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2025-26 NHL Miscellaneous Thread

Suspending a guy like Grieg for the first few games of next season should not be a heavy lift. The guy has consistently had more PIMs than points. He’ll sit out games one through five while they give a prospect some time in the bigs. Now, if a team with a player suspended had to play with one fewer skater, that would mean something.
 
Boston got hammered by Buffalo to put the Sabres up 3-1 … with a lot of scumbaggery at the end of the game, of course. It was 6-1 and Boston’s only goal was WAY past when it was a game. Sabres are heating up at the right time after a tight looking start to the series.
 
This TBL/Mtl game is weird. It's a crosscheck fest and Tampa looks like they've never been in the playoffs before. But just like that, they go up 3-2 from a deflection off of Hagel throat. Weird.
 
Edmonton down 3-1. How in the world a team with McDavid, Draisaitil and Nugent-Hopkins can annually disappoint in the postseason is beyond baffling. I know it’s the ultimate team game, but that is an absurd amount of talent with nothing to show for it
 
Edmonton's D still stinks and their system doesn't provide enough support from the forwards. Goaltending too, but if they actually tried to play some defense once in a while that would help a bit. It doesn't help that they are significantly overpaying Darnell Nurse and are now paying a fortune to another Dman who is not great at actually playing D in Bouchard. That is $20 million worth of Dmen who are crappy at defending.

They haven't lost this series yet though. But if they go out in the first round, the McDavid might be leaving clock will start to tick a bit faster. Fortunately for them they have 1 more season after this one before that really becomes a concern.
 
Fayettenamcanesfan said:
Edmonton down 3-1. How in the world a team with McDavid, Draisaitil and Nugent-Hopkins can annually disappoint in the postseason is beyond baffling. I know it’s the ultimate team game, but that is an absurd amount of talent with nothing to show for it
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2 big reasons, for me …

They never have figured out how to balance out a roster that devotes so much of their Cap space to just a few guys. I’m not sure it’s actually possible unless you luck into a series of cheap but effective goalies, which they have not done. Specifically, the Oilers have $46 million tied up in 4 guys, one of whom sucks (Nurse) and none of whom are a goalie.

They have yet to find a coach with the discipline to resist the temptation to throw McDavid and Draisaitl out together every time they’re behind and then over-shift that line. It kills what little balance they have and allows even the dumbest opposing coach to keep his first line paired up with the Oilers remaining scrubs. Their last two coaches were 100% hired to McDavid’s specifications, so that might be a problem all of its own.
 
So, recapping Sunday’s stuff …

The Sabres spanked Boston to move to 3-1 in a "gosh, this feels over" kind of way.

The Avs finished off the Kings in a “thank God this is over” kind of way. This 1-8 series was always going to be miserable in the West, but sheesh. LA put up a fight but that was a horrendous mismatch.

The Lightning play like crap, somebody knocks Slaf into another dimension and then somehow Tampa wins 3-2. Sure. I watched the whole thing pretty much and I still don’t know what that was. This series is officially tied but it still feels like Tampa’s fighting for their lives.

For the nightcap, the Ducks managed to get awarded a game winning OT goal even though not a single soul actually saw the puck go over the goal line. Fun. 3-1 Ducks lead in the series and it almost wants to feel like it’s over for Edmonton. They’ve bounced back from the brink before though, so we’ll see.
 
jeffbear said:
The Lightning play like crap, somebody knocks Slaf into another dimension and then somehow Tampa wins 3-2. Sure. I watched the whole thing pretty much and I still don’t know what that was. This series is officially tied but it still feels like Tampa’s fighting for their lives.
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It feels like it's a visual thing. Montreal is very young and quite talented, so they are more energetic on the ice. However, it feels like a frenetic energy and there are lots of wasted movements which is in contrast to the way Tampa plays the game. It's like mosquitos bothering an old hound dog in the swamps of Florida. Those mosquitos can overwhelm that ol' dog, but that dog is also fully capable of ignoring them.
 
That was a strange ending to the Edmonton Anaheim game, but that puck was definitely over the line, so they got the call right even though they botched the process.

The referees of course should NOT have called it a 'good goal on the ice' because certainly no referee actually really saw any indication the puck actually was in. That is a problem. But as for 'how can you 100% for sure tell that puck was completely over the line?' argument, you can see 3/5th of the puck very clearly. It's not rocket science to be able to take that very clear view from above he puck, complete the circle around the puck to know where the rest of the puck covered by Jarry's skate must be, and then draw the goal line across.

Sure you cannot FULLY see the puck, or FULLY see the goal line, but it doesn't take 21st century high tech stuff to be able to say that the puck MUST have been fully across the line based on the images of more than half the puck that you can see.
 
Oh, I’m not making any of those arguments for or against. I’m just here for the NHL having a game winning goal scored when not a single human being can show evidence that the puck went over the line and no refs were in a position to see it with their own eyes. I’m pretty sure the puck cleared the goal line, but …
 
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