Around The NHL: Part VIII - Tampa/NYR = 0 Playoff Wins
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Zibanejbread
Rebuilding.
"Anything can happen"
Some people think its bad for the sport, I think it’s great. It makes it unpredictable and gives your team hope if they are the underdog.
GeorgeKaplan
Registered User
I’m having a good time so far. Tampa needs to fire Cooper last year, they feel like the Canucks under AV. Calgary couldn’t do the only thing they had to do to win, which is shut down that top line, but that top line is probably the best line in the entire league, so easier said than done, especially with their defense that’s like 1 really good old man, 2 good almost 30 year olds, and 3 young kids.
I hated Cooper before, now I despise him. His arrogance was his team’s downfall, and his presser made it even worse, imo.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
Yes, but if everything happens, then nothing really happened."Anything can happen"
GeorgeKaplan
Registered User
He’s very much a “my way is perfect and I won’t deviate from the path even if the entire path is covered in broken glass and on fire” type of coach, it makes it very easy for the other coach to plan for
JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK
Twenty f*ckin years
- Oct 8, 2010
- 80,076
- 17,715
A young 38-44 team with two top-10 forwards. Oh, and they added a stud young D mid playoff run.
God forbid a team that underachieved puts it all together in the playoffs. I sure love watching the Warriors and Patriots shread weaker teams every year.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
Most people do. Look at the ratings.A young 38-44 team with two top-10 forwards. Oh, and they added a stud young D mid playoff run.
God forbid a team that underachieved puts it all together in the playoffs. I sure love watching the Warriors and Patriots shread weaker teams every year.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
Hockey fans clearly aren't, that's always been the case.
That's why it's a niche sport.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
Not exactly a stellar week for Tampa lol.
Edit: Ok yes the Cold War was part of it, but still.
I think we're seeing a sea change in play styles. I noticed it during the regular season, which teams were giving others the most trouble, and now looking at the teams eliminated. If this is the case, (i.e. not completely in my imagination,) firing AV and hiring Quinn could not have been better timing, much like going from Torts to AV. This core coming up under Quinn could be a big deal 2-3 years from now. Are you talking about other aspects?
It's a niche sport because watching a hockey game is hard. People don't still talk about the '80 Olympics because we plastered the Soviet Union lol. A lot don't even know that the actual Gold medal game was against Finland not the USSR.
Edit: Ok yes the Cold War was part of it, but still.
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Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
This is just complete bullshit.Not exactly a stellar week for Tampa lol.
I think we're seeing a sea change in play styles. I noticed it during the regular season, which teams were giving others the most trouble, and now looking at the teams eliminated. If this is the case, (i.e. not completely in my imagination,) firing AV and hiring Quinn could not have been better timing, much like going from Torts to AV. This core coming up under Quinn could be a big deal 2-3 years from now. Are you talking about other aspects?
It's a niche sport because watching a hockey game is hard. People don't still talk about the '80 Olympics because we plastered the Soviet Union lol. A lot don't even know that the actual Gold medal game was against Finland not the USSR.
Edit: Ok yes the Cold War was part of it, but still.
It's a black disk on white ice broadcast in 4k.
"Our sport is just too hard for *them* to follow" just reeks of the Holier Than Thou attitude hockey fans have always had.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
Everyone hated this, which kind of proves my point.
Have you seen baseball? The playing surface is stupid, the rules are stupid, the uniforms are stupid, everything is stupid, and a baseball in play moves (a lot) faster than a hockey puck in play.
Baseball has its own dire issues, don't get me wrong, but "hard to follow" never comes up.
Hockey is not hard to follow.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
I'm not saying it wasn't hypothesized at one point that that was the problem, but those measures to make the game easier to follow brought in exactly zero viewers.
If anybody still thought that was the problem, they wouldn't have taken the redline out in 2005 turning the speed up from 9 to 50.
And pretty much everyone agrees, at least on the ice, that the faster game is better.
The problems with the NHL are institutional, not on-ice.
aufheben
#Norris4Fox
"It wasn't hypothesized at one point" lmao. Dude, that's it. I've never heard a separate reason from anyone. Show me a football game 2019 and another from 1999, and I won't see a difference, whereas it might be night and day for a football fan. There's no frame of reference. Like the FoxTrax, they didn't tweak the sport, they tweaked how people see the sport, literally. That's always hurdle #1 for any sport, not just hockey, to be perceived as something more than the fundamental level of dudes chasing a ball around.
If they couldn't handle the 8th seed, they can't really be considered one of the best teams can they?
Teams play a best of 7 for a reason. The whole point of the playoffs is having to prove you have what it takes to advance. Being bent out of a shape because a certain team wasn't good enough is a bit strange. If they outplayed the other team in every game and got screwed by the refs or something, fine... but both top seeds shot themselves in the foot.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
No they can't. No they didn't have what it takes. No they weren't good enough. But they won 62 games.
I agree with everything you're saying as far as how flawed these teams were. But they won 62 games.
When a team that's that soulless, that flawed, and that lacking in any sort of threat to win a championship wins 62 games, it's an embarrassing reflection on the league.
First round also-ran garbage dominated the league. What does that say about the league?
My issue isn't that Tampa and Calgary lost. I wasn't even surprised Tampa lost to be honest. My issue is looking at how decimated those two teams were and thinking "this is the face of our league."
There are some players who are sleeping through half the regular season like Brady so whatever happen don`t necessary reflects playoffs so I agree with @Machinehead
I think it's more on Tampa than the league, although maybe I'm being a tad naive. It seems like Cooper/Tampa underestimated CBus. They won 62 games and probably thought they'd coast to the final and got jumped by a far hungrier team that barely scraped in. Tampa's big guys played like hot garbage, their secondary scoring was garbage and their "elite" goalie was worse than garbage.
They saw 62 in the win column and thought the cup was theirs.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
I don't think it was just the case in their matchup with the Jackets though.
It was pretty apparent all year. I saw them play against the Rangers right after the deadline and I knew they were doomed. I kept thinking "man, this team couldn't f***ing wait to get off the ice." And they won that game!
What's been said about Tampa a lot this week is that they "shot their load" in the regular season and coasted against Columbus, but to me, I saw that team coasting all year.
They always had that "we don't wanna work" attitude which is why I wasn't particularly shocked they lost (I was shocked it was a sweep).
And they rode that piss poor attitude to 62 wins. That tells me that you give one a team a small salary cap advantage, and they can just steamroll the league. That's how homogeneous the talent is in the NHL. A team with a slight advantage coasts to 62 wins.
Ok, so now it's the playoffs. Being that it was the playoffs, Columbus kicked it up a notch. And that one notch was enough to make the mediocre team dominant and the dominant team garbage. We're not talking about the hungrier team closing the gap. We're talking about the hungrier team flipping the standings completely upside down and then some!
The only conclusion that makes sense is that in terms of talent disparity, the difference between 62 wins and 47 wins (and 50 and 38) isn't that much. Outworking the opposition can now close a 15-win gap. But like I said, they flipped, so really, outworking your opponent can now cause a 30-win swing.
To me, that's scary. Teams that are hungry and work hard are great, but that's scary. It shows me that there's almost no relevant talent disparity in the NHL. That's not a competitive, healthy league.
Tampa's cap advantage is small. Columbus's extra fight, though admirable, is a pretty small advantage. You can see the massive differences small advantages are making. To me, that's a league where everyone is a little too close.
I don't think the NHL should become the NBA, but we need a little bit less parity.
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