I thought it was comparable to calling the whole GTA, metro Toronto, but ok. Still, given Oktoberfest alone, pretty sure every male human on earth would rather live in Munich than Buffalo, lolGermany's "metro" areas are organized differently. They are combinations of totally independent cities. Germany contains 11 metropolitan regions, that are all relatively large geographically and encompass multiple independent cities. The Munich Metro Region is 27,700/km2, somewhere between South Carolina and West Virginia in size.
Stating that the Munich Metro Region is one city would be like stating Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Columbus are all one city. The actual Munich metro area has about 3 million inhabitants:
The metropolitan area has around 3 million inhabitants, and the broader Munich Metropolitan Region is home to about 6.2 million people.
Munich - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I've never spent significant time in either city, or spoken to JJ Peterka.
I think its silly when people talk about "desirable" cities when I know personally I would hate living in places like Dallas and New York. These types of preferences are entirely personal.
I was just floating out the possibility that player and the community may not be a match.
Not saying you're wrong, but I also think sometimes what might look dysfunctional from the outside might feel totally different to the people in the building. Not that anyone is happy about losing, but I also doubt everyone walks around all day with frowns on their face and all the players hate everyone in the front office and blames them for their lack of success. Like anything, there are likely a mix of personalities and viewpoints and probably lots of love and happiness along with the disappointment and frustration.
Buffalo and Western NY are wonderful places to live and have way more than chicken wings. The jerks constantly taking shots from the outside contributes to an incredible "we're in this together" community vibe that most other places can't touch. You can go anywhere in the world, including Munich, and hear "Go Bills" or "Go Sabres" from a stranger as you're walking down the street, because we're everywhere and we all love where we come from.
I never said they're not nice places to live. I think they are. You can also go anywhere in the world and hear "Go Bayern Munich" lol. Munich is a massive city with a ton to do...it has more to do than almost all cities in North America apart from NY/LA/Chicago and the like. That's all my point was.
You're right. We've taken a lot of L's recently when not playing the Lightning. They can't all be that easy.
Honestly, I don't see a huge glaring issue in the TB roster construction not named Emil Lilleberg. I think it really is just a mindset problem, and they just haven't found that big goal when they've needed it against Florida the last two years. This series was within reach every game after game 1. I think that game 4 loss just stunned them. Otherwise they were right there every game with a lot of guys playing hurt. I do tend to agree about Cirelli, though. He is a very strong regular season 2C but just doesn't play the same way in May. He did have a separated shoulder or something like that, so it's tough for me to really hold this year against him, but he just hasn't looked dominant one way or the other in the playoffs.
To be honest with you, I don't think another coach comes in and takes us past Florida with the same beat down roster we had this season. I do think it is on the players to play more physical and take more shots and set more screens. I'd love to know what TB's record was in games where they had guys netfront taking away the goalie's vision and putting up 30+ shots on net, because I think they really might've won all of them. Unfortunately, they reverted to the 2019 "stay on the perimeter all game" strategy. There were sooo many juicy rebounds in that Florida series this year with nobody out front to clean them up. Really frustrating. I think the team isn't all that far off, but they need to embrace that playoff style like Florida has.
I think if the trade does go down, it might be something like Peterka + some defenseman (Samuelsson, maybe?) for Cirelli + rights to Howard + Raddysh + Sheary + 2nd or something along those lines. I think it depends on the extent to which TB management is comfortable with running center depth of Point-Paul-Gourde-Geekie/Finley or moving Guentzel to 2C with Peterka and Goncalves or Bjorkstrand and bumping Hagel to LW1. I think that honestly might be beneficial for TB in the long run, but we will see
I just did and was SHOCKED to find out that Tampa is a better team. Holy s***. Thank you so much for opening my eyes, kind stranger.
Aside from a game here or there, Tuch hasn’t really played center in Buffalo. Strictly RW. I wouldn’t anticipate him changing to full-time C at this point in his career
Same but I figured I'd go to the source instead of speculate. I can't remember him at center except very rarely and I didn't know if its because he is that much better at wing or not a center
I think the Lightning NEEDING a center narrative is kind of overplayed. I think Nick Paul is every bit as productive in the playoffs as Cirelli, if not more. The question is, can he do it against 2nd lines rather than third lines? I think JJ Peterka is enough of a sweetener to find out. Not to mention, Guentzel can play center pretty solidly if needed, and there is already Gourde and Geekie in the bottom 6, plus Jack Finley who could play some pretty physical fourth line minutes. I think adding Peterka (even if it means subtracting Cirelli) makes the Bolts harder to beat for a longer span of time. Is the Hagel-Cirelli bromance a great story and a wonderful 1-2 punch from October to April? Absolutely. Have I seen it in the playoffs yet? Nope.
