Did Carey Price live up to his 8 year, $84M contract?

Lafleurs Guy

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The Avalanche were heavy underdogs going into that series - see my post above:

You may have missed my response the first time - that's fine.
I did miss it. Thanks.

And I acknowledge that the difference in the standings was large enough that people can argue it that way - but none of us who were watching that series considered it anything but an even match. Colorado had Sakic and Forsberg. Those two clubs went at it for years.
You can reminisce about how great a series it was retrospectively (because it was a great series). That doesn't mean that the Avalanche weren't significant underdogs at the time.

If you judge whether or not Patrick Roy had any upset series wins by how his team did in the series, then of course you won't credit him for any upset series wins.
I don’t see it as an upset but if you want to argue that it is, okay. Pro-line and the standings is fair enough.

He still had multi- HOF players on that club. It was still in its way to becoming a powerhouse. And it would still be the only series that he’d have.

Price beat far better teams, with lesser teammates (usually with no HOfers to help) multiple times.
 
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Bear of Bad News

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And I acknowledge that the difference in the standings was large enough that people can argue it that way - but none of us who were watching that series considered it anything but an even match. Colorado had Sakic and Forsberg. Those two clubs went at it for years.

If you'd legitimately felt that way at the time, you could have made a lot of money. A lot of money. You could have put down $100 and come home with $350. That's exceptionally high for any Stanley Cup playoff series.

Don't give me "none of us who were watching that series considered it anything but an even match" - this is revisionism almost 30 years later. The Avalanche were heavy underdogs.

The series was great. It wasn't supposed to be.
 
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Lafleurs Guy

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If you'd legitimately felt that way at the time, you could have made a lot of money. A lot of money. You could have put down $100 and come home with $350. That's exceptionally high for any Stanley Cup playoff series.

Don't give me "none of us who were watching that series considered it anything but an even match" - this is revisionism almost 30 years later. The Avalanche were heavy underdogs.

The series was great. It wasn't supposed to be.
I was in university at the time. All of us considered it to be a pretty even series when we watched it together. None of us considered the Avalanche a huge underdog. Sakic, Forsberg, Claude Lemieux… great club. We all figured the winner of that series would win the cup and that’s what happened.

If I’d have known the odds were crazy, I’d have bet heavy on Colorado. :laugh:
 

Bear of Bad News

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I was in university at the time. All of us considered it to be a pretty even series. Sakic, Forsberg, Claude Lemieux…

If I’d have known the odds were crazy, I’d have bet heavy on Colorado. :laugh:

You can tell me what you recall that you believed over 28 years. Hell, I can tell you what I recall that I believed 28 years ago. I was a first-year grad student living in Boulder, Colorado, and rooting heavily for the Avalanche. We had hope but the Wings were record-setting.

No offense, but I don't really give a hoot what some college kids thought about the series (whether or not you accurately recall what you thought at the time). Gambling odds are considered a fair representation of what the informed public felt at the time. And gambling odds show that the series was considered to be heavily in the Wings' favor.

If we're relying on what I recall me and my buddies thinking almost three decades ago, then Kirk McLean's a damn hall of famer.

Your memory isn't what you think it is. Neither is mine. That's why we can actually go back and look. The series wasn't expected to be close.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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You can tell me what you recall that you believed over 28 years. Hell, I can tell you what I recall that I believed 28 years ago. I was a first-year grad student living in Boulder, Colorado, and rooting heavily for the Avalanche. We had hope but the Wings were record-setting.

No offense, but I don't really give a hoot what some college kids thought about the series (whether or not you accurately recall what you thought at the time). Gambling odds are considered a fair representation of what the informed public felt at the time. And gambling odds show that the series was considered to be heavily in the Wings' favor.

If we're relying on what I recall me and my buddies thinking almost three decades ago, then Kirk McLean's a damn hall of famer.

Your memory isn't what you think it is. Neither is mine. That's why we can actually go back and look. The series wasn't expected to be close.
As I said, I don’t see at is an upset. I can see why others would. So by all means count it.

That gives Roy one upset over his career.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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I'm sorry, I just can't get over this one. I've given you concrete data. You've given me what you think you remember 28 years ago.
Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg were the two top scorers in the league apart from Lemieux’s Pens. The Wings had underperformed in the playoffs for years

I don’t get why you’d think it was crazy to think Colorado could win the series. I saw it as even money.

There was a big difference in the standings. That’s probably why Pro-line had it as they did. But if you looked at those clubs, you could see that this wasn’t going to be any kind of blowout. Sakic was incredible that year and they’d added Claude Lemieux who was Mr Clutch.

Sidenote: you are correct in faded memories- all of us saw the Pens as the eventual cup winners. I completely forgot that. They wound up losing to Florida.
 

Bear of Bad News

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Red Wings were favored against Colorado in 2000 as well:

1734992642682.png
 

Bear of Bad News

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I don’t get why you’d think it was crazy to think Colorado could win the series. I saw it as even money.

The beauty of this is that you can claim whatever you want and I can't tell you otherwise.

Which is why we can actually go back and look and see what educated hockey fans actually believed at the time the series began.

The Avalanche were heavy underdogs at the start of the series. Patrick Roy doesn't lose credit for an upset series victory because "you saw it as even money" as you remember it 28 years later.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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The beauty of this is that you can claim whatever you want and I can't tell you otherwise.

Which is why we can actually go back and look and see what educated hockey fans actually believed at the time the series began.

The Avalanche were heavy underdogs at the start of the series. Patrick Roy doesn't lose credit for an upset series victory because "you saw it as even money" as you remember it 28 years later.
Right.

Which is why I conceded that you can consider it an upset even if I didn’t. The standings and the Pro-Line are good examples.
 

Bear of Bad News

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Which is why I conceded that you can consider it an upset even if I didn’t. The standings and the Pro-Line are good examples.

I'm not going along with "agree to disagree" here. Anyone who doesn't count that series as an upset win for the Avalanche is wrong.
 

Bear of Bad News

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I don’t agree. The two top scorers in the league apart from Pittsburgh and Claude Lemieux. It was not a suprise at all. Not for me anyways.

Although I'm exceptionally impressed at the lengths you'll go to in order to discredit Patrick Roy, the fact that you weren't accurately paying attention 28 years ago (or don't remember now) isn't relevant.
 

MacMacandBarbie

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The beauty of this is that you can claim whatever you want and I can't tell you otherwise.

Which is why we can actually go back and look and see what educated hockey fans actually believed at the time the series began.

The Avalanche were heavy underdogs at the start of the series. Patrick Roy doesn't lose credit for an upset series victory because "you saw it as even money" as you remember it 28 years later.
They were picked by pundits to lose before the series started, but once the avalanche won the first game and we saw how they matched up, the script flipped pretty heavily. Hockey is all about matchups, and people essentially just guess based on records until they see the teams matchup. Tampa was heavy favorites against the blue jackets in 2019, but once we saw the product hit the ice the narratives changed pretty quickly. Nobody looks back on that series and thinks that BOB stole that one from Tampa, we just realized that Tampa was overrated and not battle tested.
 

Bear of Bad News

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They were picked by pundits to lose before the series started, but once the avalanche won the first game and we saw how they matched up, the script flipped pretty heavily. Hockey is all about matchups, and people essentially just guess based on records until they see the teams matchup. Tampa was heavy favorites against the blue jackets in 2019, but once we saw the product hit the ice the narratives changed pretty quickly. Nobody looks back on that series and thinks that BOB stole that one from Tampa, we just realized that Tampa was overrated and not battle tested.

I can assure you that professional gamblers are not "essentially just guessing".
 

Lafleurs Guy

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Although I'm exceptionally impressed at the lengths you'll go to in order to discredit Patrick Roy,
Roy’s great. But he was inconsistent and played his entire career on great clubs. I don’t get how people just write off a guy like Ken Dryden because of his teams when those guys get compared. And when we look at Price’s teams they were pitiful comparatively speaking.

Roy seems to get credit for having played on poor teams and winning cups when the reality is that those Montreal clubs didn’t have any upset wins at all.

The guy was a great goalie. And when you put a great goalie in great teams you’re going to win multiple cups. And that’s what he did. But there isn’t a player alive who has led a bad team to a cup yet. Hasek came close… but even he couldn’t do it.
the fact that you weren't accurately paying attention 28 years ago (or don't remember now) isn't relevant.
I don’t get why people would be surprised when they won. Sakic put up ten points in that series. Was that really surprising? He was the best player in the league not named Mario Lemieux.
 

MacMacandBarbie

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Bear of Bad News

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The best sports gamblers in the world hover just a hair above 50%, usually around 54%. Winning Percentage of Professional Sports Bettors

Don't be intellectually dishonest because you are entrenched in your opinion. Your schooling doesn't impress me if you can't apply it in the real world.
The 1996 Avalanche were heavy underdogs against the Red Wings. If Detroit’s goalies were as flexible as your logic, they’d have won in four.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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The 1996 Avalanche were heavy underdogs against the Red Wings. If Detroit’s goalies were as flexible as your logic, they’d have won in four.
Okay.

But they didn’t win. Colorado did. And Joe Sakic led the way with ten points. He was the 2nd best player in the league that year so why is it surprising he’d dominate here again?

I’m not familiar with the gambling side of things and I don’t know what their rationale was there. You have a doctorate in probabilities - okay cool (sincerely) - but I don’t know how they could look at that series going in with BOTH Forsberg and Sakic being the two highest scorers in the league not on Pittsburgh and see this as lopsided. Seriously, what the f*** were they thinking? My guess is they put way too much stock in the standings and not enough on individual players.
 

Bear of Bad News

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Okay.

But they didn’t win. Colorado did. And Joe Sakic led the way with ten points. He was the 2nd best player in the league that year so why is it surprising he’d dominate here again?

I’m not familiar with the gambling side of things and I don’t know what their rationale was there. You have a doctorate in probabilities - okay cool (sincerely) - but I don’t know how they could look at that series going in with BOTH Forsberg and Sakic being the two highest scorers in the league not on Pittsburgh and see this as lopsided. Seriously, what the f*** were they thinking? My guess is they put way too much stock in the standings and not enough on individual players.

If the standard for "was the series an upset?" whether or not the team won, then there are no upsets.

You can't go back and gerrymander results to say "well the prognosticators got it wrong for these obvious reasons that I surely would have caught" because that's behavioral economics 101. Confirmation bias, specifically.
 

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