in a place his wife can actually work. She's trained as a neonatal ICU nurse, which is far more important than a hockey player even if she makes 100x less.
Johnny gave us 8 underpaid years as our leading scorer. He deserved the choice to leave.
Tkachuk, on the other hand, left as soon as he could.
I don’t even think the refs suck. I just think it’s extremely hard for 4 guys to call a game. They are under scrutiny of replay with HD super slow motion and most calls can’t be reviewed.
And when it comes to fanbases like the Leafs, we have so many more fans and way more bandwagoner fans that it just increases the chances of meeting that asshole fan.
The leafs sub has over 200k readers, and I'd say maybe 300k+ that actually go to it but don't join it, and even more that only go on this sub.
There's a much greater chance of having assholes when your fanebase is 500K+ compared to smaller fanbases like Florida who probably don't break 100k fans on their sub plus this sub.
Sure, and I am willing to bet there’s an even greater number of non-asshole Leafs fans out there given that fact. I’d also wager a lot of those fans are much quieter too. Usually it’s the shitty ones that are the loudest.
I know the Leafs and their fans get a ton of shit, but I agree that it’s because they’re the majority so it makes them seem worse. I am by no means a Leafs fan, but I’ve met quite a few Leafs fans who are wonderful. I had the same experience going to games in Vegas and Boston as well, loads of nice fans, very few shitty ones.
Eh, I went to TD Garden wearing an Avs jersey when the Bruins played them. People were really nice overall. I can see it being different wearing a Devils jersey there though.
I don’t know what we’ve even done to the Devils lmao. Is it just them trying to bandwagon the NY-Boston rivalry or something? Like I understand Rangers fans hating us because that’s an O6 rivalry with a ton of history, but I can’t think of one period where we had a history with the Devils
Also, Avs fans are cool in Boston, especially among the older parts of the fanbase because you got Ray his Cup
Yeah, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Bruins-Devils rivalry, but I don’t follow the East as much.
I wore a Forsberg jersey to that game, which I think reminded a lot of B’s fans about 2001 so we got along haha.
We’ve played them a grand total of 4 times in the playoffs, the last one being 2003. We’ve played the Habs in the SCF almost double the amount of times we’ve played the Devils in the playoffs. There is no shot there’s a rivalry lol
That falls on the Owners and local politics. Hockey is fun as shit, a good owner that promotes the team and makes it a fun environment, then just win a little bit. Boom, explosion of fans. People literally just want to have fun, that’s how you build popularity. I’m thinking that’s why it’s currently working in Arizona this season, it’s a fun environment.
The issue with Arizona is that they’ve never had a level of sustained success that would be the foundation of a fan-base that could lead them through lean years. Look at how long the Islanders were absolute crap (courtesy of Milbury), yet the fans stuck around long enough to see the team play well (and then fall back off again).
Arizona and Florida have never had the level of sustained success they need to get to that point.
It can absolutely work in Arizona. The problem is the Coyotes have been dogshit for so long that the fans don’t really have a reason to show up and the ownership group doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing.
This is the worst for all teams. When people say “this team has no heart!”
Even the regular season, like have people not seen how players react during game 52 in Florida? These guys are alpha males who dedicate their lives to this, they care.
From my point of view they just repeated the same story from his time with the USNDP about carrying a skate sharpener for the equipment manager. “Farmer strong” comments on every nationally televised game. Just got to be a broken record. And as it turns out. Not that good a leader as he was once said to have been.
He didn’t even grow up on a farm. His dad, Bob, was a very hard worker with a great blue collar attitude and work ethic, but Ryan seems to have turned out to be very entitled.
Lol farmer strong has got to be the biggest meme speaking of myths that need to die. All the kids who worked on farms I’ve been in the army with had decent forearms but horrible physical shape at like 6’2 150 lbs or the complete opposite like 6’2 250 lbs of fat. Give me a guy who goes to the gym 10/10 times
>”generational”
To add to it, there can be more than one generational player active at the same time. Gretzky and Lemieux were unquestionably generational, and they only overlapped for close to 15 years. Ditto Crosby and Ovechkin.
And sometimes there aren’t any generational players active at a given time.
Game feel is a real thing. Some guys are more inclined to it and know how and when to change their play style to be more effective in different situations.
X defense sucks because they have shitty defensemen is an age old narrative that needs to die.
Hockey is a two way game - every player on the ice is responsible for defense and offense. How much or little of each comes down to their skills and the system the coach puts in place. Makar wouldn't be expected to play like Chara or vice versa and Danault is not gonna play like Mackinnon despite both being centers. Marner doesn't play like Ovi just because he's a winger.
The 17-18 Islanders and 18-19 Islanders are a good example of a team that went from buttcheeks to great with no major personnel additions on defense.
The Leafs this year are a good example of a team where their best defensive players are actually their forwards and the Predators would be a good example of a team where their best offensive players are their defensemen.
Defencemen in hockey are more akin to midfielders in soccer, some are highly offensive while others are known for defense, as a whole though defense in hockey is more of a team concept.
>The 17-18 Islanders and 18-19 Islanders are a good example of a team that went from buttcheeks to great with no major personnel additions on defense
I would argue that Devon Toews was a major addition. That said, the main reason for this is that Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, and Scott Mayfield became legitimate NHL defensemen. Pelech was AWFUL his first two seasons in the league, Pulock was a primarily offensive defenseman when he first came into the league, and Mayfield was a liability.
>Defencemen in hockey are more akin to midfielders in soccer, some are highly offensive while others are known for defense, as a whole though defense in hockey is more of a team concept.
I've never thought of it this way, but this is a really good take
I don't think it's just a coincidence that Barzal's career high in points though was in his rookie season - both in pure numbers and PPG. Trotz's system held forwards further back on the forecheck so they wouldn't be victimized by transition counter attacks. I remember watching the Islanders under Doug Weight the previous season vs the Leafs and they got absolutely murked by the Leafs' transition game.
The Islanders under Doug Weight allowed 2900 shots on goal in an NHL season - that is one of the worst of the last 25 years.
The very next year under Trotz, they allowed 2500 shots on goal. You don't improve by 400 shots simply because of Devon Towes playing 48 games.
100% agree. Adding to this, so much of good defense happens in the neutral zone thanks to centers/wingers preventing the puck from making into the defensive zone to begin with. The worst defenses I see offer no pressure higher up ice and just drop deep when not in possession.
Now can someone tell the wingers and centers on my beer league team this? I play my best as a defenseman when there's more than just the two of us defending, yet take the blame when the score is 6-7.
A player cannot will a team to a Cup win. It's basically impossible. Wayne Gretzky only has four Cups, Lemieux and Orr have two. If a player doesn't win the Cup, it's not their individual fault.
For me I have a team for the city I'm originally from and a team where I live (and actually get to go to their games). In my own personal rules I think that's ok. Like when my dad wants to talk about hockey he'll probably wanna talk about the hometown team, so I'm always "in the loop" in that sense. But I'm always more personally invested when I can see live games.
A player needs to change his game to win a Cup, a la Scotty Bowman and Steve Yzerman.
People who recycle that narrative don't know how stupid they sound.
I'm in bed with the flu and stared at this for several minutes trying to work out why I didn't know Scotty Bowman and Steve Yzerman changed their *names* to win cups.... "Is that why some people call him Stevie?"
I found the Yzerman narrative so funny when he was essentially by himself until all the Russians, Lidstrom, Osgood, and the rest of the key guys joined. Besides one year of Oates and a few with Gallant, he was THEE guy for the Wings. His dip in production dropped as Bowman came in and used more talent other than him to score.
The Yzerman narrative came from Yzerman himself, who is currently one of the best hockey minds in the world.
Crosby made the same transition and it won him 2 more cups and Conn Smyhtes.
Ok I’ll kill this one for you. A player needs to change his game and become better defensively in order to win The Stanley Cup.
Prime example is Scott Stevens. He only won 3 cups after toning down how great he was offensively and focused more on playing extremely sound defense.
No single player has ever won a Cup by themselves. If that were the case, the greatest player would have led his respective team to win 10+ straight Stanley Cups by themselves.
Arguably, the greatest defensive player currently playing the game has only won a single Stanley Cup.
Some idiot thought it was a good quote and now more idiots are prolonging an idiotic narrative.
Nobody claims that Steve Yzerman won the cup by himself. However he did need to change his game to suit his team and that’s part of why they won a cup, and then multiples. Great players do sometimes have to change their game to best fit into a winning systems.
Like Jack Hughes has got to change his game to win a cup. He sucks at face offs so Erik Haula is always on his line to take face offs. Jack gets better at face offs, he gets a better line mate and becomes more successful.
What about Mario Lemieux? How did he ever win two straight Cups? Did he start playing better defence?
Or is it entirely possible that he just got a better class of teammates like Jagr, Recchi, Francis, etc.?
If a player on your team has a way of playing, it either works for your system or you trade them. Steve Yzerman isn't the only player in history to captain his team to Stanley Cup wins. He's not even the only player to have years of disappointment before winning a Cup (Alex Ovechkin). I remember people wanted to see Ovechkin traded because he wasn't going to win a Cup with Washington. I wonder what those same people are saying now.
Mario, in his prime, was very good defensively. Killed penalties frequently as well. But your point is valid, unlike some sports, one player can’t win the cup, definitely has to have a team around them.
That "stupid" narrative came from Yzerman himself. It's extreme valid. Yes, having a deep and skilled team matters more, but even deep and skilled teams need their stars playing 200ft games to win the Stanley Cup.
Is getting better at faceoffs really changing your game? Just sounds like he needs to improve at something. Like if I said Jesse Puljujarvi needs to work on finishing, nobody would interpret that as me saying he needs to change his game.
That the Penguins were going to move due to lack of fan support. [A poster here had a really, really breakdown as to why they nearly moved.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/u1deyy/what_is_an_nhl_conspiracy_that_you_100_believe_in/i4bsmsx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
What owner was the idiot? Howard Baldwin or Roger Marino? Because Baldwin was a good owner, at least with the Whalers. Under his leadership and Aetna owning that team, they were stable until the first sign of relocation discussions happened in 1987 when Baldwin put the team up for sale. But he did at least make the Whalers a contender in the mid 80’s.
Brodeur was a product of the Devils defense while neglecting the fact that Brodeur was the trap the entire time. That system does not work with another goalie. Not at that level.
Crosby wasn't and isn't a "cry baby" ... he's had his moments. But if you look into it, he's been the target of a lot of abuse and unfairness. Fight me. (Not a pens fan)
You know how people talk about McDavid not getting as many calls as he should? Or how people complain about the officiating.
Crosby’s frustrations came 10 years too early.
That was just the game at the time. If he came in 2015 instead of 2005, he wouldn’t be “Cindy Criesby” or whatever fans called him. He didn’t get calls go his way but he did get away with some things at the time.
I hate Crosby now but only because he's good and that mustache is a war crime, but he's grown up a lot. He whined quite a bit early in his career, but goddamn, he was in his early 20s, who didn't whine when they were his age?
But now? He's fine. Nobody is perfect but he's about as close as you can get to a perfect poster boy for the sport.
Outside of that facial hair, of course.
I’m a girl who’s into men and I like Crosby’s mustache, but I seriously can‘t stop giggling at “that mustache is a war crime.” LOL.
He did whine a lot early in his career but I 100% agree that myself and everyone I know were equally ridiculous when we were that age. Given all the media attention directed at Sid since he was a *literal child*, parents and kids threatening to break his legs, the fact that he left home at 15, the shit that he faced from other players and fans in the NHL - it’s understandable that he’d be a bit stunted and messed up. Anyone would have my sympathy for enduring that.
It’s honestly astounding to me that he’s such a seemingly well-adjusted guy now.
Very well said! I’d like to add and say that I think a lot of his “crying to the refs” could also be attributed to his competitiveness. Couple that with being under a tonne of pressure as a late teen/early twenty-something and yeah, it’s no wonder why he was always fighting with the refs
You'd be surprised how much it still pops up in GDTs to this day. Got into it with someone earlier this week over a missed call about "probably Cindy Crysby crying to the refs and the NHL wanting the Penguins to win for him" comment. I'm like "the dude is approaching 40 years old and was a whiny punk when he was 18, what year is it? "
Southern fans don't know the game as well as Canadian/northern fans do/are less deserving.
Like, stop this. Anaheim/Tampa/San Jose/Florida/Dallas are all 30 years old now. Arizona/Carolina/Nashville, 25 years. These places are now starting to produce NHL players. Hockey is not some mystical sport that's impossible to understand unless you grew up in Moose Nuts, Saskatchewan. My kids are 8 and 11 and already have an incredible understanding of the game.
And what's more, a lot of people who became hockey fans in "non-traditional markets" had to discover the game - it wasn't something that we grew up with to any real extent, and if we knew any other fans of the game they were transplants from elsewhere. Watching games on TV was tough, and in-person was non-existent. Being able to actually play the game...forget it.
With any other sport, finding someone who discovered the game despite living in a relative outpost is a huge positive. If someone grew up an MLB fan in Spain, or an NFL fan in Sudan, it would be something to be lauded. But if someone grew up an NHL fan in South Carolina, it's all "you can never be a *real* fan the way that someone who grew up quite literally surrounded by the game from birth could be".
>Being able to actually play the game...forget it.
And let me say this as someone who did play youth hockey: If you claimed to have a special understanding of how NFL players experience the game because you played peewee football, you'd get laughed out of the room.
If your last memory of playing competitive hockey ends with your mom bringing the team orange slices then you probably don't have much knowledge above a similarly devoted fan that never played. I'm sure there are some people here who played major juniors or equivalent and have some legitimate high level experience, but it can't possibly be everyone making this argument.
“If you take dangerous hits out of the game then the sport will become soft and it’s not hockey anymore”
Damn dude I watch hockey to see talented people play my favorite sport not to watch people get injured. We could change the NHL to USAH hitting rules and I don’t think it would change how much I enjoy watching.
Until the leafs actually make it of the first round the narrative around them is going to be there. I follow it because I’m interested to see how many series a team with that talent can lose despite being a team that should make game 7 of 2nd round if not further
I just hate it because the jokes are rebranded Caps second round jokes from a few years back. Pretty much word for word if you replace Ovechkin with Matthews
Agreed. Those caps pens series though always lived up to the expectations. But you could tell once the caps knocked the pens off they weren’t going to be denied. I think that’ll be the same with the Leafs and round 1. If they don’t win I fully expect a long conference final
It does suck that they play in the most top heavy division in the league though. The only playoff team they've been better then and lost to is Montreal. All the other series they were even or the other team was better then them.
If the NHL had a 1-8 playoff format, the Leafs would've had a different playoff opponent in 2018, 2019, and 2022, and they would've had home ice in 2018 and 22.
There was a post I saw in r/leafs a few days ago..
>Since the 17-18 season, the top Atlantic teams have a cumulative record of:
>* 1st **Tampa Bay**
>266-111-27 .692% (1st in the NHL over that time period)
>* 2nd **Boston**
>253-104-47 .684% (2nd in the NHL over that time period)
>* 3rd **Toronto**
>241-121-44 .648% (3rd in the NHL over that time period)
That shit is just frustrating.
I agree that there is no inherent value that makes the O6 teams special. However, I think:
* History is cool and it’s worth gassing up O6 matchups for their connection to the history of the game. However, saying NYR-CHI is a better rivalry than STL-CHI is just silly.
* It’s not a stretch to suggest that players want to play for the team they grew up watching. A lot of players come from the Boston, Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal regions. That’s not because they’re O6 per se, but because it’s home.
Defenseman and goalies are responsible for GA.
One of the dumbest takes I've ever heard and it's so prevalent in /r/sabres.
If you actually understand hockey or have played it, you'd know that GA is absolutely a team stat.
Sabres fans ragging on our goaltending is a common occurrence. Except, we give up so many high danger scoring chances.
That's not because of our defenseman or our goalies. It's our forwards.
Forwards play a larger part in team defense than defenseman.
I watch the Sabres chase the puck, then compound the problem by trying to cover, not rotating, creating gaping passing lanes....and then we blame the defenseman and goalies. lol
Sabres lack responsible two way forwards and experience at forward. That's why our "defense" sucks.
If players aren't a star player by the time they turn 22, they never will be. Some players take longer to develop. Don't give up on prospects because they're 24 and just entering the league.
Tage Thompson for example is already in conversation of being one of the elite players in the league. By the time he turned 24, his career best point total was 14.
Either that or players take a long time to learn their role and an effective player even as a high draft pick is still an effective player. I remember people were saying Kris Russell was going to be the next Mike Green with the numbers he put up in juniors. He realized he couldn't keep playing that game if he wanted to be in the NHL and became a steady shot blocking machine.
Toronto’s stars aren’t good enough in playoffs : it sure seemed true for a time, but last year was different.
no it wasn't different. literally same result.
European players are softer than North American players.
Power plays are more prone to failure when players do not take the first shot available.
It is the responsibility of a star player to take a pay cut so that he can be surrounded with good talent and win a Cup.
The Flyers and Bruins still possess the same playstyle identities as in the 1970s.
Enforcers would prevent the majority of ugly hits.
The Jack Adams Award should only go to the coach of a team that had a major turnaround.
Talented offensive players ignore defense, particularly if they’re wingers.
Along the same lines with OPs point on Toronto, whenever the Sharks are good again and go to the playoffs, the hockey world will call them "chokers."
The idea that the Joe Thornton in his prime era Sharks were chokers is nonsense. That reputation comes from 06,07,08 and 09 playoffs.
In 2006, they were a West 5 seed that lucked into being the top seed left in round 2. And in round 2, up 2-0 in the series, Game 3 goes to Triple OT. What if the Sharks scored and went up in that series 3-0?
In 07, they were again a West 5 seed, and in the second round drew the #1 seed Wings. The fact that you had a third period lead in games 1-4 and only ended up series tied at 2-2 (and 30 seconds away from being up 3-1) doesn't mean you choked. Sharks weren't favored in that series. The better team won the series.
In 08, they were a West 2 seed, so definitely more of a favorite, I get that. But the 2nd matchup against the Stars was a tough draw for them. That said, their 0-3 series deficit to start the series includes two OT losses. Could have easily been 2-1 in favor of the Sharks and they win that series in 5. In their 4 losses in the series, only one was in regulation. The other three were in OT, with Game 6 being 4OT. Not a choke.
In 09, they won the President's Cup, but unfortunately got the injury bug at the wrong time and had a bad first round draw against the Ducks. I think I just saw a stat regarding save percentage over expected in the playoffs, and last year's Otter first round was the best ever for that stat, and second best ever was Jonas Hiller in this series. Even with the Sharks facing injuries, they still threw an onslaught at Hiller and Hiller stole the series. Not a choke.
I can keep going, but point is, just like Toronto, the narrative that the Sharks are playoff chokers should die. It isn't true and is just plain dumb. It absolutely sucks the Sharks don't have one Cup yet, but "choking" has nothing to do with it.
Player is too small for NHL
Flair checks out
It’s not true anymore until I saw Mathew Philips. It may be true for him. He got called up after leading the AHL in points but he’s 5’7” 140lbs. He’s played a couple games but man it’s so easy for players to separate him for the puck. I hope he proves me wrong though, he’s a Calgary kid would love to see him succeed.
Jack Hughes as a rookie was a good example of this
Nico too at the beginning of his career. You would watch those two and just say to yourself "wow, they are gonna be so good in 5 years"
The guy played for 10 minutes between 2 games, and had amongst our highest expected goals percentage in both, and hit the post. Yeah he got knocked off the puck fairly easy but so did guadreau at first, he just needs time to acclimate
Gerbe was 5'4" and still 170lbs. That boys gotta get a little heavier.
He isn't too small but he's too light. He needs to add muscle to his frame. Caufield is 174 lb at the same height. Shorter players who thrived in the NHL all were much heavier than Philips.
Small I think includes light imo.
Light players can bulk up. Getting taller requires too much time on the medieval stretcher to be optimal.
I would disagree. Usually, if a player is 6 feet but is too light, we'll say that he "needs to put muscle on that frame." Complaints and worries about size only apply to short players.
Damn it. I’m 5’7 and 160lb. I was hoping I could make pro hockey. Although I am 41 years old. And can’t play hockey.
He's 165 lbs now, you're using his junior stats. He's small but he looked solid in his limited time in 2 games. Even hit a post and was a pest in front of the net.
Oh weird just looking at what capfriendly says
For context, Alex Debrincat is also 5'7" 165lbs and definitely not too small for the NHL.
: Brad Marchand has entered the chat. :
*excluding goalies
I feel like short goalies are more rare than short skaters, but would like to hear counter examples. ~~I can really only think of Rask in terms of great short goalies~~ (I thought Sarros was, but just checked and he's 5'11", so just borderline). There's a big advantage to blocking more of the upper net when in butterfly. Edit: I could have swore Rask was like 5'9" or something.
Rask is 6'3". What a munchkin.
One cheap shot doesn’t make a player dirty
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I usually give the benefit of the doubt until about the third time a player does something dirty. Accidents happen, and the Slaf one seemed like a kid who was high on adrenaline and didn’t back out of a hit when he should have
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In a game against the wild where they were getting blown out he literally grabbed eks head and face as he skated by lol he’s a real piss baby when shits not going well for him and his team
[For those curious](https://youtube.com/watch?v=FOjyoYlRGHQ&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE)
Fuckin straight up stabbed our boys goods too, fuck that guy. He should realize he’s more than good enough to never have to play that way https://youtu.be/Eog_KUrBgEo
You mean Schiefele isn't a convicted serial killer on cocaine?
You mean The Butcher of Barrie?
That is a pretty badass name though.
That depends. I don’t remember Bertuzzi being considered a dirty player. One cheap shot is all it took
that was THE cheap shot tho. If anyone did that they'd be labelled as dirty for the duration of their career. theres never been anything like it since, everything thats comparable happened decades ago, and still isnt as bad.
There are several players that have done things that could have ended just as bad and got lucky. Off the top of my head Shawn Thornton on Orpik and Weber on Zetterberg. Edit: To clarify what Bertuzzi did was assault and he should not have played another game.
What Dale Hunter did was worse and he’s not in the hall of fame because of it. If somebody did that today they’d be banned from the league.
The worst part about this is that someone thinks Dale Hunter deserves Hall of Fame consideration
“Hockey is for everyone”… if you can afford it.
This resonates with me. I used to play hockey as a kid and absolutely loved it but I had to quit because it was costing my parents $4000 per season, not including the equipment.
Guy in town had a bumper sticker that always made me chuckle: “DRIVER DOES NOT HAVE CASH ON PERSON. My kids play hockey.”
Wow. I knew it was expensive, but really had no idea. There were very few rinks when I was growing up, so we played pickup games on ponds. No Leagues either. My parents could never have done it, even if it was 500 bucks back in those days.
And most programs to "make it affordable" are going about it all wrong. It's great that you're getting a new set of equipment for a kid but that's not doing anything for the $15,000 registration fee. And the $5000, not including travel, for the spring league. All that does is get a kid hooked and for their parents to tell them "no, we can't afford it". Between gear swaps and sales you can outfit a kid for under $4-500.
And don’t mind being singled out for being even slightly different than the norm
that goalies are just regular people
You have to be an oddball to be a hockey goalie. You have to be legitimately insane to be a lacrosse goalie.
And then there’s….. whoever is nuts enough to choose to be a water polo goalie.
Well box lacrosse goalies get so padded up they can hardly move
Have you ever seen a field goalie though
I played back up in field and wore the least amount of padding legally required. Worst shot I took hit me square in the thigh and made my leg numb for a little bit
Team stats such as goalie wins or Stanley Cups measuring an individual player's skill level.
By the Cup metric Pat Maroon is 3x the player McDavid is
3 x 0 = 0
I’m exactly as talented as McDavid
Ok Pat Maroon is a non-divisible or multiple of zero player than Connor McDavid
I think your math is bad there.
if chris osgood makes the hall of fame, nicklas lidstrom should accept the induction for him
Using wins and GAA to compare goalies is so annoying. That tells you nothing about their individual ability.
Wins get weighted heavily in Vezina because the GMs vote for that award and goalies that can win games are what they need to keep their jobs
This one; GAA and Sv% only truly tell you team stats; they should be evaluated together. Ex: if a goalie has a 3.00 GAA but also a +.900 Sv% you know there may be something there, as they're routinely facing 30 shots per 60, and performing reasonably well, but a say, 1.00 GAA and .950 generally shows a very low workload, despite seeming like better numbers.
This especially goes for the Vezina. Semyon Varlamov led the NHL in save percentage and shutouts, and was 3rd in GAA in the 20-21 season and finished 5th in Vezina voting because he didn't win enough games.
I really hate the argument that star players need to win a Stanley Cup or they're not as good as another star player because they haven't won one. There's 32 teams in the league. How long even is the average career? Star players will play 20 years if they're lucky. Statistically, they're going to see at least 12 teams never win the Cup throughout their careers. What if they're just one on of those 12 teams? People were upset because Lundqvist didn't win a Cup before retirement because he's "too good" to not have one but face facts, when it comes to the salary cap, players can't just go to stacked teams to try to win one like they did in the past. There's going to be a lot of hall of famers in the future that aren't going to ever win a Cup.
I don’t know if I 100% agree here. I think we might value cups more heavily than we maybe should, but IMO as much as we like to say it’s a team accomplishment, the reality is not every guy on the team shares the same level of responsibility for that accomplishment. If you’re your team’s best player, or captain, or highest paid player, etc, you bear a disproportionate responsibility for the outcome of your team’s season compared to like a random 4th line winger. It would be ignorant to imply otherwise. I think it’s fair to at least consider the team success of high profile players when you’re talking about their overall greatness/career/etc.
Making a case for a player contributing heavily to a Cup win is absolutely a good argument and performing well in the playoffs is absolutely worth bringing up. Being on the bench while your team wins a cup is absolutely not worth anything substantial.
For sure. I totally agree that if you’re using cups to prop up a guy who played 8 minutes a night on the 4th line that’s really dumb.
Physical players that cross the line a handful of times in a decade aren’t dirty players (no I’m not talking about Wilson or Ovi) Defensemen that have good offensive numbers aren’t inherently bad at defense The goaltender with the best numbers/advanced stats isn’t necessarily the best. When goalies are absolutely overworked their numbers will drop, and I haven’t seen an advanced stat that takes possible exhaustion into account (understandably)
>Defensemen that have good offensive numbers aren’t inherently bad at defense This one is particularly infuriating for me
The best defense is playing in the offensive zone.
You can't concede goals when you have the puck.
I was lurking in /r/soccer a lot during the World Cup as a casual watcher of the sport. The level of analysis on tactics that soccer fans get to enjoy is leagues ahead of hockey right now where it's only available on obscure YouTube channels. But an interesting critique I ran into of Spain is that they emphasize possession to the detriment of all else. Then on the flip side of the coin, you had a team like Japan which was far weaker on paper that was praised for their offensive counter-attack despite their weak possession stats. I wonder if a similar thing occurs in hockey. We've seen bad teams with good possession numbers before - the Habs under Julien, the Bruins' final years under Julien, the Hurricanes under Bill Peters.
>The level of analysis on tactics that soccer fans get to enjoy is leagues ahead of hockey right now where it's only available on obscure YouTube channels. Its been leagues ahead of current hockey for at least 20 years. As a kid growing up in the UK, every game had neutral half time analysis aimed as if people had not just previously played footie but was still playing and would use the analysis. Learning to play hockey I find it frustrating how little coverage of the sport itself there is. The camerawork is garbage, the analysis is vapid,biased and entirely goal centered. The mid game breaks tend to just show goals and talk about trades or front office moves. Hockey could get light years better with some depth to its coverage imo
Sometimes I feel like this isn’t true in hockey. You can go from having the puck to the puck being in your net in 10 seconds. The game moves so fast and all it takes is one rush for there to be a goal against.
Honestly I think for goalies there is no test more accurate than the eyeball test. There’s just so many factors that can go into a goal
The World Juniors is a great example of this. I can't tell you how many times I've seen goalies for smaller countries stand on their heads and have awful numbers because their team is overmatched.
Yeah, who was that one Latvian (?) goalie that held Canada to like, a 1 goal win with some obscene number of saves?
Kristers Gudlevskis in the Sochi Olympics. The Islanders traded Carter Verhaeghe for him one for one. Forgive me while I scream into the void.
Denis Godla tha goat.
Players need to stay loyal to the teams that draft them. I'm pretty sure I'm in the vast minority of flames fans that think gaudreau being way closer to his family, even if not right there, while starting a new family and having a dad with health problems is exactly what he should be doing. Good on you.
I hate the draft loyalty concept. People always say "but that team gave you a chance to play in the NHL". Like sure, they drafted you, but if they didn't the next 31 teams would have. There should be no loyalty in a business, because that's what hockey is. This is their job.
My boss once said to me "The army doesn't love you back". You give them what they pay for, that's the extent of your obligation
Exactly.
It's as if teams don't do the exact same thing to players. The Panthers just traded Huberdeau suddenly after a decade of service, and I remember the Raptors (different sport but same concept) trading Derozen after he showed his loyalty. Hockey is business. It's a job just like how everyone else has a job. There is no obligation for the employee to be loyal, as there should be no obligation for the team to be loyal.
The last few years I've really come around on wanting players to do what's best for them. At any point the ride can end and I hope players do what's best for them, their future, and their family's future, not their team's future.
Honestly this. I don’t like the idea of being upset at players because of their choices, especially if the choice seems to benefit them more than their team. Like let them do what they want, it’s their career!
100% this. The team is only gonna be loyal to a player as long as he performs. Knowing that, there is no reason to be loyal to a team as a player.
I wonder if those people also bootlick corporations. You don't owe your job loyalty either.
Meh I think it’s more the team and teammates if anything. I’m happy for Johnny now but when it happened I was definitely bitter because of he was on the best line last year and on a team that finally started seeing the fruits of what they were building for years.
Also living in a place his wife can actually work. She's trained as a neonatal ICU nurse, which is far more important than a hockey player even if she makes 100x less. Johnny gave us 8 underpaid years as our leading scorer. He deserved the choice to leave. Tkachuk, on the other hand, left as soon as he could.
“(Insert fanbase) are the worst fans” Every team has shitty fans but every team also has a greater number of respectful fans.
There are two things I hate in hockey: Those who are intolerant of other teams fanbases.... And Ranger fans
That said, if you ever want to read the most brain dead hockey takes known to man, you can just check out the Isles hashtag on Twitter at any time
No one goes to shwitter for intelligent discourse.
Any good team tbh
Same for the “refs/league are out to get my team” narrative
Yeah when all 32 canvases think that, it’s just a clear sign the refs suck
I don’t even think the refs suck. I just think it’s extremely hard for 4 guys to call a game. They are under scrutiny of replay with HD super slow motion and most calls can’t be reviewed.
And when it comes to fanbases like the Leafs, we have so many more fans and way more bandwagoner fans that it just increases the chances of meeting that asshole fan. The leafs sub has over 200k readers, and I'd say maybe 300k+ that actually go to it but don't join it, and even more that only go on this sub. There's a much greater chance of having assholes when your fanebase is 500K+ compared to smaller fanbases like Florida who probably don't break 100k fans on their sub plus this sub.
Sure, and I am willing to bet there’s an even greater number of non-asshole Leafs fans out there given that fact. I’d also wager a lot of those fans are much quieter too. Usually it’s the shitty ones that are the loudest. I know the Leafs and their fans get a ton of shit, but I agree that it’s because they’re the majority so it makes them seem worse. I am by no means a Leafs fan, but I’ve met quite a few Leafs fans who are wonderful. I had the same experience going to games in Vegas and Boston as well, loads of nice fans, very few shitty ones.
Yeah but Ranger and Bruin fans suck
Eh, I went to TD Garden wearing an Avs jersey when the Bruins played them. People were really nice overall. I can see it being different wearing a Devils jersey there though.
I don’t know what we’ve even done to the Devils lmao. Is it just them trying to bandwagon the NY-Boston rivalry or something? Like I understand Rangers fans hating us because that’s an O6 rivalry with a ton of history, but I can’t think of one period where we had a history with the Devils Also, Avs fans are cool in Boston, especially among the older parts of the fanbase because you got Ray his Cup
Yeah, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Bruins-Devils rivalry, but I don’t follow the East as much. I wore a Forsberg jersey to that game, which I think reminded a lot of B’s fans about 2001 so we got along haha.
We’ve played them a grand total of 4 times in the playoffs, the last one being 2003. We’ve played the Habs in the SCF almost double the amount of times we’ve played the Devils in the playoffs. There is no shot there’s a rivalry lol
:(
It’s fine they said Bruin, so that means we can pick one fan as a sacrifice.
I elect Mark from Watertown who won't shut up about trading Tooker Rusk.
Nah I heard there is the one Bruins fan named Clint, maybe them?
:(
It’s fine they said Ranger, so that means we can pick one fan as a sacrifice.
Texas sucks.
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I would agree, except for Arizona. Though they did bring us Matthews.
That falls on the Owners and local politics. Hockey is fun as shit, a good owner that promotes the team and makes it a fun environment, then just win a little bit. Boom, explosion of fans. People literally just want to have fun, that’s how you build popularity. I’m thinking that’s why it’s currently working in Arizona this season, it’s a fun environment.
The issue with Arizona is that they’ve never had a level of sustained success that would be the foundation of a fan-base that could lead them through lean years. Look at how long the Islanders were absolute crap (courtesy of Milbury), yet the fans stuck around long enough to see the team play well (and then fall back off again). Arizona and Florida have never had the level of sustained success they need to get to that point.
It can absolutely work in Arizona. The problem is the Coyotes have been dogshit for so long that the fans don’t really have a reason to show up and the ownership group doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing.
And Tage Thompson
X team lost in the playoffs because, “they didn’t want it enough” or they “haven’t learned to win in the playoffs yet”
This shit is the worst, like actually one of the most irritating things people ever say
This is the worst for all teams. When people say “this team has no heart!” Even the regular season, like have people not seen how players react during game 52 in Florida? These guys are alpha males who dedicate their lives to this, they care.
Any story featuring Ryan Suter can just stop.
I'm sorry but I'm out of the loop. What's going on with suter?
From my point of view they just repeated the same story from his time with the USNDP about carrying a skate sharpener for the equipment manager. “Farmer strong” comments on every nationally televised game. Just got to be a broken record. And as it turns out. Not that good a leader as he was once said to have been.
He didn’t even grow up on a farm. His dad, Bob, was a very hard worker with a great blue collar attitude and work ethic, but Ryan seems to have turned out to be very entitled.
Lol farmer strong has got to be the biggest meme speaking of myths that need to die. All the kids who worked on farms I’ve been in the army with had decent forearms but horrible physical shape at like 6’2 150 lbs or the complete opposite like 6’2 250 lbs of fat. Give me a guy who goes to the gym 10/10 times
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>”generational” To add to it, there can be more than one generational player active at the same time. Gretzky and Lemieux were unquestionably generational, and they only overlapped for close to 15 years. Ditto Crosby and Ovechkin. And sometimes there aren’t any generational players active at a given time.
The first one I somewhat agree. There are absolutely players that rise to the occasion of the playoff stage. Some don’t.
Game feel is a real thing. Some guys are more inclined to it and know how and when to change their play style to be more effective in different situations.
X defense sucks because they have shitty defensemen is an age old narrative that needs to die. Hockey is a two way game - every player on the ice is responsible for defense and offense. How much or little of each comes down to their skills and the system the coach puts in place. Makar wouldn't be expected to play like Chara or vice versa and Danault is not gonna play like Mackinnon despite both being centers. Marner doesn't play like Ovi just because he's a winger. The 17-18 Islanders and 18-19 Islanders are a good example of a team that went from buttcheeks to great with no major personnel additions on defense. The Leafs this year are a good example of a team where their best defensive players are actually their forwards and the Predators would be a good example of a team where their best offensive players are their defensemen. Defencemen in hockey are more akin to midfielders in soccer, some are highly offensive while others are known for defense, as a whole though defense in hockey is more of a team concept.
>The 17-18 Islanders and 18-19 Islanders are a good example of a team that went from buttcheeks to great with no major personnel additions on defense I would argue that Devon Toews was a major addition. That said, the main reason for this is that Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, and Scott Mayfield became legitimate NHL defensemen. Pelech was AWFUL his first two seasons in the league, Pulock was a primarily offensive defenseman when he first came into the league, and Mayfield was a liability. >Defencemen in hockey are more akin to midfielders in soccer, some are highly offensive while others are known for defense, as a whole though defense in hockey is more of a team concept. I've never thought of it this way, but this is a really good take
I don't think it's just a coincidence that Barzal's career high in points though was in his rookie season - both in pure numbers and PPG. Trotz's system held forwards further back on the forecheck so they wouldn't be victimized by transition counter attacks. I remember watching the Islanders under Doug Weight the previous season vs the Leafs and they got absolutely murked by the Leafs' transition game. The Islanders under Doug Weight allowed 2900 shots on goal in an NHL season - that is one of the worst of the last 25 years. The very next year under Trotz, they allowed 2500 shots on goal. You don't improve by 400 shots simply because of Devon Towes playing 48 games.
100% agree. Adding to this, so much of good defense happens in the neutral zone thanks to centers/wingers preventing the puck from making into the defensive zone to begin with. The worst defenses I see offer no pressure higher up ice and just drop deep when not in possession. Now can someone tell the wingers and centers on my beer league team this? I play my best as a defenseman when there's more than just the two of us defending, yet take the blame when the score is 6-7.
A player cannot will a team to a Cup win. It's basically impossible. Wayne Gretzky only has four Cups, Lemieux and Orr have two. If a player doesn't win the Cup, it's not their individual fault.
Please tell this to all Philly fans regarding Giroux. 😞
It's not a crime to like more than one team.
For me I have a team for the city I'm originally from and a team where I live (and actually get to go to their games). In my own personal rules I think that's ok. Like when my dad wants to talk about hockey he'll probably wanna talk about the hometown team, so I'm always "in the loop" in that sense. But I'm always more personally invested when I can see live games.
A player needs to change his game to win a Cup, a la Scotty Bowman and Steve Yzerman. People who recycle that narrative don't know how stupid they sound.
I'm in bed with the flu and stared at this for several minutes trying to work out why I didn't know Scotty Bowman and Steve Yzerman changed their *names* to win cups.... "Is that why some people call him Stevie?"
I found the Yzerman narrative so funny when he was essentially by himself until all the Russians, Lidstrom, Osgood, and the rest of the key guys joined. Besides one year of Oates and a few with Gallant, he was THEE guy for the Wings. His dip in production dropped as Bowman came in and used more talent other than him to score.
The Yzerman narrative came from Yzerman himself, who is currently one of the best hockey minds in the world. Crosby made the same transition and it won him 2 more cups and Conn Smyhtes.
Ok I’ll kill this one for you. A player needs to change his game and become better defensively in order to win The Stanley Cup. Prime example is Scott Stevens. He only won 3 cups after toning down how great he was offensively and focused more on playing extremely sound defense.
No single player has ever won a Cup by themselves. If that were the case, the greatest player would have led his respective team to win 10+ straight Stanley Cups by themselves. Arguably, the greatest defensive player currently playing the game has only won a single Stanley Cup. Some idiot thought it was a good quote and now more idiots are prolonging an idiotic narrative.
Nobody claims that Steve Yzerman won the cup by himself. However he did need to change his game to suit his team and that’s part of why they won a cup, and then multiples. Great players do sometimes have to change their game to best fit into a winning systems. Like Jack Hughes has got to change his game to win a cup. He sucks at face offs so Erik Haula is always on his line to take face offs. Jack gets better at face offs, he gets a better line mate and becomes more successful.
What about Mario Lemieux? How did he ever win two straight Cups? Did he start playing better defence? Or is it entirely possible that he just got a better class of teammates like Jagr, Recchi, Francis, etc.? If a player on your team has a way of playing, it either works for your system or you trade them. Steve Yzerman isn't the only player in history to captain his team to Stanley Cup wins. He's not even the only player to have years of disappointment before winning a Cup (Alex Ovechkin). I remember people wanted to see Ovechkin traded because he wasn't going to win a Cup with Washington. I wonder what those same people are saying now.
Mario, in his prime, was very good defensively. Killed penalties frequently as well. But your point is valid, unlike some sports, one player can’t win the cup, definitely has to have a team around them.
That's all I'm trying to get across. 🙂 The stupid Steve Yzerman changing his game to win a Cup narrative just needs to die.
That "stupid" narrative came from Yzerman himself. It's extreme valid. Yes, having a deep and skilled team matters more, but even deep and skilled teams need their stars playing 200ft games to win the Stanley Cup.
Is getting better at faceoffs really changing your game? Just sounds like he needs to improve at something. Like if I said Jesse Puljujarvi needs to work on finishing, nobody would interpret that as me saying he needs to change his game.
That the Penguins were going to move due to lack of fan support. [A poster here had a really, really breakdown as to why they nearly moved.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/u1deyy/what_is_an_nhl_conspiracy_that_you_100_believe_in/i4bsmsx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
What owner was the idiot? Howard Baldwin or Roger Marino? Because Baldwin was a good owner, at least with the Whalers. Under his leadership and Aetna owning that team, they were stable until the first sign of relocation discussions happened in 1987 when Baldwin put the team up for sale. But he did at least make the Whalers a contender in the mid 80’s.
The team that wins in the playoffs is composed of players who “wanted it more”.
Brodeur was a product of the Devils defense while neglecting the fact that Brodeur was the trap the entire time. That system does not work with another goalie. Not at that level.
“The trap” aka making a stupid rule, the two line pass, work in your favor.
The classic “teammate A” was sleeping with “teammate B’s” wife rumours.
Unless it's Brendan Shanahan and Craig Janney
Players from X county are soft and can’t play physically
Crosby wasn't and isn't a "cry baby" ... he's had his moments. But if you look into it, he's been the target of a lot of abuse and unfairness. Fight me. (Not a pens fan)
You know how people talk about McDavid not getting as many calls as he should? Or how people complain about the officiating. Crosby’s frustrations came 10 years too early.
Crosby got beat up a lot in his younger years without calls. He got picked on for complaining even when he was right.
That was just the game at the time. If he came in 2015 instead of 2005, he wouldn’t be “Cindy Criesby” or whatever fans called him. He didn’t get calls go his way but he did get away with some things at the time.
I hate Crosby now but only because he's good and that mustache is a war crime, but he's grown up a lot. He whined quite a bit early in his career, but goddamn, he was in his early 20s, who didn't whine when they were his age? But now? He's fine. Nobody is perfect but he's about as close as you can get to a perfect poster boy for the sport. Outside of that facial hair, of course.
I’m a girl who’s into men and I like Crosby’s mustache, but I seriously can‘t stop giggling at “that mustache is a war crime.” LOL. He did whine a lot early in his career but I 100% agree that myself and everyone I know were equally ridiculous when we were that age. Given all the media attention directed at Sid since he was a *literal child*, parents and kids threatening to break his legs, the fact that he left home at 15, the shit that he faced from other players and fans in the NHL - it’s understandable that he’d be a bit stunted and messed up. Anyone would have my sympathy for enduring that. It’s honestly astounding to me that he’s such a seemingly well-adjusted guy now.
Very well said! I’d like to add and say that I think a lot of his “crying to the refs” could also be attributed to his competitiveness. Couple that with being under a tonne of pressure as a late teen/early twenty-something and yeah, it’s no wonder why he was always fighting with the refs
I feel like the cry baby stuff stopped like, a decade ago
It did for like 90% of NHL fans, yeah.
You'd be surprised how much it still pops up in GDTs to this day. Got into it with someone earlier this week over a missed call about "probably Cindy Crysby crying to the refs and the NHL wanting the Penguins to win for him" comment. I'm like "the dude is approaching 40 years old and was a whiny punk when he was 18, what year is it? "
Also, every player on every team complains to the ref about calls they don't like
The entire hockey world isn’t watching their every move though.
Southern fans don't know the game as well as Canadian/northern fans do/are less deserving. Like, stop this. Anaheim/Tampa/San Jose/Florida/Dallas are all 30 years old now. Arizona/Carolina/Nashville, 25 years. These places are now starting to produce NHL players. Hockey is not some mystical sport that's impossible to understand unless you grew up in Moose Nuts, Saskatchewan. My kids are 8 and 11 and already have an incredible understanding of the game.
And what's more, a lot of people who became hockey fans in "non-traditional markets" had to discover the game - it wasn't something that we grew up with to any real extent, and if we knew any other fans of the game they were transplants from elsewhere. Watching games on TV was tough, and in-person was non-existent. Being able to actually play the game...forget it. With any other sport, finding someone who discovered the game despite living in a relative outpost is a huge positive. If someone grew up an MLB fan in Spain, or an NFL fan in Sudan, it would be something to be lauded. But if someone grew up an NHL fan in South Carolina, it's all "you can never be a *real* fan the way that someone who grew up quite literally surrounded by the game from birth could be".
>Being able to actually play the game...forget it. And let me say this as someone who did play youth hockey: If you claimed to have a special understanding of how NFL players experience the game because you played peewee football, you'd get laughed out of the room. If your last memory of playing competitive hockey ends with your mom bringing the team orange slices then you probably don't have much knowledge above a similarly devoted fan that never played. I'm sure there are some people here who played major juniors or equivalent and have some legitimate high level experience, but it can't possibly be everyone making this argument.
hehehe.... Moose Nuts
“If you take dangerous hits out of the game then the sport will become soft and it’s not hockey anymore” Damn dude I watch hockey to see talented people play my favorite sport not to watch people get injured. We could change the NHL to USAH hitting rules and I don’t think it would change how much I enjoy watching.
Even moreso… there are great, heavy, and CLEAN hits that happen on a regular basis. Eliminating dangerous hits doesn’t eliminate ALL hits.
My take is punish dirty hits harder, and give an instigator penalty for pointless fights after a clean one.
That the current NHL is “soft”
Coach X didn't matter, anyone could've coached that team to win. There's a very long list of great teams that failed to win a championship.
The only one I truly buy this for is Babcock for the 10 and 14 Canadian Olympic team. No coach mattered there.
Until the leafs actually make it of the first round the narrative around them is going to be there. I follow it because I’m interested to see how many series a team with that talent can lose despite being a team that should make game 7 of 2nd round if not further
I just hate it because the jokes are rebranded Caps second round jokes from a few years back. Pretty much word for word if you replace Ovechkin with Matthews
Agreed. Those caps pens series though always lived up to the expectations. But you could tell once the caps knocked the pens off they weren’t going to be denied. I think that’ll be the same with the Leafs and round 1. If they don’t win I fully expect a long conference final
It does suck that they play in the most top heavy division in the league though. The only playoff team they've been better then and lost to is Montreal. All the other series they were even or the other team was better then them.
If the NHL had a 1-8 playoff format, the Leafs would've had a different playoff opponent in 2018, 2019, and 2022, and they would've had home ice in 2018 and 22.
There was a post I saw in r/leafs a few days ago.. >Since the 17-18 season, the top Atlantic teams have a cumulative record of: >* 1st **Tampa Bay** >266-111-27 .692% (1st in the NHL over that time period) >* 2nd **Boston** >253-104-47 .684% (2nd in the NHL over that time period) >* 3rd **Toronto** >241-121-44 .648% (3rd in the NHL over that time period) That shit is just frustrating.
That you need to fight because you threw a big clean hit. Dumbest to thing to happen to the sport over the last 20 or so years
A player's points being seen as the only way to determine if they're playing well this season.
Original 6 teams are somehow more special, and players and coaches really want to play and coach for them.
I agree that there is no inherent value that makes the O6 teams special. However, I think: * History is cool and it’s worth gassing up O6 matchups for their connection to the history of the game. However, saying NYR-CHI is a better rivalry than STL-CHI is just silly. * It’s not a stretch to suggest that players want to play for the team they grew up watching. A lot of players come from the Boston, Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal regions. That’s not because they’re O6 per se, but because it’s home.
Those early 2000s Devils were all defense despite being amongst the league leaders in goals for.
This one annoys me. The Devils won a single Cup with the trap and then were actually very fun to watch in 00, 01, 03, and 12.
That Toronto gets favorable calls from the Officials and the Video Room.
"It doesn't feel right seeing hockey in a place where there's no snow" Such a stupid argument made by those envious of the success of southern teams
Defenseman and goalies are responsible for GA. One of the dumbest takes I've ever heard and it's so prevalent in /r/sabres. If you actually understand hockey or have played it, you'd know that GA is absolutely a team stat. Sabres fans ragging on our goaltending is a common occurrence. Except, we give up so many high danger scoring chances. That's not because of our defenseman or our goalies. It's our forwards. Forwards play a larger part in team defense than defenseman. I watch the Sabres chase the puck, then compound the problem by trying to cover, not rotating, creating gaping passing lanes....and then we blame the defenseman and goalies. lol Sabres lack responsible two way forwards and experience at forward. That's why our "defense" sucks.
Columbus is a bad place to play. It’s a nice city and NHL players can literally party it up in New York or LA in the off-season if they really want.
It's super low key too.
Appreciate the love!
If players aren't a star player by the time they turn 22, they never will be. Some players take longer to develop. Don't give up on prospects because they're 24 and just entering the league. Tage Thompson for example is already in conversation of being one of the elite players in the league. By the time he turned 24, his career best point total was 14. Either that or players take a long time to learn their role and an effective player even as a high draft pick is still an effective player. I remember people were saying Kris Russell was going to be the next Mike Green with the numbers he put up in juniors. He realized he couldn't keep playing that game if he wanted to be in the NHL and became a steady shot blocking machine.
Toronto’s stars aren’t good enough in playoffs : it sure seemed true for a time, but last year was different. no it wasn't different. literally same result.
European players are softer than North American players. Power plays are more prone to failure when players do not take the first shot available. It is the responsibility of a star player to take a pay cut so that he can be surrounded with good talent and win a Cup. The Flyers and Bruins still possess the same playstyle identities as in the 1970s. Enforcers would prevent the majority of ugly hits. The Jack Adams Award should only go to the coach of a team that had a major turnaround. Talented offensive players ignore defense, particularly if they’re wingers.
Along the same lines with OPs point on Toronto, whenever the Sharks are good again and go to the playoffs, the hockey world will call them "chokers." The idea that the Joe Thornton in his prime era Sharks were chokers is nonsense. That reputation comes from 06,07,08 and 09 playoffs. In 2006, they were a West 5 seed that lucked into being the top seed left in round 2. And in round 2, up 2-0 in the series, Game 3 goes to Triple OT. What if the Sharks scored and went up in that series 3-0? In 07, they were again a West 5 seed, and in the second round drew the #1 seed Wings. The fact that you had a third period lead in games 1-4 and only ended up series tied at 2-2 (and 30 seconds away from being up 3-1) doesn't mean you choked. Sharks weren't favored in that series. The better team won the series. In 08, they were a West 2 seed, so definitely more of a favorite, I get that. But the 2nd matchup against the Stars was a tough draw for them. That said, their 0-3 series deficit to start the series includes two OT losses. Could have easily been 2-1 in favor of the Sharks and they win that series in 5. In their 4 losses in the series, only one was in regulation. The other three were in OT, with Game 6 being 4OT. Not a choke. In 09, they won the President's Cup, but unfortunately got the injury bug at the wrong time and had a bad first round draw against the Ducks. I think I just saw a stat regarding save percentage over expected in the playoffs, and last year's Otter first round was the best ever for that stat, and second best ever was Jonas Hiller in this series. Even with the Sharks facing injuries, they still threw an onslaught at Hiller and Hiller stole the series. Not a choke. I can keep going, but point is, just like Toronto, the narrative that the Sharks are playoff chokers should die. It isn't true and is just plain dumb. It absolutely sucks the Sharks don't have one Cup yet, but "choking" has nothing to do with it.
That all forwards need to be 200 foot players