2021 NHL regular season thread

I swear this was exactly one of the thoughts I had while I was watching everything unfold -- would they be justified to retaliate against? ... and then Niklas Backstrom was the only semi-obvious player I could come up with on the Caps. They are actually a big, older team.

I'd never want to see that.

The thing about last night. ... I think the Rangers had 8 or 9 rookies in the line up, three of them have played less than 5 games in their careers. They don't have anyone who was going to retaliate that way (now watch, in the game tomorrow night, it happens!). But you are right, can you be surprised if that happens when that psycho does what he did to an Artemi Panarin kind of player and then does his moronic WWE poses with that shit eating-grin on his face?

 

Backstrom has twice (that I know of) taken cheap shots to the head and missed a bit of time and I've always wondered if that wasn't the reason why. It's why a lot of Caps fans are tired of Wilson's bullshit. Even if you don't want to factor in the other team, he's going to get one of his one guys hurt. The rugged guy for the Islanders (Komarov?) got him one time and I'm blanking on the other.

And I know for a fact at least a few of the Caps are tired of it and I'm curious what it will take for one of them to say so publicly. Of the guys who are basically the voices of the team - Ovi, Backstrom, Oshie, Carlson - I can't see any of them doing it. Holtby would have but, well, he's in Vancouver now.

The Wilson nonsense aside, my son and I wonder why the Rangers aren't better. No depth I guess. Mika Z (not even going to try) is a hell of a player as is Panarin. I think Shesterkin is a good goalie. They've had a couple of high draft picks recently. Is Quinn not a good coach?

 

Just my 2 cents. They started off the season really poorly and couldn't recover in what I think was the toughest division, by far. They still came close. ... they went on a tear toward the end of the season. I don't think Quinn is a good coach, or maybe the right way to put it is, I don't think they he's the right coach for where they are now in the rebuild. He shuffles the lines way too much and hampered them early on by not allowing lines to gel and form some chemistry. And if you notice that when he was out with Covid and they were essentially coaching themselves, it was when they started to go on a run and had those games where they ran it on on Philly. It's when Zibanajad started scoring.

I was hoping they'd be a bit better than they were this year, but I wasn't counting on it. I do think with the way they played they would have gotten into the playoffs in any of the other divisions. But I can't prove that. I think they had about the season you should expect with where they are. Their average age has to be the lowest in the league (without looking). Kakko is 19 or 20. Lafrieniere is 19. Chytil is 21. Adam Fox 22. K'Andre Miller 21. Ryan Lindgren 22. Etc.

 

They also collected so many prospects and they need to cull. They aren't going to be able to play them all. Even the ones who haven't played for them yet like Nils Lundqvist. Again, just my 2 cents, but I think they need to take the core they have -- there is a ton of skill and speed -- and now put the right role players around it. For example, when the Islanders were kicking their ass in the two prior games that eliminated the Rangers. ... one of the biggest differences between the teams you could see was how good the Islanders fourth line with Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck was. They were getting pucks deep in the Rangers zone and just wearing the Rangers down, playing physically. The Rangers fourth line had Vitali Kravtsov -- about 6'3", 170 pounds. Kravtsov is a skilled player and is probably going to be a really good player in the NHL. But because the Rangers had their top lines filled and he showed up and they wanted to play him, he was being miscast. They need a GM who can now commit to a core that I think is easy to discern and get the right finishing touches and see if they can make a run over the next several years. They have a lot of runway because they are so young.