Re: The NHL Thread
 

i feel like this is the one place that would appreciate this.

i was at the avs - jets game thursday night when landeskog got a hat trick. in the 40+ hockey games i've been to, that was the second ever hat trick i saw, the first since......the last avs game i went to a few weeks ago when burakovsky got a hatty against the panthers. 7 years of going to avs games, plus growing up with AHL games 20 minutes away, and i had never seen a hat trick before. now, i've been to 2 games this season and there was a a hat trick in both. and now i'll probably go another 10 years without seeing one in person, just like song chasing.

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Sticks out for Teddy.

Just awful.

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Oh that's terrible :(

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Red Wings outshot by Kings 27-1 in the first.

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Ties a Kings franchise record for most shots in 1st period.

The last game w/27 was 1 year & one day ago…against the Red Wings.

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The Wings know it's within the rules to put players other than the goalie out there, right?

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Rangers outshot the Ducks 40-14 last night lol. The Rangers are almost always heavily outshot too.

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Great win for the Bruins vs. TB last night. They came out on all cylinders and I thought Pasta would get a hattie but he came close.

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Bruins tool on the Washington Capitals tonight 7-3 with Matt Grizzy getting 5 points! :bounce:bounce:bounce:bounce

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They still have a team because Bettman wants them to still have a team.

Just moved from Phoenix after living there for 20 years. They've pretty much done almost everything wrong as an organization. Putting the arena so far away from downtown, and even further away from where the traditional hockey fan lives. Weeknight games are a pain in the ass to get to. They've had ownership issues - and the current owner is terrible.

All that being said - if they can resolve the arena issue and locate the new one properly - they could be successful. They have built up a fan base core. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years as far as where they're going to play their home games.

Re: The NHL Thread
 

I am surprised with how much I still hate the Kings. If anything, it has actually gotten worse with time. I know we have our resident Kings fan here who is awesome and I have no problem with Mr. Brown, but I hate the Kings still :lol. It would probably take beating them in a cup final or several cups for the Rangers to change my mind.

Obviously, 1 loss doesn’t really impact the Rangers season much. That said, they are still struggling against western teams that are decent and in playoff positions. They need figure that out and soon before they can be considered a serious team going into the playoffs. Most power rankings have them 10-14th and I think that is about right.

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Getting real tired of getting screwed out of games and points because the other team has COVID.

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Flyers would have stomped (jk they suck :lol)

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Should be forfeits, IMO.

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They had three players out. Taxi squad can cover that. They had 21 players skate this morning. Canes have had to play with more people out.

It’s a conspiracy.

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Wings hire Nick Lidstrom as VP of Hockey Operations!! Awesome!!

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Yeah that is a bummer. I really wanted to go to a Canes game before the Rangers came to town. I like the Canes and wanted to rock my Aho Whalers jersey, but it will have to wait until later in the season. Now I will have to wear a Rangers jersey to my first Canes game of the year :lol.

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Big return from The 101st best player ever last night, Malkin.

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Worth stayng up til 1am - which is far past my bedtime.

Anyone see what went on in Florida last night...?

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Just had someone try to convince me that Geno was better than Ovi :lol.

Geno is great, but sometimes Pens fans make me laugh so hard.

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I think there's a larger discussion to be had there. Ovi is a one trick pony - but whoa - is the one trick incredible. It's really hard for any wing to be greater than a great center, just because the position is so much more demanding and important.

Malkin @ 1.17 PPG with 3 cups; 1 Hart
Ovie @ 1.11 PPG with 1 cup, 3 Harts - but goals are more important than assists, and Ovie buries the puck.

The other thing Ovie has going for him is that russian machine never break, and Malkin's a russian machine...that kinda breaks once in a while.

I guess my point is - I think the argument is far closer than you do - I don't think it's a laughable matter to say Malkin is the better player. I also don't think it's laughable to claim Ovie is - guess my point is...it's close, and I don't care, because they've both been a joy for 15 years so fuck it.

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My issue with this argument is that it is like when fans assume games at hand in the standing are going to be wins. You still have to win those games for that to matter.

I agree that Geno is great, but staying healthy is a part of greatness in sports. Malkin has played almost 300 less games in basically the same amount of time. Until he makes up those 300 games, he can’t really be in the conversation.

In addition, the Points Per Game stat is great, except that he also had Crosby on his team. Ovi never had a player of that caliber to play with. I also feel that Malkin’s average will or would decrease if he makes up those 300 games. Again, I’m not arguing that Malkin isn’t great, I am making the case that he is not better than Ovi.

Honest question. Do the Pens win a cup of they only had Malkin and not Crosby on any of those teams? IMO, they maybe win 1.

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So I think this is part of it - and a legit argument to be made, re: missing the games. I'm not sure I just flat out agree that his PPG go down were he to make up those 300 games - maybe if he was making them up NOW, as opposed to being in his prime, or we can really go down the rabbit hole and wonder what happens if he comes over from Russia a year earlier when Ovie did and gets an NHL year in at 19 years old when he's less brittle and where Ovie put up over 100 points. Not all of those "missed games" were due to injury - 80 or so of them were just circumstance.

Additionally, we haven't touched on playoff points, where Ovie falls below a PPG in 30ish less games when scoring becomes harder, and Malkin in 170 games in still clocking in at 1.03 ppg. And his Conn Smythe year came with 7th best playoff output in the history of the game, behind only guys named Coffey, Lemieux and Gretzky.

I think your argument about playing behind Crosby is a good one - Ovie is the captain - the figurehead, the one in front of the cameras and stress, and this is a detriment to the Malkin argument, as he's sort of in Sid's shadow. But we could go round and round on this - is Ovie what he is without a Nicky Backstrom? Where is Hull without Oates (pun intended, but also seriously)? Hard to say - but I do often wonder what Malkin looks like if he's just a first line center his whole career with say...Jordan Staal behind him rather than Crosby in front of him. A fair point.

This is like your 300 games argument, but in the other direction - who knows? Who do they draft instead of Crosby to fill that void? Where do they spend that $9M in cap space without Crosby on the roster? Talk about going down a rabbit hole. It's just impossible to answer. Do I think, say, Malkin and Staal, without Crosby, and another $6M player win a cup? I certainly think so. Do they have 3? Probably not, but does Toews have 3 without Kane? or vice versa? Does Ovie have even 1 without Carlson or Backstrom?

What does Malkin look like during that 2009 Conn Smythe run with actual wings that can finish, rather than Ruslan Fedotenko and Maxime Talbot? 36 points in 24 games with two virtual anchors tied to his skates. The world may never know!

I think the key here is just valuing the cups appropriately - they're team awards, and the culmination of 20 (probably 30) guys. If I valued them that heavily as it pertained to one guy, I'd have come in here with an LOLOLOLO 3 cups to one DOUCHE! I'm not doing that. They're worth mentioning - I think the PPG argument is more important, and honestly, to ME specifically, the position argument - a center is just far more important and integral than a wing - you win down the middle and on the blue line - not on the wing. Look at Jagr - one of the two greatest wings of our time, IMO (Ovie being the obvious other) - he won a cup in 91 and 92 and then never again - because he Michal Nylander and Robert Lang weren't Lemieux or Francis.

I guess where I fall on this is...I lean Malkin. I think there's a reasonable argument to be made for both, and I don't scoff at someone that would prefer Ovechkin. They're both so good. I just don't think your original LOL comment at this being a fait accompli that Ovie is better really holds water. I think it's realllll close.

Re: The NHL Thread
 

Pretty solid post. I definitely don't think my :lol was as warranted in this thread as it was in the insane conversation I was having that prompted my original post. I do find Pittsburg fans to be really biased towards their home teams at a level close to that of Boston and Philly fans, just more under the radar. The person I was talking to was going way over the top with is argument about Malkin.

Side note before I continue, I definitely :lol at the Hall and Oates joke.

Anyway, I guess my view on it is that Ovi not being a center makes his contribution even more impressive to me. I agree that centers are more important in game. As a Rangers fan, I am 100% certain that lack of depth in that position is hurting us and is massively going to reduce the chances of a solid run this year. Point being that Ovi has managed to overcome that as winger and be as important as most top centers are in the league to his team while putting up all time stats.

I also don't think Backstrom/Ovi is as fair as a comparison as Malkin/Crosby, Kane/Toews either. No disrespect to Bascktrom, but I don't really see him in the same category (maybe as Toews at this point since he really dropped off). It is really hard to tell. The Penguins spent basically 5 years tanking to build that original roster with Fleury, Malkin and Crosby. It is fun to think that if Washington valued Malkin above Ovi the Penguins could have wound up with both Crosby and Ovi on the same team. We might have a better idea of how Malkin compares if he had the Caps on his shoulders like Ovi did.

I think another factor is that Malkin and Crosby didn't really come in with the pressure that Ovi did. The Penguins had won 2 cups already. Ovi had the weight of trying to win the organization's first cup on his shoulders. Much different situation for sure.

I guess to summarize, it is really hard to know for sure since Malkin played so many fewer games and for all intents and purposes had a better team around him for the majority of his career. Ovi to me played on weaker teams that often had more holes than the Pens did.

I am just not sure I can see a definitive argument that Malkin is better than Ovi, whereas I believe you can always make a case that Ovi is better than Malkin. I will concede it is closer than it looks and that things might have been different if Malkin played more games.

Also, it would be interesting to see what people who are not fans of the Caps or Pens think on this. I know our Caps fans in this thread left a while ago, but I think we can assume that they would be Ovi on this subject.

Re: The NHL Thread
 

Bruins tool on Montreal!!!! :bounce :bounce :bounce :bounce

Marchand with a hattie!!!!

The coach for MTL looks like a villain in a movie.

Lots of momentum for the B's!!!!!!!!

Re: The NHL Thread
 

I largely agree with your post, but just a few points. And just wanted to say this has been a really good discussion.

I don't know how close to Boston or Philly they are, but I know enough to know that I live here, and even I can't stand most Steeler fans from a objectivity standpoint, so I get it. That certainly carries over to Penguin fans, albeit I think to a lesser degree (which just says far more about Steeler fans than Penguin fans).

Thank you - I'll be here all week.

I do disagree with this - well, not all of it. What he's been able to do as a wing offensively is undeniable, so from an output perspective, you and I are in lock step. But there's two ends of the rink. And while Malkin isn't exactly Patrice Bergeron, centers in general have far more responsibility than that of a wing - so when discussing who's the better "player," and thus who would I take to start a team, once we get to the PPG / accolades being fairly comparable, I'm defaulting to the center over the wing - is more what I'm saying. That's before we even get into Ovie being...sub par even for a wing, in his own end (and I'm not bashing him - I don't care - guy might end up the all time goal scoring king - I'm not asking him to pretend to be Bob Gainey; it's just a differentiator worth mentioning).

So - I mostly agree with you here too - as least Backstrom vs. Crosby. I actually would prefer Backstrom over Toews, but admittedly, I'm not the guy you're going to look to if you want someone to carry water for Jonathan Toews.

My point in that comment is...Backstrom is a direct aid to Ovechkin - he's a great distributor of the puck, and Ovechkin, no doubt, has more points / goals because of Nicky Backstrom (can you tell I love Backstrom?). Whereby, aside from 3 minutes of PP time a night, Crosby and Malkin don't even see the ice together. While he might get some assistance by facing a team's #2 line because Crosby is facing the top checking unit, he's done so (fairly often) with sub optimal assistance - paired with the aforementioned Max Talbot, Ruslan Fedotenko, Ryan Malone, 40 year old Gary Roberts, Jason Zucker, Kasperi Kapanen, Steve Downie, Blake Comeau.

Even on the off chance they brought in a Kessel or Hossa, Hossa goes with 87, Kessel on his own line. Shy of about a season and a half with James Neal in his prime and a half season with Guentzel when Crosby was hurt, he's just had to deal with sub optimal linemates. That's just the way of the salary cap, especially when you're paying another center $9M, and that center gets the preferential treatment when it comes to linemates (and rightfully so).

No argument here - especially as it pertains to Malkin vs. Ovechkin. Ovie faces more pressure / expectations. Malkin loves being second fiddle in a certain regard. Fits his demeanor. Whereby Ovie was born to lead.

This is also kind of a fallacy. Better team? They might have won more cups, but over the course of Malkin's 15 completed seasons, Washington has finished ahead of Pittsburgh in 9 of the 15 compared to Pittsburgh's 5 (and them having the same point total last year) over the course of 82 games. That playoffs have certainly yielded a different outcome, but Pittsburgh has gone through Washington en route to all cups during this era - and each time, Washington had home ice.

I think I'm in the "not sure I can see a definitive argument...period." There's not really anything out there holistically that tells me Ovechkin is the runaway answer here. But I also don't think I knock Malkin as hard as you do for the lower game totals - especially when 1/3 of them are merely due to coming into the league a year later due to contractual obligations in the KHL.

Would absolutely love to hear from others.

Re: The NHL Thread
 

I wonder if the Canes will get to play tonight

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If the NHL isn't going to send it's players to the olympics they should just send the World Junior kids to the Olympics. Would be awesome.

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/...5-ncaa-players

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Bruins!!!! :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Welcome back Rask!!!! :bounce :bounce :bounce :bounce


Pasta got his hattie!

Yeah!!!!

Re: The NHL Thread
 

You both make me laugh in this thread. I can't remember the last time you engaged in conversation, but you 100% keep us posted on the Canes and Bruins news or when they win games :lol!


As for the Rangers, another great win last night and a second shutout this year against the Sharks. Also have to say, fair play to the Sharks announcers, they were pretty good last night.

Braden Schneider scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game last night! He was a first round pick the same draft as Laf. We moved up to take him before the Devils could. He has impressed me a lot and last night looked NHL ready.

The Rangers have an embarrassment of riches on the blue line right now and it is wonderful to see!