2021 Stanley Cup playoffs skating thread

Water or Vodka?

 

If so, then I missed it. Skating myself to the sin bin.

 

Losing NBCSN in general is a setback. Not only because of the quality of its production, but because of the loss of a core national sports channel. I know streaming is supposed to fill the void in general, but streams are generally 40-90 seconds behind live broadcasts and that’s just enough to ruin the experience for me.

 

Many Northern transplants taught Tampa Bay fans The Way.

 

Yeah, I was streaming Monday night's game and read on Twitter the Canadiens won about 75 minutes before I saw it happen.

 

Weird to think of Tampa Bay as a sports hot bed, a "title town" if you will with the Bucs and Lightning both being reigning champs - and the Rays in strong contention.

 

I wish I could be optimistic about the new setup but the WWL treated hockey as an afterthought when it had it before
The one thing that gives me hope is it looks like ESPN and TNT will do a time share, NHL on one night, NBA the next and vice versa

 

Congrats to the Lightning, worthy back-to-back champs with no asterisks in my book. They were the best team over the last couple of years and hard to root against. They weirdly probably needed that Columbus debacle to find their next gear, and they never abandoned it after finding it.

That said, I really lost interest in these playoffs after the Caps went out, though part of that was a hypershift to watching every minute of every Suns playoff game. It was even tough in the regular season watching night in and night out against the same frickin teams. Here's to normalcy (relative) in 2021-22. Looking forward to being back at CapitalOne for a game or five and seeing someone other than those East division teams every once in a while.

 

They learned a lot of lessons from the 2019 disappointment that were on display the past two years. In 2019 they were rolling and BriseBois didn't do anything at the deadline. Then the exhaustion and injuries came in the final days of the regular season while they were busting their ass to win 60 games. So they had limited depth and nothing left for the playoffs. Plus the teams around them all made moves to improve so the Columbus they had played three months prior was completely different by May.

So in 2020 he signed Shattenkirk on a cheap "prove-it" deal. Traded real draft capital for Coleman and Goodrow to get size and grit. Then added Zach Bogosian on a prove-it mini deal after Buffalo waived him. They were so deep in 2020 and fresh for the bubble.

This year they were cap strapped, but still figured out a way to get Savard. And Cooper smartly let guys rest in the final games of the season and sacrificed home ice for fresh players with the mindset that if they couldn't win in Sunrise or Raleigh they shouldn't be champions anyway. They went 5-1 in road games in the first two rounds. The front office went all in on winning championships and Cooper realized that home ice in the playoffs isn't that big of a deal for some teams. And they still got to close out the semifinals and finals on home ice.

 

SJ’s favorite analyst moving from behind the glass to behind a desk

 

Good for him. He should be good at it.

 

"Rent, don't buy."--Barry Melrose