2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs thread

Did Edmonton just suddenly hit the wall or what after that face off with a minute or so left? They were pressing the hell out of the Panthers, then with a minute to go looked like they had all the urgency and speed of a Sunday night beer league. I know they were gassed, but geez that turned anti-climactic in a hurry.

 

The state of Florida has now won four Stanley Cups since any Canadian team has won one. That seems wrong.

 

It’s not as easy as you think.

 

I usually root for the team that hadn't won before, so congrats Panthers.

 

Oh, no doubt. I get it. It just seemed like they played 59 minutes at max effort, had a bunch of chances late, then suddenly had nothing left at all. It was weird, like somebody flipped the switch to "off" for the entire team after that last scramble in front of the net.

 

Conor McDavid throw that trophy through a window?

 

My streaming was a little choppy. Did they not boo Bettman?

 

My uneducated opinion is they were just spent and Florida had that little extra. The game is so different when one game matters to game 42 in Buffalo. That was fun to watch. It really is like two different games.

 

I think I could watch that moment of Paul Maurice lifting the Cup, closing his eyes, and just drinking in the moment — followed by the release of a half-dozen "FUCK YEAH!" screams — a hundred times. You don't need to know anything about hockey, or even sports, to see and appreciate the joy and satisfaction of what that meant to him, and that it's 30 seconds he's been waiting his whole life for.

 

Because I know that on this night the eyes of the hockey world are focused on the Coyotes and the quest for an arena...

It dead.

Sources: Alex Meruelo is walking away from Coyotes ownership

The team has known for six months that it needed a permit it didn't have, but Alex Muruelo thought he could just bluff his way through it. He didn't even have a zoning/permitting attorney. Now that the state postponed the auction, he's walking away from the ownership.

I mentioned upthread that I had just bought tickets to the six games the Tucson Roadrunners are playing next season in Mullett Arena in Tempe. (The Roadrunners are also owned by Muruelo.) This afternoon the team announced that because the auction was canceled, they were canceling the Mullett games and playing the full season in Tucson. As soon as I heard that, I knew he was pulling the plug in Phoenix. Fingers crossed that the Coyotes still have a staffer left who can process my refund.

Curious to see what comes next. The league badly wants a viable team here. Wouldn't surprise me to see Suns owner Mat Ishbia involved, but the arena situation still hangs over everything.